Ghost of a Hero

My Plumber's Crack

I woke up in my room; Red Chrysan didn't show up again. Now I was here, in an office, with a man who could tell me everything. 

"I know everything." The figure stated, body concealed by the giant leather chair.

I sat on a beanbag, facing the desk. The figure tapped his fingers together rhythmically, staring out the window.

"You know everything, huh?" I snorted. "Tell me about Red Chrysan, the town hero." I grinned at the figure, taking this opportunity to put his knowledge to the test.

He didn't bother turning to his computer, sitting open on the desk. Instead, he pulled the information from his head and memories.

"His legacy as a hero is passed down from generation to generation. Over the 32 years that Red Chrysan has been our hero, the boy in the suit has only been a hero for about four-ish years." The figure abruptly and dramatically swiveled around in the chair. His hands were clasped together and his eyebrows raised at me.

"You don't know everything. You could have gotten that from a fan's theories blog." I snorted, thinking of the millions of blogs on Red Chrysan. "Hell, you could've even gotten that from Wikipedia."

The chair continued to swivel, far past the point where it should have stopped. 

"I know everything. I just proved that I do." Cooper's chair refused to stop, the force of his spin rotating him in a full circle. "Shit, I can't stop this thing!" Cooper completed three full rotations in the spinning chair, flailing madly in an attempt to stop.

Unfortunately, he stopped facing away from me.

As we all know from our childhood spiny chair days, butt scooching doesn't work when trying to turn a chair.

"Squeak," he scooched a little bit.

"Squeakkkkk," He was barely an inch closer to facing me.

"Squeaaaaaaaakkkkkkkkkk."  He was back to where he started, having wholly undone his little bit of movement.

"How the fuck do they do this in the movies?" He growled to himself, getting out of the chair and pushing it until it faced me. He fell into it with a huff and groan, pouting when he was comfortable again.

I raised my eyebrows, lounging on the beanbag in luxury. "So, if you know everything, how come you didn't know how to stop that thing?"

Cooper groaned. "I knew how to stop it. It was funnier if I didn't, though. Ask something else."

I pondered the question. The one person I knew the least about was Red Chrysan. I needed to gather info on him and test Cooper's trivia skills. "Why is our superhero named Red Chrysan?"

Cooper pondered the question for a moment. He reached over and dramatically closed his laptop, grinning. "A highly personal superhero question. Few know the answer. He was named after a flower- a Red Chrysanthemum. It symbolized hope, love, and a bunch of other crap."

I placed my chin in my hand to think, sitting up. "Um... Another question..." I paused, thinking, a wicked grin coming to my face. "What's black, white, and red all over?"

"It's a newspaper!" Cooper launched out of his chair, the back hitting the wall and spinning uncontrollably.

"WRONG!" I exclaimed, leaping to my feet too. "It's a sunburnt zebra!"

Cooper laughed and shook his head. "Zebras can't get sunburnt, stupid!"

"I meant, um, it's a penguin in a blender!" I put my arms in front of me, playfully balled into fists.