Nine Words to Change a Life

All the boy wanted was a simple life. But no, the old man had to tell him those nine words, nine simple words that would cause a ripple effect of positives and negatives, good and evil, light and dark, a ripple effect to the point where his renowned moral compass was lying to itself to create this ambiguity so that, undoubtedly, it could save him, the innocent bystander of his own precarious actions, the ignorant fool who fantasized himself as a xerophyte but for knowledge, the impotent boy whose quest to become a hero would only be ephemeral if he never learned that not everyone could be saved; yet he yearned to do what was right and he yearned to be the protector the people needed and he yearned to be the man his father ever so desperately wanted him to be, but he couldn’t—that boy was lost forever in the labyrinth of his mind, for he, the spitting image of hope, fists clenched with intense strife, rose to his feet and stared the devil in the eyes, and at that moment he knew what he had to do, because he remembered only those nine words, those nine damned words that would forever tantalize him: “With great power there must also come—great responsibility.”