Something stinks.
This is the first thought that comes to me as I wake up, lying in the dark, cold and wet, not quite sure of where I am; something stinks, and it stinks bad. The odor is overwhelming, a mix of stale blood, burned motor oil and what, judging as I take in my surroundings, would be human tears. I can see nothing but dumpsters and trash cans in front of me, a fire burning in the can farthest away from me. I say a silent prayer of rescue to anything that can hear me as I push myself up, sliding through the puddle I woke up in to press my back tight against the wall behind me.
Delta Delta Phi Rule of Survival number 12: When waking up in an alley, don’t leave your back exposed.
I never would’ve thought I’d need those rules after I left Raleigh, but here we are.
Where we are is an entirely different situation. From my surroundings, I would peg this lovely alley as something from SouthSide Metropolis. Deep SouthSide Metropolis. The smell slowly overwhelming my senses, though, doesn’t match. There’s also that nagging feeling in the back of my head that something is very, very wrong here. Chock that up to my journalistic intuition.
Or, to the fact that I woke up in a fucking puddle, in an alley I’d swear was decomposing around me.
I’m a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, I’m supposed to always have the answers. “Lois Lane gets the answers”; it’s the fucking banner on the Planet’s website. I should be able to assess this situation and know the who, what, when, where, why and how the fuck faster than it takes Clark to get me eggrolls from China. This time, though, the only thing I knew for sure is the who, and that’s me.
Me, Lois Lane.
Me, Lois Joanne Lane, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the Daily Planet.
Me, Lois Joanne Lane, Magna Cum Laude graduate of Raleigh College, and Delta Delta Phi president for three full terms.
Me, Lois Joanne Lane, scared shitless and alone, soaking wet in an alley in God knows where.
So the who is well established, good. The other four questions? A mystery not even a coked out bender could explain. I definitely haven’t needed that excuse since I left Raleigh, so we can cross that off the list of explanations immediately. Delta Delta Phi Rule of Survival number 4: When you’re on show, say no to the blow. Lois Lane is always on show. That’s why she wouldn’t know a good time if it kicked her in the clam.
She’s great at knowing a bad time, though, and this was the Stevie Awards. At least then I had free Cristal and a Vera Wang dress, this time I had puddle water and...Dear God. A mud covered Valentino. You, Lois Joanne Lane, need to get your shit together and stop being such a bitch , because this was completely unacceptable.
I stood up and rubbed my hands over my arms, pushing off caked on mud and gravel. In the reflection of that fucking puddle I finally caught a glimpse of myself, and my internal scream would’ve been angry enough to wake Darkseid. Covered in mud in my favorite Valentino, make-up smeared down both cheeks, hair looking freshly wind tunneled; I looked like a reject from a Mariah Carey drag show. This was beyond unacceptable, and someone would pay for this if it was the last thing I ever did.
Pay.
I scanned my surroundings in my sudden epiphany, squinting in the darkness for a glimmer of hope to get me out of this Excedrin Headache Number Fuck You Lois I woke up in. I held my breath as I looked, exhaling victoriously when I saw the metal clasp of my purse glint in the shadows; the shadows of that fucking puddle . I made a mental note to myself as I bent down to pick my purse out of the dirty water to find out exactly where I was at this moment. I would come back and set that puddle on fire, right after I made whoever put me here pay, and pay dearly.
Hurriedly, I opened my purse and dug inside, saying another silent prayer to any and all deities that I would find my fruit logoed lifeline inside. Instead, going with the apparent theme of the day, I found nothing but my driver’s license.
Lois Joanne Lane
12005 Park Avenue 12th Floor #9
Metropolis.
The who is well established. Just fucking great . The other four questions continued to nag worse than my mother on an average Sunday. Why aren’t you married, Lois? This type of thing doesn’t happen to married women. Thanks for that oh-so-helpful newsflash, Inner Monologue Mom. For the first time in my life, I wished I was living that baby death sentence, sipping a skinny hazelnut macchiato with Muffy and Buffy on the Real Housewives of Metropolis. At least those bitches were dry right now ( probably in every fucking way, unless their pool boys were around.) This day was an empty purse, heavy flow short of the worst day of my life, and I’ve spent entire days with Kathy Griffin. Fucking Anderson Cooper, I still owe him for that. Add one more to the list with that fucking puddle, and the reason behind it.
To do any of that, I first had to get myself out of this alley and find help (and a box of matches). My silent prayers had already failed me multiple times today, but I was nothing if not in-a-bind devout. I prayed over and over as I walked shakily toward the alley’s threshold for one thing: Please let Clark be standing at the end of this alley, doused in Acqua Di Gio strong enough to cover up the smell of these decaying surroundings, ready to whisk me home to a shower, a bottle of riesling, and the paradise that was his body.
Of course things can’t be that easy.
No, instead of that one measly prayer being answered, I was shown with incontrovertible fact that In-A-Bind-God isn’t real; all I saw at the entrance of the alley was a burning can of garbage, and a half-destroyed Skyrise that showed me how fucked I really was.
PALMER TECHNOLOGIES
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we're not in Smallville anymore.”