African-American Superhumans

There is a certain rhythm in life. Everyone and everything has their place in the grand scheme of things. My place simply happens to be on top. Always. That's just the way of things. My name is Stephen Crawford. A six-foot-four, lean and wiry, brown-skinned and gray-eyed, thirty-something Black man living in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. That's what I look like to the mundane folk of the world. By day, I am a lawyer. An Assistant District Attorney working for the Suffolk County Prosecutor's Office. Lately, I've been feeling really bored. The boredom of my days causes me to kick things up a notch at night. And I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing. When you're what I am, discretion is a must.

I am a Howler. That's what my kind call ourselves. Howlers are an ancient race that's existed long before humans came along. We look exactly like ordinary people. We're every race you can think of. Black. White. Asian. Latin. Eurasian. Middle-Eastern. There aren't that many of us. Worldwide, maybe fifteen million or so. We're small in number compared to humans but we're very long-lived. It's not uncommon for some of us to live for thousands of years. We're much stronger or faster than ordinary people are. Not crazily so, but noticeably so. While not indestructible, we are exceptionally hard to kill due to our ability to regenerate. We can sense the presence of our own kind across reasonable distances. It's a psychic-genetic bond. No Howler can ever mistake a human being for one of his or her own kind. We come from every walk of life. And we all follow one rule. No human can ever know about us. Secrecy for life. That's what it means to be a Howler.

While we Howlers look like human beings, we are a completely different and much older species. We could no more interbreed with modern humans than they could interbreed with monkeys. We are to modern humans what they are to chimpanzees. The greatest scientists, military men, philosophers, artists and architects in human history weren't human beings. They were Howlers. As were the greatest thinkers. Human beings are nothing more than dumb brutes who've learned a few tricks and picked up a few grooming habits over the course of millennia. Limited in lifespan, intellect and ability, they're quite a pitiful bunch. One of us invented the wheel. We built the Egyptian and Mayan pyramids. We also built the magnificent structures of Stonehenge. We were living on all continents and traveling between them at a time when humans still had trouble believing that the Earth was round. The sheer amount of things we've done for humanity is mind-boggling. You people are beasts, nothing more.

I work in an Office full of talking apes, oops, I meant humans! Watching them interact with one another is truly fascinating to me. Seriously. Male and female, Black and White, straight and gay. Humans are all strange. Take my co-worker James Roddy for example. He's a tall, red-haired Irish-American immigrant who joined the District Attorney's Office right after graduating from my alma mater, Suffolk University Law School. He's a closeted gay with a major crush on me. I think he's got a thing for Black men. I'm almost completely indifferent. Though I'm what you consider to be bisexual, I don't find human beings of either sex to be sexually attractive. Whether I'm romancing a man or a woman, they have to be a fellow Howler. Humans are nasty. Especially lusty humans like Roddy. Still, the lengths to which he goes to pretend to be straight makes the whole thing completely amusing. He even shows up at Office functions with his best friend Debra, a plump and big-bottomed blonde woman who delights in playing the part of his girlfriend. In part because she's in love with him. She knows he's gay but desperately hopes he'll make an exception for her. The poor woman.

There's another human being at the Office whom I find quite interesting. Meredith Brown. A tall, beautiful young Black woman with the kind of looks a supermodel would envy. She's a Harvard Law School graduate who's recently joined the Prosecutor's Office. The gal is ruthless and has ambition to spare. We're the only Black people working for the Prosecutor's Office and she sees me as her most dangerous competition. Like a lot of today's Black women, she doesn't like seeing an educated, successful Black man. She prefers hustlers and thugs. In fact, Lonnie, one of the men she dates is on parole right now. He's a fine-looking Black man with muscles on his muscles. Works as a carpenter at his uncle's place of business. A Prosecutor dating a supposedly reformed criminal. Talk about the wolves mingling with the sheep.

The other day, I was discussing this strangest habit of the humans with a fellow Howler. His name is Patterson Dwight. A tall, good-looking, forty-something Caucasian male with green eyes and dark brown hair. I've known Patterson for many years. He's an executive for Dale's Wharf, a rich shipping magnate in Boston's South End. We met at Suffolk University a long time ago. In fact, I hooked up with his best friend and former roommate Lawrence Guillermo, a tall and muscular, Black-haired and bronze-skinned Latino student I met during my last year of law school. Lawrence and I had a lot of fun together. Male bisexuality is not frowned upon among Howlers the way it seems to be among humans. All Howlers, male and female, are expected to marry and produce offspring. Having sexual encounters with people of the same sex, or both sexes, is considered okay. We're a pretty liberal bunch. Patterson is a nice man. I was present at his marriage to my cousin Wilma Crawford, a tall and beautiful but exceptionally ruthless and quite vindictive Black businesswoman originally from Atlanta, Georgia. In fact, I'm the one who introduced them. I'm the godfather of their sons Jeremiah and Henry.

Patterson works among the humans, much as I am forced to do. In this Recession, many men and women are losing their once-secure jobs ( and quite often their homes )and the humans are more paranoid and foolish than usual. He pities them. I do not. And quite often I am forced to remind him of what human beings do to those who try to help them. Jesus Christ, the one so many humans worship as the Son of their God Yahweh was actually a Howler. A member of the genetically enhanced superhuman race that secretly rules the world.

What Jesus Christ did was unprecedented. He went around revealing himself as more than human, and helped these miserable wretches. He was more than a mere superhuman. You see, he was an anomaly among us. All Howlers have the ability to rapidly regenerate. Unless we get burned to ash, we can always bring ourselves back to life because our cells regenerate themselves. A Howler will live even if you cut his or her head off. They'll simply grow another head. It will take them a long time, and it will be painful, but eventually they will come back to life.

Jesus Christ was a Howler who mutated genetically. He was as far beyond ordinary Howlers as we are beyond ordinary human beings. He could do things ordinary supermen and superwomen could only dream of. He could heal not only himself but others as well. With a simple touch. This fantastic ability eventually helped him become a legend. He thought the humans could become more than what they are. He felt they had potential genetically. He felt they would eventually evolve into something better than what they are and become our true equals. I never met the man but I respectfully disagree. Human beings are talking animals, nothing more. They're the purest evil that I've ever seen. Their whole world is built on treachery and deceit.

A human male who says hello to a human female at work can find himself wrongfully accused of harassment. A human female strolling down the street at night can find herself under attack by male and female members of her own species. Human males and human females are constantly battling each other in their endless games of power on the streets, at work, and at home. In the courtroom and the bedroom, battle lines are drawn. It's male against female, poor against rich, Black against White, straight against gay. Some Howlers think human beings will eventually overcome their differences and become a noble species. I don't think so. I know them for what they are. Monsters. And I'll be the end of them.

Jesus Christ, the genetically mutated Howler who took it upon himself to redeem humanity was betrayed and destroyed by the very men and women he came to save. While most of the other Howlers of the day didn't care for his views on humanity, they cared for him for the same reason I care for all of my Howler brothers and sisters. We're the same kind. Given a choice between a human and a Howler, I will pick the worst and most despicable of Howlers because he or she will still be better ( at the core) than the best of human beings.

Sometimes, I wonder how come human beings have advanced as much as they have. I suppose they got as far as they did because we permitted it. While my ancestors were roaming the globe, building civilization, the humans were little more than savage beasts. They roamed the wilderness, killing animals with their crude weapons and delighting in their newfound discovery of her fire. We had citadels and fortresses, had discovered mining and metallurgy at a time when humans still worshiped the sun. Genetically speaking, human beings are quite limited.

Other primates genetic structure shows greater promise. In a few million years, chimpanzees and gorillas might evolve into something formidable. They would have if human beings hadn't supplanted their more evolved ancestors and replaced them as the dominant species on the planet Earth, hundreds of thousands of years ago. Another ape-like race was a powerful contender for dominion of the world. And this ape-like race wasn't anything like Homo Sapiens, Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis or the Neanderthal Man. It was something else entirely. My species remember this promising breed which the humans wiped out. We can never permit them to do the same to us.

Humans are barbaric and savage. I tell myself that every single day. I leave the Office after a long day, and stroll through the streets of Boston. Just a tall, good-looking Black man in a twelve-hundred-dollar Perris Ellis business suit. I can't tell you how many times I've been mistaken for a professional athlete or a male model. I don't take it as a compliment. I am first and foremost an intellectual. I wish people would get that about me. But I try not to expect too much from people. After all, they're only human. And they will never be more than what they are.

Lately, there have been changes in the Howler world. We're not a democracy like many humans think the ideal government should be. Nor are we a monarchy. Rather, we're a system of Councils and Synods. Every Council is made up of the ruling bodies of a Pride, which is what we call Howlers who are biologically and philosophically related to each other. The Council is representative of the entire Pride. A Pride can be made up of thousands of members. And all Prides and their Councils answer to the Synod. There are three hundred Synods worldwide, and thousands of Prides. The Prides send their Councils as special representatives to the Synods. Such is our way.

My mother, Elisabeth Crawford was once a member of the Supreme Assembly, the ruling body of the Howler People. The Howler people respect her and my father, United States Army Colonel Lucas Crawford. He's currently in Afghanistan. He's a Hero among both humans and Howlers. The Howlers called my mother the Holy Matriarch and for five hundred years, she was the uncontested leader of our entire species. She retired from the political game now and spends her days tending to her garden and looking after her animals on a vast ranch in Texas. It's a dream come true for her. I seek to gain the power my mother so happily let go of. The Supreme Assembly tells the Synods what to do. Their power is nearly unlimited. To become a member of the Supreme Assembly, one must be a person of great intelligence, accomplishment and wisdom. I wish to join the Assembly someday. You see, I have views which make me an outcast among my people. I want Howlers to openly rule the world. And I know that humanity outnumbers us. Five million genetically enhanced supermen and superwomen cannot rule a wild, rebellious and paranoid population of eight billion human beings. We're more than a little outnumbered. If there were an interspecies war, we might lose. That's only if we found conventional warfare, in my honest opinion.

Walking up Beacon Hill, I step into one of the few upscale restaurants in the area. The owner, Gil Brown, is a stocky Black man in his late sixties. He's one of a few human beings I can actually stand. I've known him for years and years. When I attended Suffolk University Law School, I used to dine at Gil's Pub with my buddies. Years and years later, I still come here. Gil smiles when I come in, and shows me to my usual table. It's reserved for me. I come in, and sit down. I sip on a cup of Merlot while browsing through the menu offered to me by a tall, red-haired young woman. While browsing, my senses start to tingle and I look up. Someone comes in, and they're not human.