The Fastest Man Alive: "Every Force Evolves a Form "
Flash #7 - July, Year One	by Bill Kte'pi

Wally, Wally, Wally.

You have never asked the right questions. Barry was a police scientist; he should have taught you better. But perhaps he merely passed along the fault; perhaps in youth you sensed the grey-shadowed corners where his keen mind would not look, and ignored them out of respect.

You have focused on who. On why. On how. On when. On what.

You have forgotten "where."

Linda is a journalist. How many times did you see her frantically editing copy, making sure the lead included the five W's and the H? Who, what, when, where, why, and how. You have a cousin in real estate. You know the maxim.

Location, location, location.

Bruce has Gotham, a city which never seems to see noon, a city painted in dusks and dawns and dims, a city of rooftops and back alleys. A cavern from which to hang suspended, upside down, arms folded in repose, eyes on the gutters with his feet to the stars.

Clark came from the stars, to the very center of America, and from there to its most shining city. He lives in primary colors: red, yellow, and blue; red, white, and blue. He is in America (a nation of adopted and emancipated immigrants) without being entirely OF America, just as the Christ was in the mortal world without being truly OF it.

Diana lives in legends and will never belong anywhere else.

Karen is from not only another where but another when, and you know this when you feel her hair against your skin, and her skin against your hands. There is an other-when to it, an undersea coolness, an alien salt in her taste.

Arthur is constantly at odds, torn between the world where he can be king and the world which needs him as knight.

The League dwells above the Earth in an attempt at objectivity.

And then there's you, Wally.

Keystone City. Central City. The once and again Twin Cities, one of them forgotten in time, frozen in space. You have been elsewhere but you always return. Barry was here, too. Jay was here.

And why?

Was it not coincidence enough that two men would be predisposed towards the right genes to allow for nearly identical development of power when exposed to nearly identical catalysts? There is no genetic relationship between you and Barry; the fact that you became relatives through law is MORE unlikely, not less. You have seen the Flash Legacy of the next thousand years. You have seen Bart. You know the power travels along bloodlines.

So where do you fit in?

And why is it the Allen Legacy which travels down the ages? What becomes of the Wests, Wally? Where do they go?

Do you know what coincidence means? There are two meanings:

1) the state of occupying the same position in space.
2) a sequence of events which, although occurring randomly, gives the appearance of planned endeavor.

The second meaning also applies to synchronicity, which etymologically emphasizes time over space, simultaneity over sequence.

How much of a coincidence is it that three men, within decades of each other in time and miles of each other in space, develop congruent powers? Are there enough speedsters in the world that three is as inconsequential a number as it would be if these men sold shoes, or married women named "Rebecca," or were Cubs fans?

Carl Sagan's equation for the determination of the number of extraterrestrial intelligences in the universe depended entirely on figures whose values were unknown: the likelihood of a system supporting life, the likelihood of a life-compatible system actually developing it, the likelihood of life developing intelligence. Depending on the values you use, the Sagan proposition supports equally the arguments for and against extraterrestrial life.

What are the values which belong in this equation, Wally? Are you x or y? Are you coincidence or inevitable?

Speed is a measure of motion.

Speed is defined as distance (a finite amount of space) divided by time.

Space and time, Wally. Where and when. These are your axes. These are your powers. This is your world.

Why are you immune to relativistic effects, Wally? At the speeds you travel, your age should be all out of skew with the world.

DO you age? Has your travel across the axis of time been affected as much by that lightning bolt as your travel across the axis of space?

Can you control it the same way? Can you run across your history and become 87, or 13 again, or run in place and remain 30 forever?

What are you, Wally? Coincidence or design?

Before the Christ, there was the Baptist. Before the Baptist, there were the Prophets.

Is it important to ask "why you"? Is there a meaningful answer to "why here"? Have you ever considered these questions without selfish regard? You may have shuddered under the yoke of the hero, you may have marveled at the improbability of your powers, but did you really wonder, did you really delve? Or do you simply trot through life unaware, along with the men and women who give no thought to the sheer chance involved in the proper sperm making its way to the proper egg, to give them life?

Why can't you stop moving, Wally?

Why can't you leave the cities?

In half of the Gospels, there is no mention of a virgin birth, no declaration of divine parentage. When the Holy Spirit descends on the Christ at the River Jordan, before the Baptist and the Baptist's disciples, its declaration "Thou art my son" can be read as a declaration not of literal parentage but as adoption. In the early days of your Church, this was a popular interpretation, now referred to as adoptionist theology. Jesus was born of man and became the Christ when God adopted him; when God made him His Son as he had made Moses Lawgiver and David King.

Clark descended from the skies as a god and was adopted by a new, baser world.

Bruce ascended from the gutters in order to better prey upon them.

Diana has straddled the line between ascent and descent, goddess and mortal.

Karen ascended from the wet depths of time and memory to a drier place, a colder place where you have recently become her only warmth.

Arthur moves back and forth between the sea and the land, king and knight.

And what about you, Wally?

You are not Barry's son, but you are his chosen successor. His adoptee.

Who chose you, Wally? Who came to you in the form of a dove at the River Jordan, declaring you before the disciples?

Three men born in the same general area, at the same general time, with the same powers. When those powers deal specifically WITH space and time, with the personal manipulation thereof, can we call it coincidence? Can we call it synchronicity?

Whose design are you living out, Wally?

Even the names of the cities should have suggested something to you. Keystone. "The central supporting element of a whole." Central. "The point equidistant from the edges." Also "of basic importance," "having dominant influence," and "a moderate point between two extremes."

Are you Christ or Baptist or Prophet?

When Jesus became the Christ, did he stop being a man? Or was the man simply replaced with the essence of God?

You were split into two. Wally and Flash. Man and God. You moved through space in order to travel through time, and two became one, a one which returned.

Where did the other go?

Who were you, when you were two?

Could you do it again? Could you do it on purpose?

Did you even do it at all?

Coincidence and synchronicity are phenomena of the interaction between space and time; your power gives you dominion over such interactions.

Did Karen move here because of a job opportunity? Did she subconsciously hope to run into you?

Or did you bring her?

Did Barry die to save the world, or did the world need to be saved so Barry could die? Was it his time to die or your time to replace?

Did Max find you, or did you bring him? His adventures through what he calls the Speed Force caused him to be leap-frogged through time instead of just space. As with every speedster who ever lived before you, he lived under the sway of the Speed Force -- even though he was aware of it, he could not control its effects.

But you can.

You couldn't at the time. But what is time but the second axis? What is time but another path to run along?

Did you guide Max to the Speed Force, Wally? Did you draw him across centuries to you, so he could tell you why?

Did you reach backwards through time to send Barry Allen a lightning bolt which would insure you had a mentor in your teen years?

Or is that what you will do in a decade?

Why can't you stop moving, Wally?

Why can't you leave the cities?

Are you the disciple continuing the ways of the Christ, the Pope, the Saint Peter? Or are you the Christ fulfilling the implications of the Baptist and the Prophets?

How long has it been since you became Kid Flash? Forty years? Ten? If the calendar tells you ten, why does it feel like forty? Was Barry really sporting a crewcut in 1990? Were you really wearing yellow and red spandex when everyone else had baggy pants? How many times has the Justice League lost or gained members, changed locations, disbanded and reformed in twelve years? How many Christmases do you remember?

You float through the cities, moving so fast that there is simply no time for the points of impact between your feet and the surface to register. You have escaped the loop of cause and effect. The speeds at which you propel yourself should send tremors through the cities to rend them from their moorings and toss them apart like eggs in a cement mixer.

If you were bound by physics, you would have been torn to shreds from wind shear and the relativistic effects of super-accelerated dust particles slicking through your bones like buckshot through butter, the first time you accelerated after being hit by the lightning bolt. The first time you came to a sudden stop, you would have collapsed in a wet mess of muscle and tissue as your skeleton continued along its path until shattering against a sufficiently immovable object.

You are not affected by inertia but you cannot stop moving.

You are not bound by space but you cannot leave the cities.

What happens to the Wests, Wally? The second generation of the Allen Legacy does not begin for ten centuries. Where are the Wests? Where is the tremor of a thousand years of history which should make people say "Barry Allen was the Flash? But the last thirty have been Wests!"

What happens to your blood, Wally? Who carries it forth?

Where do you go, Wally? What hole do you tear through the history books, disintegrating them as you once did walls you tried to vibrate through?

Do you know yet who I am?

Do you recognize my voice?

Do you feel my feather-light touch against your skin?

Linda was right. You could have the world. You have not taken it. You are not the only one to resist this temptation -- perhaps even, to be unaware of it -- but that makes you no less remarkable.

Have you been holding out for something else?

Time is a river. Space is a mountain.

Faith can move mountains. Faith can walk on water.

In myths, rivers separate life and death, and gods dwell in mountains. Rivers cause forgetfulness and immortality, rivers flood the world to begin anew. Mountains divide nations from one another, gods from heroes, heroes from mortals.

Have you forgotten?

I bring you a dream of your brothers prostrate before you. I bring you a dream of angels announcing your name. The disciples are here, all those who have died before you. Barry has been baptizing them in the scarletsilver waters.

I bring you to the river.

When Jesus became the Christ, when man became a god, where did the man go? Did he forget? Was he replaced?

In the beginning was the One who is Three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I descend upon you as a dove, my voice rumbling from crimson. Thou art my son; with thee, I am well-pleased.

You have called me the power.

You have called me coincidence.

You have called me synchronicity.

You have called me the Speed Force.

You have called me.

I grant you leave to call me Father.

You may stop moving now, Wally.