The Gymnast, Part 5

“And, coming up next for the Olympic Artistic Gymnastics: Simone Biles!”

The applause was there. Of course it was. It had to be. This was the Olympics. But Simone could tell something was off.

It wasn’t her new favorite outfit, composed of only gilded power limiters that left painfully little to the imagination. She knew the crowd had gotten used to that now. It wasn’t the lack of glitz and glamor in her life. She was in a fulfilling relationship, had several documentaries made about her, she even had her own “Snapchat TV Show”, if that could even count as a worthwhile achievement. It wasn’t her lack of power, her strength has only increased since her last big outing.

It was the feigned excitement.

It was hard to explain the subtle nuances of an entire stadium of clapping hands, but it was noticeable to Simone’s trained ears. While once, they had been clapping because they were genuinely excited to see a peak gymnast at the top of her game, now they were clapping because it was the Olympics and it was practically an unspoken rule to let your applause be heard, no matter what.

They were getting tired of her, she could sense it. Olympic competition wasn’t all that exciting when the “competition” part of it didn’t exist. Simone was alpha-dog dominant. She was so far ahead of the other gymnasts that the mystery, wonder and comradery of who would take home the gold was lost. If Simone showed up, it was sure to be her.

Earlier, she had assumed this malaise was due to her shtick getting stale. There were only so many ways she could contort her body that would impress the audience. She started to diversify, but that just made things worse. It was one thing to be the best at something you had trained your whole life for, but to completely out-swim Michael Phelps from just the push-off and to out-tennis Serena Williams from the first racket hit—that set a precedent. Sure, she was quickly infecting every category of the Guinness Book of World Records, but now the publishers were considering adding a “non-Simone-Biles” version to beat declining sales. The audience’s interests were waning.

She performed her routine expertly, it was always going to be, even if she messed up, it would be obvious to everyone that she was throwing on purpose. She was simply too competent at her job now.

She received her medal to thunderous applause, but the thunder was coming from a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it storm that only dogs process instead of one worthy of hurricane status like she had once heard. Most would kill to reach recognition like that, but she knew it was a shadow of what she once possessed.

And so, upon receiving the mic for her acceptance speech, she couldn’t find it in her to announce a rousing speech about how her boyfriend and her parents continued to motivate her to keep going for gold every year. She didn’t have to motivate herself, she was going to win the gold anyways. Logically, there was only one announcement left to make.

“To all those wondering, I will not be returning to the Olympics next year, or any year after that.” Immediately, a roar of confusion came from the bleachers. No one expected Biles to go the nuclear option and retire at 27 years of age, but that’s exactly what she did.

There was a grand sendoff that Biles didn’t even attend, she was already gone by then. Articles wrote retrospectives pondering if humanity was at fault for pushing her away.

But humanity could have only given Biles so much. She would try to never show it, but Simone was already growing tired of the pointlessness of it all. When she was but a wide-eyed 25 year old, blissfully unaware of just how overpowering her strength was, life was good. No one looked at her twice, outside of the fact that she was one of the most accomplished gymnasts in the history of humanity. And then, she lifted an entire stadium, then entire planets. It was pretty hard to feel anything when the vast infiniteness of the entire multiverse felt like a feather in her palm.

It didn’t help that the only memory that brought inherent motivation to her was a particularly dangerous one. She thought back to the time she had awoken atop a gilded throne, thousands of people bowing and worshiping her at her feet. She knew it wasn’t a healthy mindset, that those people did not deserve a life of endless servitude towards her. What would she even do with cult-like followers? But no matter how much logic she applied to it, the enticing thought of ruling everything—receiving ceaseless reverence for her true, undeniable gift—it just wouldn’t leave her head.

Simone took to a life of solitude, creating an entire planet all to herself so that she may become a humble farmer, living off the land. Terraforming was the easy part, using her intense strength to literally move air and atmosphere from some random earth to her own, creatively using subtle drums of her fingers on the surface of the planet to generate accelerated tectonic plate shifts within the planet’s core.

A process that would’ve taken billions of years was effortlessly reduced to a few minutes, with Simone making efficient use of every second she had, as a true Gymnast would. Despite her effortless mastery of planet creation, farming left her scratching her head. Without internet access, techniques like proper crop rotation and composting were completely lost to her, leaving Simone frustrated.

“Maybe if I just told that ‘creator of everything’ guy to come work for me, this wouldn’t be so difficult! I know he’s afraid of me, it wouldn’t take long to—”

She caught herself, silencing the thought immediately. This was going to be a long, long retirement.

~

Dirk released his hold on the massive weights both beneath and above him. He took a deep, satisfied breath, pausing for a moment to stretch his strained muscles. “So that’s it, huh? That’s the entire multiverse I just lifted right there?”

“Yep, that’s it,” said a rather unimpressed One, nonchalantly inspecting something else that captured his interest. He then looked over to see Dirk’s expectant gaze. “I’m sorry, is there something else you’d like?”

“Uh, yeah, there is. Some recognition, how about that, huh? I just held up the skies like freakin' Apollo, and you don’t seem to give a shit!”

“First of all, the correct Greek character that you’re thinking of is Atlas. Second of all, I don’t ‘give a shit’ as you say, because it’s really not that impressive. Maybe two earth years ago, what you did would have been impressive, but I’m afraid you’ve already been outshined.”

“Wha- outshined? How!?” came Dirk’s dumbfounded voice. “How is it even possible that there’s someone else who can do what I do?”

“Oh, she doesn’t just do what you do. She does it better.”

“Better!? How is that even possible! You said I was the second strongest person in the universe! Only after you!”

“I never said ‘after me’, did I?”

“T-then who’s the bitch who’s stronger than us?”

“Simone Biles.” Her name sent waves of tension about the One’s custom dimension; just thinking about her made the incorporeal being shudder.

Dirk, who was from a far-off spot of the multiverse, had never heard of her. His arched eyebrow gave that away. “Alright, then how’s about you start pointing me in the direction of this legendary lifter, huh? I’d like to have a little chat with her.”

“Inadvisable. She’d reduce you beyond atoms.”

“Pfft, since when were you scared of something? Aren’t you supposed to be an omniscient god?”

“Even omnipotence has its limits.”

“Okay, you’re seriously telling me that you’re scared of a girl who can just lift anything?”

“The simple act of lifting can have dangerous consequences for reality if brought to its logical conclusion. If you do not believe me, I can send her your way, but please, I beg you to heed my warning.”

“Warning, shmorning. You’re probably just shell-shocked from what she did to you the first time. If anyone knows anything about lifting, it’s probably gonna be me! Dirk the Dangerous! Lifter extraordinaire! Certified second strongest person in the entire multiverse! And, very soon, the man who will usurp first.”

The One sighed and opened a portal for Dirk. The hazy vistage of the swirling vortex rather anticlimactically displayed a simple farmhouse, complete with crops, and a wide plain in all directions as far as the eye could see.

“You mean to tell me she’s the strongest creature in the entire multiverse and she’s living all alone in a farmhouse somewhere? As soon as I realized my innate power, I upsized.”

“I cannot say why she chose the life she has, but I assure you that interacting with her is the wrong decision regardless.”

“Maybe for you, but if I’m at least the second strongest, I know I’ll fair better than you.”

Not waiting for a potential response, Dirk leapt through the dimensional portal. He landed on the ground with purpose, the earth cracking beneath his mighty superhero landing. His squinted eyes scanned the horizon, inspecting for any sort of illusion or trap. If she really was as powerful as the One had claimed, surely, there'd be thousands if not millions of people clamoring to defeat her, but there was no one but him and the peaceful house.

Did no one else know about her? Was the One the only sentient being who was aware about her supposed unparalleled accomplishments?

Then again, why was he afraid? He was Dirk the Dangerous! He plunged headfirst into adventure and risk and didn’t wait to listen to the voice of a naysayer, even if this particular voice was coming from his own head!

Adopting an exaggerated swagger, Dirk strutted through the field of crops toward the seemingly desolate house, his mind laser-focused on the task at hand. He ripped the screen door off its hinges, walking directly into a scene of a woman alone, eating breakfast. She wasn’t what he’d call petite, but she wasn’t exactly rippling with musculature like he was. This was supposed to be who the One regarded as the strongest being in all of the multiverse? That ageless immortal must’ve been going senile.

“Simone Biles.” Dirk said as if he were greeting an old friend, crossing his hands before his chest.

The former gymnast just sighed in response, one of minor annoyance. “Let me guess, you’re the brother of some superhero who wants revenge against me. Well, let me just say that revenge will only bring you misery and this is your last chance to turn back, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda,” she rolled her eyes and twirled her hand about, as if she were laying out a whole terms and conditions page for Dirk’s survival that she herself didn’t even want to read.

“I, uh—I’m not here to avenge anyone or anything like that.”

Simone’s attitude immediately perked up. “Oh! Lovely! In that case, I’m sorry about the state of this place! Unquenched revenge can get a little messy, if you know what I mean!”

She stood from her seat, taking a brief moment to clean the immediate vicinity. She faced a salt shaker from its toppled-over position on her table, she one-by-one picked up the shattered pieces of a broken plate and tossed them into the garbage, and she used her foot to nonchalantly kick the unmoving hand of some creature underneath what Dirk could only describe as a tarp of reality itself, as once she unruffled the curtain, it was as if there never was a hole with a hand sticking out to begin with.

“So, what can I do for you? Are you some sort of fan I don’t recognize? One who was inspired by my documentary, perhaps?”

“Actually, I’m here to prove that I am the strongest being in all of the multiverse!” Dirk enunciated with sheer confidence, not willing to let his moment be ruined by a misunderstanding.

Any sense of eagerness that was once present in Simone’s eyes vanished completely. Her face fell and her eyes narrowed. An unshakable sense of tension built up within the tiny farmhouse, one Dirk was trying his hardest to simply ignore.

“Are you sure that’s what you really want to do?” Asked Simone, arching an eyebrow. Her cryptic response sent a shiver through Dirk’s steeled resolve, cracking his foundations ever so slightly.

The second it took for him to regain his composure felt agonizingly long, yet, he still regained it.

“Yes. I-I was recognized as the second strongest person in the multiverse, and I intend to prove my merit as the first! You won’t stand a chance against me, I’m more powerful than the One!”

Simone just sighed. She had witnessed this song and dance hundreds of times.

“How powerful do you think you really are? Honestly?” Simone spoke, hissing her words. “Because if lifting the entire multiverse is all you’ve got, then I’m afraid you aren’t even close to me, power-wise.”

It was as if she had read his mind, as if this particular interaction had occurred thousands of times for her at just 27 years of age. And then, all her bottled-up feelings spilled out through her mouth all at once.

“You can lift the multiverse? Good for you. That means you can lift the bare minimum of what I can do with a loose fingernail. The physical is nothing to me. It’s a bacterium. It’s outdated fashion compared to what I’m capable of. I can lift the conceptual. Stuff that people can’t even conceive with their minds I can lift as if I’m inspecting a penny I found on the ground.

“I can think of five different ways in this very instant that I could kill you. I could lift all the oxygen off of the planet into space where it dissipates, just like I did to put it on this planet in the first place. I could use perspective to crush your head with my fingers like I’m five years old, and reality will bend around my digits to accomplish that very feat. I could just walk upstairs, forget that there’s only ten steps to the stairwell instead of eleven, and put my foot down a bit too hard. Except I will be extra careful to make sure that I won't do that because I happen to care about the meet n’ greet I’m doing with the future Olympic athletes who were inspired by me ten universes over.

“Did you know that once, a group of scientists gave me a special ‘infinite’ weight, one that I could change to make it as heavy as I wished and hopefully provide me with something I could train with to improve? I gave up on it after a week because it wasn’t heavy. I didn’t even grunt. If I made it any heavier, it would collapse into itself and destroy everything—Except it didn’t. By all accounts of logic and reason, the infinite should have collapsed beyond a black hole, and yet, by my sheer strength, I was able to keep it from collapsing within itself. The only reason that hasn’t happened to myself is because I’m always dedicating a fraction of my strength to holding myself within existence. Figured that one out at a young age.”

With every sentence, she stepped threateningly closer to Dirk. Now, she was almost touching chests with him. Even though she was a full head shorter than him, her presence rivaled the size of the empty planet they stood upon. Simone’s eyes narrowed as her tone fell deathly serious, practically spitting her next sentence. “I could lift the very words on this page if I really didn’t want to deal with you.”

It was hard to describe what hable to readd next. Imagine if you were reading an essay and then all of theto be                       the composure, as if it was merely being transcribed going                                       story writing away, clicking out the typed words one’s                                                      if youumbfounded at what sort of chiNo                                                                        done in a clever, meta-text“Hey!                                                                                  that!”

Dirk wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened, but to say his confidence had sporadically vanished was the understatement of the century.

“So it wasn’t so much that you don’t stand a chance, just more that you could literally team up with anything you can think of, any collection of beings and forces, stuff that can do all kinds of unspeakable things to people and brag about amazing stuff they’re capable of and you’d still be handicapped by not being Simone Biles.”

To further reinforce her already indestructible point, she lifted the curtain of reality that Dirk had only gotten a mere glimpse of earlier. What he saw was still a mere glimpse, as the mountain of corpses visible stretched far beyond what little the tarp revealed. “Well, you could stack the odds against me and I’d win and I’d know because you weren’t the first person to stack the odds against me, and you certainly will not be the last.”

“Then prove it. T-these talks of feats are all meaningless. If you could destroy the multiverse, then why don’t you?”

Dirk nodded with a sense of restored conviction after a prolonged silence from Simone, pushing through the overwhelming fear. To him, he had just called Biles’ bluff. But to the former gymnast, it was not stunned silence, it was contemplative. She had isolated herself from humanity, had become bombarded with thoughts of becoming someone who ruled all, and was still actively being attacked by random creatures who saw her as some sort of existential threat. Well, maybe they finally had a point. Maybe she would be the ultimatum to existence, that the only way to truly isolate these poor souls from her wishes and fears would be to eradicate it all.

And she could do it.

It would be easy, like snapping a toothpick.

No, easier than that. Like snapping a brittle cracker with a ball peen hammer.

Then again, that required the actual swing of the hammer, which could take a second or too.

Truth be told, there was no proper analogy, it would just be that easy to her.

“Y’know, I’ve always been looking for a good excuse to destroy the multiverse…” Simone remarked playfully, rubbing her chin, “Maybe you’ll finally be the excuse I need…”

At first, they were wrong. Simone’s personality of being friendly and competitive was genuine. She thought very little about what her body was capable of when pushed even asymptotically closer to any sense of actual effort. But now, it was all that raged through her mind. She wanted not to see what a semblance of effort would feel like—instead, Simone wanted to witness what her limit would be.

Ever since she was five, Biles had been holding back everything she did. Once she realized that lifting a tree to rescue a cat was as easy as lifting anything else, she was eager to try more, but upon realizing the damage said tree caused upon an absent-minded toss over the shoulder, she vowed to only use her strength only when absolutely necessary and keep a permanent damper on it otherwise. Of course, she was so strong that holding back was equally as effortless as giving in, yet a nascent curiosity simply would not leave her mind.

She brought her hand outstretched before her, palm open and facing the sky. Then, she cleared her mind, unlearning every limitation she had pushed upon herself. The careful mimicry of other humans, what strength was expected of a woman her age. She took a deep breath…

…and then she lifted her left hand.

But we’re already moving too fast here. Upon unlearning everything, a simple inattentive twitch of one of her fingers had already caused a cataclysmic butterfly effect ten thousand universes over. The supersonic waves traveled and grew, vibrating violently once they reached their apex, leaving a trail of destruction as if a traveling inside-out bread mixer had its way with reality, and reality was as doughy and malleable as said mixture of wheat dough and water.

Warning klaxons immediately alerted the One to Simone’s presence, but he was already pouring himself a large glass of brandy, knowing that his time as this multiverse’s watcher was finally coming to a close. He had warned that stupid bastard, Dirk, but those with power never heeded his warnings, even as they actively swung at proverbial hornets’ nests with literal baseball bats.

Dirk, on the other hand, had no clue what had just occurred. How trillions of existences were deleted in an instant, only for that to be the lowest rung of the exponential J-curve that was Simone lifting a single hand into the air.

But now, the hand was actually climbing upwards, rising slowly yet surely inch by inch until it had risen from her waist to her breast. The multiverse was lifting up around her, the multiverse of multiverses was rising up with it. Simone had no vantage point, she was the vantage point. The floorboards gave way beneath her as they too were lifted by her hand. Her feet were shattering the dirt and rock beneath her as if she was a bullet traveling in slow motion piercing the soft flesh of the human body.

An unending ripple permeated from the source of her hand as it rose to completion at her shoulder. To the eyes, it just looked like she was displaying some sort of invisible object, as if advertising it, but Dirk now understood the true horror of what was occurring. It was the collapse of everything…

…and then Simone lifted her right hand in a similar fashion.

Immediately, all potential alternative universes that were generated from the endless decisions that average people made in their day-to-day lives were lifted away, decisions as simple as “do I eat a turkey club or BLT” to decisions as complex as “what do I believe the meaning of life to be?” All choices that once were, that could be, effortlessly raised into unusability by Simone’s right hand as it lifted them beyond. Finally, her right hand reached the same level as her left, the entire framework of the universe was now gone, the only thing keeping Dirk alive at this point was the simple fact that reality struggled to update everything on the above-cosmic scale that Biles had lifted everything towards.

Metaphysical concepts, such as the afterlives, were too lifted high. The weight of a human spirit, incalculable to the mind and modern math, could not remain a mystery once Simone decided to break the limits. Every dimension’s infinite afterlife, one accounting for each possible interpretation of every single religion ever formed, all carried atop the slowly-ascending hand of Simone Biles and her overwhelming grasp on reality.

Once Biles’ right hand reached shoulder level parallel to her left hand, she stopped lifting again. This, of course, did not slow down the rapid decay of existence after having been disturbed from its natural resting place.

“Can you believe it? Can you even conceive it? I’m lifting everything. Everything there ever was, everything that ever will be, and everything that never was and never will be. And it’s all here. All cradled effortlessly within the palm of my hand. Each crease of my fingerprint holding up more than you could ever possibly dream of lifting. It’s so strange to think about, and yet that doesn’t make it any less hard to do. I simply can do it. There is no amount of size that could hold me back.”

Her smile was wide and crooked. She was basking in the sheer insanity that was the simple action of lifting her hands without restraint, without holding herself back, without giving in to the curtailment that she had somehow convinced herself she needed to live a normal life, whatever that meant.

“And you want to know the craziest part?” Simone continued. “I still don’t feel anything. It’s nothing to me. I’ve pushed myself beyond what I even knew I could lift, and it still feels effortless. There’s nothing you have on me here, and now, let’s see how far you fly when I lift everything there is with all the force I can muster.”

Then, she moved her hands from shoulder height to as high as she could reach. In an instant, everything vanished. There was nothing anymore. Simone had lifted her unstoppable body so fast, all matter that was and wasn’t—vanished.

Finally, there was simply Simone. Everything else was above her, being thrust away at insanely high speeds. What remained wasn’t a black void or whiteness, it was simply the absence of anything. The empty space of a png, the other side of a 1-dimensional being. There was only Simone, all alone.

The One didn’t need to save her, no one needed to fix this. There was no one else who could fix this.

After finding her point sufficiently proved, Biles carefully rested everything that ever was and wasn’t back into its proper place. The chaos ended, the noise ceased. After everything, even the vast, uncaring void of space felt warm and inviting.

Everything was immediately back to the way it was.

“But, y’know, at the end of the day, I think being good ol’ charitable Simone Biles is more than fulfilling enough for me. Thanks, Dirk, you helped alleviate some serious stress on my end.” Simone then patted the stiff shoulder of the traumatized Dirk, his endless stare a culmination of every horrifying event he had just witnessed. Experiences too cruel to describe in text form, containing details that were thankfully omitted from Simone’s destruction once it was transcribed to the text form you’re reading this very moment.

Biles just took a deep breath, feeling as the cool, crisp air filled her lungs. She missed that. Sure it was impossible to quantify exactly how long she had been without it in her empty world, but that was only on the technicality that she had lifted time itself too. Having to be strategic and defensive around her own natural strength had been a mild annoyance for so long, but she was happy to return to it after the merest reminder of what she was truly capable of.

That was an experience that couldn’t be stifled in a lab, replicated effectively with what the One could offer, or even be satisfied with a couple of victories under her belt. Lifting everything’s everything was just who Simone Biles was, and she was happy that she was able to indulge in it for a moment’s notice—able to fully appreciate just how easy it would be to completely atomize everything beyond recognition.

“Well, uh, there’s the door,” Simone gestured beyond Dirk. He was still frozen in fear. When Biles said he wouldn’t be able to comprehend what she was capable of, she wasn’t kidding. His mind was thoroughly blown beyond repair. Simone hadn’t defeated him, she never even threw a punch in his direction. No, Dirk the Dangerous had defeated himself.

He wished for it and the monkey’s paw curled its crusty finger. The consequences would linger on with him for the rest of his life. The idea of what Simone Biles could do at any given moment thoroughly blowing his mind every other second with insane revelation after revelation. An endless dimension of Fridge horror for his frigid little mind.

Simone had already long moved on, effortlessly returning to her routine of reclusively living off the land. It wasn’t like Dirk standing as still as a statue actually inconvenienced her in any way. She just chucked him in with the others, being more than delicate enough as not to accidentally tear crucial parts of reality out from their functioning spots from the minor ecstasy boosts of her latest endeavor.

~

Simone’s eyes narrowed as she got into position, letting out an elongated breath as she readied herself. Staring down her new opponent—the balance beam—the plan of attack readied itself immediately in her mind.

From a run, she leaped up atop the balance beam. A mere 500 cm jump wasn’t much compared to what she just did mere hours earlier, but everything about it felt exhilarating. She began her normal routine, starting off with a flick that sent her off her toes, flying into the air with a backwards somersault that transitioned into a brief handstand, only to return to her feet.

Now at the end of the beam at her mere warmup, she decided to show off with her signature triple-twisting double tucked-back somersault. Still on one foot, she did a little hip-shaking dance, her jewelry swinging and twisting hypnotically as she showed off her delectable body, little left to the imagination as all she wore were the thin golden cuffs designed to make her less powerful, yet even almost 500 of them couldn’t throw her off her game. This was a body foreign to her, she hadn’t even practiced with it, yet she knew she was about to take home gold once more.

Performing three backflips, her body dissolved into a blur with how fast she executed them. She then jumped into the air, twisting impossibly. Instead of landing on her feet for the finisher, however, she landed on a pinky finger, adding her own custom twist to a classic in the gymnastics world.

There was no applause. None at all. And yet, Simone was content in her performance. How could she be? After all, there wasn’t even a coliseum around her.

There was no audience. There was no judge. There wasn’t anyone around who could witness her.  The endless expanse of her own planet was all that could be seen with the naked eye. But it didn’t matter. Simone had herself—and she wouldn’t have had it any other way.