Wow! It looks like we've got even more International participation than last year, and even the North American participants are chomping at the bit. In realization that much of the world is essentially a day ahead of me, I'm going to extend the challenge deadline to May 1 at noon (EST), instead of April 30 at midnight (EST).

All right then! Let's get started!

For today's prompt, I want you to write an origin poem. It can be the origin of a word, person, plant, idea, etc. Have fun with it.

(Note: Through this challenge, please feel free to use the prompt as a springboard to being creative. There is no right or wrong way to interpret the prompts--so take them in any direction you want.)

Here's my attempt for the day:

"Superhero"

At an early age, His parents are killed

in a skiing accident. Luckily,

His adoptive parents (two lumberjacks

named Harry and Marty) are supportive

and home school Him on topics, such as math,

history, nuclear engineering,

martial arts, and ballroom dancing. When He

learns in His teens that the two lumberjacks

actually killed His parents, He runs

away from home to become a photo-

journalist at the big city paper.

While photographing the winner of Big

City’s high school science fair, the losing

student who thought He should've won dumps liquid

on Him while trying to hit the winner.

This is when He gains the ability

to fly and use X-ray vision. And so He

does what anyone else would do in His

position: Design a costume and start

busting bad guys. It doesn't take long for Him

to acquire an arch-villain, who appears

always to be in two places at once.

This villain is soon known as Lumberjack,

because all his crimes are committed with

a giant logging axe. After perhaps

too much time has elapsed, He realizes

the Lumberjack is really two people:

Harry and Marty, the same backwoodsmen

who murdered His parents. With a renewed

sense of purpose, He quickly finds his two

enemies in their Lumberjack costumes

in an abandoned warehouse down by

the river. He gets the jump on them, but

they quickly turn the tables on Him, since

He was obviously walking into

a trap designed to catch Him. This is when

it is revealed that the lumberjacks are

actually his mother and father,

who were also Harry and Marty, who

had decided when He was very young

that they would groom him to become a crime-

fighting vigilante. Just as they are

telling Him how much they love Him and how

they were sorry they misled Him about

their own deaths, the warehouse explodes from bombs

set by His new arch-villain, The Chemist,

who was, of course, the original guy

who gave Him all of His superpowers.

(Now get writing! Yay!)