Who is Martin Jensen?

A shrugging “Who?” is the typical response when people are asked about Martin Jensen - for he was, save for his mild manners and calm nature, not a man worth remembering.
Martin Jensen was a simple man. He lived in Scranton, PA, with his wife, Anna Jensen, working a mediocre job at a mediocre salary, living a mediocre life.

And Martin was happy.

Martin had long since, due to the nature of his job as an accountant for a failing paper company, fallen into the comfort of routine. His wilder years were far behind him and now and there was not much substance to find to fill out his day. But Martin didn’t mind. He was content with the bounds he had struck. He knew what he liked - Earl Grey tea with milk and a single spoonfull of sugar, Led Zeppelin and solving the sudokus on the back of the newspaper every day. But most of all, Martin liked his wife.
“She is nice” he would think to himself after gesturing a friendly goodbye through the kitchen window as he pulled out the driveway. “I wonder if she thinks I’m nice as well.”

And why wouldn’t she? Martin Jensen was the most mild mannered, calm, reliable and most of all stable man you could find in the immediate proximity of Scranton with the trustworthiness of a toaster or any other household appliance. And of course Anna Jensen liked her husband. But inside, deep down into her guilty conscience, she knew that her mind was elsewhere. She, too, had passed her younger days and she felt the instinctive urge to start a family, as does every other burgeoning mother. There was however something else missing - the chemistry.

“He’s the nicest man I have ever met - almost too nice.” she would almost bicker to her friends at the hair saloon. “He is probably the closest any human will ever get to a personification of the colour grey. I wonder what our kids would be like...”.
She was joking, of course. But only to her friends. It kept nagging in the corner of her brain when the silence had overtaken the mandatory conversations (if you could even call it that) over the dinner table. Eventually, she began to wonder why she even picked him.
Anna Jensen was not really a risk taker - and Martin Jensen was not really a risk. She decided that he had been acting as a placeholder for long enough and it was time to move on and find someone she could establish a family with. And then came the message that would send Anna Jensen into a hysterical weeping fit.

“You are gonna’ have a baby, Mrs. Jensen” the doctor said. In order to calm her down, he assured her that he knew how she felt - “If I was married to Martin Jensen I think I would be crying too. But this isn’t the medieval ages anymore! You have options now!” he explained while sliding a pamphlet with the words “The Wonders of Gene Therapy” printed in bold, pink letters over the table. Her blubbering self starting clearing up as a smile began to form on her face. She new what could be done now.

“Imagine your wife as a canvas” the doctor explained to Martin. “...and imagine that your perfect child if the clear shade of green. Now what happens if the wrong colours are added, say, yellow and red?”
Martin smiled. He knew this one. “Then it becomes orange!”
A clap from the doctor. “Yes, exactly. But with todays technology we can alter what colours you bring onto the canvas. So we can, for example, turn the orange into green. And in your case we need a lot of blue, but you get my drift.”
The doctor slid a piece of paper with several checkboxes over the table to the hopeful couple. And then they began their adventure into the world of gene therapy by checking boxes of a piece of paper. Tall - check. Blue eyes - check. Intelligent - double check. And as they were checking boxes Anna glanced at her stomach with a worried look in her eyes as the mental picture of a toddler with a moustache, a doctor’s degree and a pacifier, framed and put on the mantle with the caption “Stanley Jensen, age 1”.

The coming years were filled with euphorical happiness for Martin. His prodigy of a son, Stanley Jensen, had empiraclly accomplished more than Martin at the age of two. 6’7” and weighing in at 250 pounds, Stanley was the biggest first grader in elementary school. He was incredibly bright and had read more books than most of the teachers but his intelligence did not transfer to his manners since he constantly got into trouble. He was built as a brick house and since most of the other students were one fifth of his size there was little they could do when they received their daily mandatory wedgie. But his wrongdoing always came to absolution by his father’s gleefull ignorance. Ever since the success of his son he had apparently reached a plateau where he buoyantly drifted away in his blissfull trance where Stanley could do nothing wrong, a behaviour that would inevitably clash with what several therapists had called a “lack of relatable father-figure for Stanley Jensen”. Martin constantly shielded his perfect son aganist accusations of wrongdoing and unjust acts and one day he took a bullet meant for his son that in turn took his life. As he drew his last breath, he watched his son indifferently walking away from his fathers dying corpse and thought “What a prideful young man. I am so proud.”

And Martin was happy.

It would be many years before Anna would talk to her son again. He was, after all, the cause of her husbands death. But Stanley had accomplished some great feats over the years, including becoming the President of Earth and entitling himself the absolute God of all religions. And after seeing his image on every wall and his brand on every t-shirt, Anna decided it was time to meet with him. “How good it is to see you, mother!” he shouted as he flew toward her in his custom made jet pack. “What did you need from me?” The now frail, old woman grabbed into her bag and said “I have just visited “The Museum of Overlord Stanley” and thought it could use some additions.”

“First, your solid steel pacifier with biting marks in it...” Anna Jensen stuttered.

“Ah, yes, I remember that.” Stanley said.

“Second, the first book you wrote - at the age of 7...” she continued.

“Oh of course, “Superman’s Brother and other Quantum Physics Paradoxes”!” he exclaimed.

“And lastly, a baseball glove signed “To my son Stanley Jensen, from the happiest father in the world - Martin Jensen.””

Stanley briefly stopped.

“Who?”