Journal Entry #27: Super Powers

Date: November 25, 2007
Time: 23:12

When I was growing up, on the rare occasion I was allowed to go out and play, one of the games we played was “Superheroes”, and no matter what, everyone got angry with me when I wanted to play “Superman”. One of the reasons they got so peeved is they didn’t think of it first. And the other reason? There was nothing the “bad guys” could do to him to hurt him. Thinking back on it, I was amazed that no one ever thought to use Kryptonite. Could it have been sheer forgetfulness on their part, or did they think “I” would find some way to get away from it too soon to make the game fun?

In any event, long after that, I’d always wanted Superman’s powers. To be able to fly, and not only to anywhere on Earth, but to anywhere in the galaxy, or even the universe. To be able to look up at the stars, and see planets orbiting those stars. Yeah, I know, “X-Ray Vision”, woo-hoo. But, believe it or not, that novelty would wear off pretty quickly, because look at everything else there is to see, especially when you have microscopic vision. You could see the building blocks of the universe, and then, back to telescopic vision, and see what they built.

Now, there are times, like even now while I’m writing this, that I would like to have certain kinds of powers. For instance, as much as I dislike Marvel Comics, they used to have a character that had a rather unique power. His name was Cypher, and he could read, write, and understand, any written language that ever existed. His ability to do that stemmed from the fact that he was part of that group that most of the world (in Marvel) knows as a mutant. But, as that was the only mutant ability he had, and as he was only a “fair” hand-to-hand combatant, he lost his life during an adventure with a group that called themselves, “The New Mutants”. Clever name, huh? Regardless, of that, there are times, when I think it would be nice to have that particular little power.
But then, a thought occurs to me. I think about what my life was like when I was growing up. I was extremely short, in comparison to everyone else, and I knew sod all about defending myself. Throughout my life, my mother instilled one main idea into our heads, “Speak your mind. Never be afraid to speak your mind.” This from a woman, who, upon being told she had no talent for embroidery, stopped doing it for something like 30 years. Unfortunately, she never said anything about tact, or diplomacy.

For a long while, we lived in a not-so-nice neighborhood. We lived in one of the many city projects that dot the borough of Brooklyn. If it was too cold for my mother to sit outside, I couldn’t go out and play. So on those days, I was stuck in the house. To this day, I hate Sundays for the simple reason that there is absolutely NOTHING on television. So on the Sundays I was stuck in the house, all I was left with was reading. Therefore, it’s my mother’s fault for me having an Eighth grade reading average in the Fourth grade. Well, that, and the fact I have a very good memory.

Speaking of my very good memory, I remember a great deal of wrong that was dealt to me while I was growing up. Being picked on for no other reason than to get a reaction from me, or just because the other guy was bigger. With that in mind, and with my mother’s side of the family’s penchant for holding a grudge, I came up with a nifty little power of my own. I would be able to make someone else feel everything I have ever gone through in my entire life so far, in the space of thirty seconds. Think about it, at this moment, I am 42 years old, and I would make another person feel everything emotion, every feeling I have had every moment of my life, from birth until now, and all in a time span of 30 seconds.

There would, of course, be one or two drawbacks. One, would be that I would have to be a short distance from them, say a maximum of 30 feet, and there is the possibility of being recognized by someone from my past, of indeed that’s who I was going after, but experience with friends, or at least one friend, has shown me that people I knew from more than 20 years ago are hard-pressed to remember me at first glance. But of course, I would never let them try and recognize me in the first place, so I’m probably pretty safe in that regard.

What’s that you say? “What’s the other drawback?” Well, it is very likely, that such an onslaught of emotions, in that space of time, with no real defense either against it, or in dealing with it, the person the force was aimed at would most likely die. Or, at the very least, turn into either a catatonic vegetable, or a gibbering idiot. Now I’d vote for gibbering idiot, but with some of the morons who picked on me, who’d know the difference?