Useless Heroes (Short Story)
This short story is based on a conversation I had today.
“Fate is unfair”, Abby said, and the others sitting in the circle of chairs with her nodded in agreement. “It’s like”, she continued, “it’s like someone is playing a mean joke on you, you know? They make you special, but in a way that’s more than useless. And then they take all these other people and make them special in a way that is super useful. And all the normal people are absolutely impressed, and then you tell them you’ve been touched by fate too, and they ask you what you can do. And you tell them. And they just stare at you blankly.” @suesa
“Or they laugh”, Keith chimed in. “They’re always laughing when I tell them about my powers.”
“What can you do, Keith?” Abby asked. Keith shifted uncomfortably.
“I have super hearing”, he said. “But like, only in the way that I hear every time someone mentions chicken nuggets in a one-kilometre radius.” Someone audibly tried to suppress a laugh, and Keith frowned.
“I’m sorry, Keith”, Abby said, shooting an angry look to the laughing person. “I think many of us know what it feels like to have an effectively useless power. But that’s why we’re here. We need to support each other because we all have shitty powers. I, for example, am a speedster. I’m faster than any normal human. By about 3 km/h.”
“It’s enough to catch bad guys tho”, Keith pointed out.
“Not if they have a car. Not if they have a bike or anything that goes just a tad slower. And while I’m fast, I have basically no endurance. I can sprint briefly, but that’s it.”
“I am stretchy”, Tanya, a tiny brunette woman said, her head almost as read as a potato. “But only to a super useless degree like this?” She proceeded to pull on her finger, which increased its length by a few centimetres. When she let go, it snapped back. “That’s it. It can’t go further. None of my body parts can.”
“Well at least people don’t abuse you as a human lighter”, Kyra grumbled, raised her hand and produced a tiny flame at the tip of her index finger.
“Can’t you increase it?” Keith asked, his eyebrows raised.
“No, dumbass. I wouldn’t be here if I could. I can only get a flame this size, and only from one finger. This is barely enough to light birthday candles.”
“I can see into the future, but only about a second”, Alec, a huge bald guy blurted out. “It might sound useful in hand to hand combat, but I just can’t get the timing right and keep receiving fists to the face.”
“Why are you fighting with people then?” Tanya asked.
“I don’t want to. But everyone who wants to prove themselves in my neighbourhood picks the biggest guy to beat up, and that’s me.” His eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to fight with people! I hate hurting others!” Tanya stood up to give him a hug, and Alec started sobbing.
A brief, awkward silence followed.
“Isaac, you’ve been very quiet.” Abby turned to a guy who had spent most of the time looking around the room slightly panicked. He seemed very, very uncomfortable as if he might jump up and run any second.
“Yes, I have, sorry, I’m …”, he shuddered, stood up, picked up his chair and moved it a few meters to the side, ending up behind Keith.
“Uh, what are you doing?” Keith asked.
“I’m sorry, but the spider was coming closer.”
“The spider? I don’t see a spider.”
“It’s in the corner over there.” Isaac pointed in the direction of the corner closest to where he had been sitting.
“I still don’t see anything”, Keith said.
“That’s no surprise, it’s a small spider. But I could sense it moving, coming closer. My shitty superpower is having a spider-sense.”
“Like Spiderman?” Alec asked.
“No. I can sense spiders. All the time. I don’t know what the radius of my powers is, but I am always aware of all the spiders crawling around me. Where they are going, what they are doing, what they are eating, touching, planning.”
“Spiders plan?” Alec’s face looked very pale.
“Spiders are the worst.”
The silence was back, but it was now less awkward and more uncomfortable, as everyone was thinking about what on Earth spiders might be planning.
“I think I’m the last one who hasn’t said anything.”
“Yes, Lee, please. Share with the group.” Abby had also moved her chair further away from the spider corner and seemed rather queasy. Her eye kept darting over to where the animal was supposed to be as if she was expecting it to suddenly grow in size and devour them all.
“I can control minds, in a way.”
“Oh, that’s a nice power.”
“No, Keith, it’s not. Because the only thing I can do is make you crave chocolate. Kind of. You don’t really have to follow that urge. It’s just there and will go away in a few minutes if you don’t focus on it or eat some chocolate. You might not even notice that it wasn’t your own craving. And just hearing me talk about chocolate might actually have a bigger effect on all of you than if I had used my power on you guys.” Lee proceeded to reach into their bag and pulled out several chocolate bars, offering it to the others. “Anyone?”
Everyone took one.
The meeting ended with everyone hugging each other goodbye.
“Remember”, Abby said, “we will meet again next month, same date, same time, same place. Feel free to bring friends, as long as they’re not normal or have useful powers. We have to support each other.”
“I’ll probably not join you next month”, Isaac said. His voice sounded strained, and little pearls of sweat were running down his temples. “I’m moving to a research base in Antarctica tomorrow. Lots of snow and ice. No spiders. I hope.”
“Good luck”, Abby said. “Really.”
She started thinking about picking a different location for the next meeting. The spider corner made her more and more uncomfortable.
Signature by @atopy
I have a special super power, I am able to make a noise which makes everyone around me totally crazy while I find it super relaxing and I do it when I'm under pressure =D
:'D
Guy at the airport security check was not amused.
They rarely are
Amazing!
I didn't expect there to be so many people with super powers on the chain!
I think, superpowers are not rare. You only have to keep an eye on them. And be prepared to be surprised.😂
Posted using Partiko iOS
So what's yours?
Si es por ser ruidosa, les presentare a mi hija, se ríe como que si estuviera sola, y a hacerlo ya saben quien es jajajajaj
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Hello @suesa, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
Creo que todos tenemos un superpoder, pero el de esta niña es increíble jajaja.
Vaya con los super poderes se puede lograr todo @suesa
hi suesa :)
warum hast du an ew patterns delegiert? unterstützt du sein voting Verhalten?
(selfvoting seiner eigenen Posts und Kommentare mit einem großen Stake - welcher hauptsächlich delegiert ist - und gleichzeitiges Downvoten von gleich mehreren Posts von Kritikern wie bspw. @zuerich )
Liebe Grüße :)
Ich delegiere an diesen user weil ich vor Monaten über DLease das lease request gefüllt habe, und das seitdem immer wieder erneuert wurde. Das Votingverhalten ist dabei relativ irrelevant, aber ich habe mal gecheckt:
Ich finde 13.1% selfvotes jetzt ehrlich gesagt weniger dramatisch. Ich wurde in der Vergangenheit darauf hingewiesen, dass ich an jemanden mit über 50% selfvotes delegiere, worauf ich diese delegation dann auch beendet habe.
Grundsätzlich habe ich mich jetzt nicht näher damit auseinandergesetzt was @ew-and-patterns so treibt, und ich halte mich aus den meisten politischen und sonstigen Dramen auf Steem raus, weil mir das einfach zu blöd ist.
Persönlich bin ich kein fan von selfvoting (habe ich seit meinem dritten Monat auf Steem nicht mehr gemacht), aber heißt es nicht immer dass jeder mit Stake machen kann was er/sie will?
Das scheint irgendwie nur zu gelten wenn der User ein whale ist und alle zu Tode flaggt die sich beschweren ...
In any case, nein, ich unterstütze das voting Verhalten nicht, meiner Meinung nach gibt es aber deutlich schlimmere Leute. Wenn du mir triftige, objektive Gründe liefern kannst aus denen ich mein lease an @ew-and-patterns kündigen sollte bitte, her damit. Ich geh jetzt aber nicht stundenlang auf die Suche nach diesen Gründen.
Man kann mich übrigens relativ einfach auf Discord oder steem.chat finden, ich bin nicht wirklich fan davon solche Diskussionen on-chain zu führen, das provoziert nur Drama.
Super. Danke dir für deine Antwort. War nur neugierig. ;)
Hatte DLease auch schon im Hinterkopf..
Bin eigentlich ziemlicher on-chain-Fan, will jedoch auch kein Drama provozieren.
Fragen wie diese sind oft als Vorwurf gedacht (jedenfalls meiner Erfahrung nach), wovon ich etwas angenervt bin.
Falls dies nicht dein Ziel war entschuldige ich mich falls ich etwas angefressen reagiert habe!
Ich hab einfach kein Nerv mehr ^^'
Wie du schon sagtest:
Also wer wäre ich, wenn ich dir zum Vorwurf machen würde was du mit deinem anstellst. :)
War wirklich nur neugierig.^^ Hab ew patterns Verhalten bemerkt und seine Wallet begutachtet. Danach seine Delegationen und deinen Namen kannte ich.. ^^
Okay xD
Joa, das sind einige DLease leases.
This made me think of Watchmen, as they're basically "superheroes" and almost nobody has any special powers.
Superheroes without any powers are kind of interesting. Superheroes with useless superpowers could be the next thing.
"A child was born in the long family of superheroes, expected to follow the parents footsteps in fighting crime.. too bad the child's only superpower was the ability to triple the speed of own sweating."