Superpowers?
Were do I begin?
I can fly, run super fast, hold my breath underwater for days, shoot laser beans from my hands, I’ve got x-ray vision, super hearing, I can turn invisible at will, control another persons mind with my own, I’m indestructible and can jump so high I’m up above the clouds.
But I’d trade them all for just one, the ability to turn back time.
My powers didn’t come to me through any freak accident and they weren’t bestowed on me by some higher benevolent force.
My powers just happened..
Bit by bit I found I could do things no one else could.
I remember the first time I found I had super hearing.
I was in my room drawing pictures of super heroes, I loved drawing super heroes, I had pictures of them stuck all over my wall.
There was Magnet Man, The Fifty Story Boy, Nepta - King Of The Ocean, The Zipper, The See Through Man, Rock Man and The Mind.
My ambition was to grow up and become a super hero myself.
Anyway the day I discovered my super hearing, my mum and dad were downstairs in the kitchen talking about adult things that I didn’t really understand.
I heard my mum telling my dad to get out and my dad said he was going to leave for good.
My dad had been having an affair with Mrs Murray over in Robin Street.
My mum said he was a no good lying bum and she’d be better off without him.
No one asked me what I wanted.
I heard silence, then the door slammed as my dad left with a suitcase of clothes and his stamps that he’d been collecting since he was twelve years old.
I never saw or heard from my dad again.
He just seemed to disappear from my world like fog in the morning only it wasn’t because of the warmth from the sun that he disappeared, rather it was the coldness of my mothers heart.
She changed heaps after that.
She no longer read me stories at bedtime or made my favourite dinners.
She stopped giving me hugs and kisses and spent most of the time locked in her bedroom drinking to drown her sorrow.
I knew then I was on my own and it was a scary feeling, luckily I had super powers to help me deal with all that had happened.
Because I was left to my own devices I began to run wild.
I had formed a friendship with Micky Stibbles who lived in the next street over the way.
We both had an interest in drawing super heroes and we would spend hours talking about the things we would do when we left school and became proper super heroes.
We would sneak out at night and paint our superhero symbols all over the neighbourhood, on the sides of buildings, train tunnels, rubbish bins, car tires and sidewalks.
Mine was an S surrounded by four stars, one for me, one for my mum, the other for my dad and the last one for Micky my best friend.
Mickies was a H with lightning bolts coming out the sides.
Our symbols were painted over by order of the mayor who thought it was just pure vandalism, so we decided to paint the side of the mayors house with our symbols to let him now we were good guys and were there to help (as soon as we left school).
As far as we were concerned our super hero symbols were there to give people hope, to let them know help was coming in the fight against injustice and breaking the law.
It made us feel very important, so much that we came to believe that we were invincible and certainly weren’t doing anything wrong.
It was one summer night that reality hit us like Rock Man’s fist.
We had just finished decorating the side of Mr. Elphintons sweet shop when a patrol car came around the corner catching us in its headlights.
At first we just stood there like stunned rabbits until Micky screamed “RUN!”
We dropped our paint brushes and tins of paint and led the two police men in the patrol car on a merry chase through the neighbourhood but they must have radioed for back up because in a short time there were police cars driving around everywhere looking for us with their spotlights.
We knew they’d never find us because we knew all the best spots there were to hide in the neighbourhood but so did other kids who the police questioned.
It was a kid called Skinny Jones who told the police about the hiding spot we had chosen and they caught us pretty easily.
We’d fallen asleep and they just walked over to where we were hiding and woke us up.
If we hadn’t used up so much of our super energy running from them, we wouldn’t have fallen asleep and they wouldn’t have caught us.
As they walked us up to a patrol car that was going to take us down town to police headquarters, Micky tripped and fell.
The police man who was holding on to both of us let go of me to help Micky up and I ran.
I ran as fast as I could, hearing Micky yelling for me to run faster and the police yelling for me to stop.
It seemed a few minutes later that the police had given up the chase as I couldn’t hear them with my super hearing, huffing and puffing after me.
When I stopped I saw that I was at the docks where the ships would unload their cargoes from distant lands.
I couldn’t remember how long I’d been running for but figured it was probably only a couple of minutes, that’s how long it would take a super hero to get there.
The docks were old and rickety, built something like sixty years ago and there were heaps of places to hide and I knew the police would never think of looking for me here so I just sat on the edge of the pier and thought about my super powers.
I just accepted I had developed super speed and maybe I should compete in the olympics when I got older.
I would amaze everyone with how fast I could run.
I would also compete in the shot put because I knew I that if I had super hearing and super speed then I must surely have super strength and probably also the ability to jump higher then anyone else, so I’d have to enter the high jump as well.
As I sat on the end of the pier thinking about how amazing it would be to be in the olympics and amaze the rest of the world with my super abilities, the police found me again.
I was so caught up in my imagination, I didn’t hear them sneaking up on me until it was almost too late but my super hearing saved me.
I got up and turned around to face the five police men who were walking slowly towards me telling me that everything was alright, that I wouldn’t be in trouble they just wanted to talk to me.
I knew then that I had developed another super power, the ability to know when someone was lying to me, I also knew that I better develop the power to fly and quickly if I was going to escape the lying policemen.
Just as they thought they had me I turned around and flew up into the air, flying out over the bay and then dove into the water where I knew I could hold my breathe for days or until they gave up searching for me.
I don’t remember anything after that but eventually the police gave up the search.
They said I’d drowned and the strong currents had washed my body out to sea.
I let everyone believe that because I didn’t think they would be able to accept the truth.
My mum drank even more after I disappeared, and died not long after in a car accident.
My dad married Mrs Murray and they had three kids, living a reasonably happy life until dad died of brain cancer.
Micky was sent to juvenile school where he learnt all sorts of things he’d had never learnt if they’d just given him a warning and sent him back to ordinary school.
He grew up to become a criminal and a good one to, making heaps of money and living the high life until the long, lying hand of the law finally caught up with him and he died in jail after an argument with another criminal over a bar of soap of all things.
The town changed lots too, growing bigger and bigger until it became a city and my neighbourhood was demolished to make way for a freeway leading to the new airport.
I was a kid with superpowers and when I grew up, I was going to save the world from all the evil and injustice.
But if I could have turned back time, I wouldn’t have run from the police and I wouldn’t have dived into the cold waters of the bay that day.
I would have hung up my dreams of being a super hero and just been a normal boy.
I would have tried to help my mum overcome her grief and I would have forgiven my dad.
Instead I’m still holding my breath underwater and no one knows I’m here.