Curse of the Superpower

                If you could have a superpower what would it be?  Would you want to be able to turn invisible? Or maybe fly?  How about being able to walk through walls? Or maybe even super strength? And if you had a superpower what would you do with it?  Would you use it to do good or would you use it to do evil? Would you even use your superpower at all? What if your superpower was really a curse?

My name is Cody Jones and I have a superpower. This is my story.

                It all started a couple years ago when I was playing soccer in the high school state championship game.  It was raining that day.  It wasn’t a bad storm, just a steady rain and a light wind. My team was doing well.  We were up 1-0 with ten minutes left in the game. It was an intense game.  With the field conditions starting to get bad, my team knew we had to play twice as hard to keep the lead.  The other team was throwing everything they had at us. I was playing defense at the time and the other team was on the attack.  That is when it happened.  My life was changed forever. 

                I was chasing down someone that had a fast break when something hit me.  It felt like I was hit by a truck.  I was knocked backwards several feet.  The sound of the collision was horrendous.  It sounded like a bomb exploding right next to me. Once the initial shock of getting hit was over, the pain set in.  My whole body felt like it was on fire.  I tried to get up but I couldn’t move.  So I just laid there wondering why no one was coming to my aid. After a minute I was able to turn my head to the side.  What I saw was shocking.  Everyone on the field seemed to have been knocked down.  Some people were starting to get up and others weren’t moving at all. I tried to get up one more time but I couldn’t. I looked up into the sky again and that is when everything went dark.

                When I woke up I was lying in a hospital bed. The lights were off and the only sound I could hear was coming from the heart monitor. I tried to sit up but I still couldn’t move.

                “Your awake!” said a nurse as she came into the room to check on me.  “There are going to be some very happy people when they hear the good news.  How are you feeling?”

                “W-w-what-t happened?” I stuttered. “Did we win?”

                The nurse laughed. “Just like a jock to wonder how the game ended when they were almost killed playing it. But since I know you will worry yourself to death until you get an answer then I will tell you.  Your team won.”

                “Sweet! What happened? How did I get here?” I asked.

                “Well,” said the nurse, “you were struck by lightning.  You are lucky to be alive.”

                “Lightning? Really? I didn’t see any lightning. I thought I got hit by a truck or something.” There was no way I could have been hit by lightning.  Sure it was raining but there was no lightning.  I would have noticed lightning.

                “I am sure.  I saw the video of it hitting you.  It struck you in your chest. That is why you are so lucky to be alive.  That much electricity hitting your heart would normally stop it for sure.  But you survived.  You are one lucky kid.”

                “Video? I want to see this video,” I said.  I still didn’t believe I had been struck by lightning. The nurse turned on the T.V. and sure enough there it was.  The story was all over the news.  I watched in unbelief as I got struck by lightning over and over again on the news. Doctors that were being interviewed were baffled at how I survived. They all said it was impossible for me to survive a strike like that.  But I did.

                The next few weeks were a nightmare.  Doctors were constantly performing tests on me.  News reporters were hounding me as often as they could. People who didn’t even know me wanted to visit me so they could say they met “Lightning Boy”. That is what people started calling me.  At that time they didn’t know how appropriate the name they gave me was.

                I tried to get my life back to normal after I was released from the hospital.  But that didn’t work out so well.  I was an instant celebrity. Everyone knew who I was. Even though I was a nerd before I got struck, now I was counted among the cool kids.  I didn’t like it at all.  I wanted my old life back.  But then one day something happened that made me change my mind.  It was the day that Sarah came over and talked to me.  I have had a crush on her for a long time but never had the nerve to ask her out. My heat was ready to explode with joy when she showed interest in me. I thought my life could never get better.  I was popular.  I had the girl of my dreams.  Life was great.

                That is when weird things started happening. One day I was walking down the hall with Sarah and ran into some guys bullying my friend, Gus. I wasn’t going to stand for that so I stepped in.  “Leave him alone!” I yelled. “He hasn’t done anything to you!”

                “Oh?” said John.  “He has done something to us.  He was born. So now he has to pay for his parent’s mistake. Now get lost or your next.”

                “I said to leave him alone, John.”

                “Make me!”

                John let go of Gus and started towards me. I stood my ground knowing that I was going to get a pounding. John threw his first punch at my face but before his fist connected with my face I pushed him in the chest and he was knocked backwards so he missed.  This infuriated him so he came at me with all he had.  A strange feeling took over my body.  It wasn’t fear.  I felt like I was energized. I decided to take a swing at John to see if I could do anything at all to stop him.  I hit him in the stomach.  It wasn’t a very strong punch but he went flying backwards.  At the same time there was a giant spark of electricity.  Where I hit him there was a hole burned into his shirt. Somehow I had shocked him with a very large static charge.

                John got up with a crazy look in his eyes.  “You are going to die, freak!” he yelled at me as he came at me. “You will regret that you ever touched me.”

                I pointed my finger at John and yelled for him to stop but he just kept coming. The next thing I knew there was a bolt of electricity that shot out of my finger and hit John in the chest. He fell to the ground and didn’t get up again. I was as stunned as everyone around me with what happened.  I have no idea how I did it.  But it happened. John lay on the ground not moving.  I thought I had killed him until he started moaning. I decided it was time for me to leave.

                From that moment on it seemed like I was always full of electricity.  Whenever I touched electronics of any kind I would end up destroying them with a shock. When I touched anyone I would shock them. People no longer counted me as one of the cool kids.  Now I was a freak that everyone avoided.  Even Sarah left me because she was tired of getting shocked all the time.  I was heartbroken. I wanted to drop out of school but my parents wouldn’t let me.  So I would go to school and sit off in the corner of all my classes.  I avoided everyone. My life went from spectacular to extremely lonely.

                I started to wonder if this is how all superheroes felt. Alone. Rejected by society. I didn’t have a superpower.  I had a supercurse. It had destroyed my life completely. I wished that I could have gotten rid of it.  I even had times when I wished that I had died when the lightning hit me.  Then I would be in a better place where people didn’t shun me because I was different.

                One evening just before the school year ended, I was sitting on my front porch wallowing in my sorrow when I heard someone walking towards me.  I looked up and saw that it was Kay.  She lived two houses down. I wondered what she wanted.

                “Did you come to look at the freak?” I asked her.

                “Freak?  You aren’t a freak. I just wanted to see how you were doing. I saw you here all alone and thought you could use some company. You seem lonely.” Kay looked at me and smiled as she sat down next to me. “What does it feel like, you know, to be struck by lightning?”

                “Do you really want to know?” I asked impatiently.

                “I really do.  And you don’t have to be so mean to me.  I am just trying to be your friend,” she said.

                I looked Kay in the eyes and asked, “Really?  You want to be my friend?”

                “Yes.”

                “Why? I am a loser. A nobody.  No one likes me.  No one wants me anywhere near them. So why would you want to be my friend?”

                “Cody, you are not a loser.  You are just different.  I like different. Different is good. So do you want to be friends or not?” The look in Kay’s eyes showed no lie.

                “Sure, I guess,” I said. “If you want to be. I am ok with that. It hurts.”

                “What?” she asked.

                “It hurts. To get hit by lightning hurts.  A lot.  I think I would have rather died than feel the pain,” I said.

                “Well, I am glad that you didn’t die. You are special, Cody.  You may not see it but I do. This world still has a need for you.” Kay put her hand on my shoulder but pulled it back with a jerk. “Ouch! You shocked me.”

                “Sorry.  I do that to anyone that touches me.  It is part of this curse I have. Why do you think no one wants to be around me? “

                “Well, I don’t care if you shock me.  I want to be around you. And don’t worry.  It didn’t hurt too badly.  No different than a static shock. So why do you think you have all this electricity in your body all the time? Does it hurt when you shock people? Do you think you will be this way the rest of your life?”

                “To answer your questions, I don’t know, no and I sure hope not,” I said. “It does feel weird having all this electricity in me. I wonder if this is how a battery would feel if they had feelings.” Kay just looked at me and laughed.  I will never forget that smile. Something inside me sparked when I saw it.  And it wasn’t just the electricity flowing through me.  It was something more powerful than electricity.  But at the time I didn’t know what it was.

                A crazy look came across Kay’s face. “Hold my hand,” she said. “I want to try something.”

                “You want to get shocked? Are you nuts?”

                “No.  I want to see what happens if I continue to touch you. You know.  After the initial shock. Will I keep getting shocked or will it just flow through me and not do anything to me? Let’s give it a try and find out.” Kay reached out her hand. Slowly I reached out. I didn’t want to hurt her. But before I could pull away she grabbed my hand. “AAAHHH! It hurts!” she screamed. I tried to pull my hand away but she held it tight. I looked at her and found that she was laughing. “Gotcha! It doesn’t hurt at all.  I don’t feel a thing, other than your hand of course. So I would say that the experiment went quite well. Don’t you think?”

                From that moment on the two of us were inseparable. Kay didn’t seem to mind all the teasing and taunting she got from being my friend.  I was shocked at how mean people were to her. They came up with all kinds of cruel names for her. They would joke about her only hanging out with me because she needed someone to power her hair dryer, or charge her cell phone or even worse things.  But she took it all with a grain of salt. I was the one that had a hard time with it. I didn’t like seeing people make fun of my friend like that. Especially since it was because she was my friend that she was being teased. I spent many long nights wondering how I could get people to stop teasing her.  But nothing I tried worked.  It usually made things worse. So I stopped trying even though I would still sit up at night thinking about ways to make it stop. If only I could get rid of my curse.  Then it would all stop and people would have no reason to tease Kay any more. But everything I have tried hasn’t worked.  I even jumped in a lake once hoping it would cause all the electricity in me surge out.  I didn’t care if it killed me.  I just wanted it out of me.  But nothing happened.

                As time went by I learned to live with my curse. The people around me moved on to other things and didn’t bother to go out of their way to tease me or Kay any more. They just pretended we weren’t there.  But that suited us just fine.  We were happy.  And that is all that mattered to us. Heck, I even stated to find advantages to my curse.  If the power ever went out then I could just pick up a light bulb and we would have light.  It also came in handy on camping trips.  I could start a camp fire without matches.  It was great. My life was good again and I didn’t want it to ever change.

                But my life did change. And not in a good way.

                It was a stormy evening in the fall when my world was once again turned upside down. Kay and I were driving home from a school dance in a torrential rain storm.  The rain was coming down so hard you could barely see the road. We were driving slowly down the road when we saw lights coming our way.  They were coming fast.  A semi truck was going way too fast for these conditions.  As the truck approached he hit a huge puddle in the road. This caused him to hydroplane. He swerved right in front of us. I tried to dodge the truck but I wasn’t able to. We collided head on. All I remember was the screeching of metal being crushed and torn apart. And the scream that came from Kay, a scream of terror that nearly ripped my heart out. Then everything went dark.

                When I woke up I was on my back with rain hitting me in the face. I looked around and saw the destruction.  There were people all around.  I got up (against many people’s protests) and started looking for Kay. I found a group of people in the process of pulling her out of the car.  She was hurt badly. I ran over to her and found that she was unconscious.

                “Kay!” I yelled. “Wake up. Kay!” The people laid her on the ground and one man checked for a pulse.  He couldn’t find one. “Kay! Don’t you dare die on me.  You can’t leave me,” I shouted at her. “I need you.  I can’t live without you. Kay! I love you! Don’t leave me.” Tears came to my eyes. I was lost.  The one person that had meant the word to me was lying on the ground dead. This couldn’t be. No.  I wasn’t going to let it happen.  “Hang on, Kay.  I am going to try an experiment and it is going to work. You’ll see.  I am going to save you.  Hang on.”

                I quickly placed my hands on her heart and willed myself to shock her. Nothing happened. “Come on,” I said to myself. “This will work.  I know it will.” I tried again.  Nothing.  With one last determined push I tried again.  This time I shocked her.  Not a little static shock. But a real shock.  Her body convulsed from the electricity going through her. But she didn’t have a pulse.  I shocked her again. This time her heart started beating again.

                “Kay, can you hear me? Kay? Talk to me, Kay.”

                She opened her eyes and smiled at me.  “I was having the most wonderful dream.  Why did you wake me up? And why am I lying on my back out in the rain with all of these people around me? What is going…” She wasn’t able to finish.  She cried out in pain. I was so focused on keeping her alive I didn’t notice that she was severely injured.  She had a gash on her forehead and I could tell that she had several broken bones.  She was in bad shape and needed to get to a hospital right away. Fortunately I could hear the ambulance approaching. I knew she would make it through.

                I was climbing into the ambulance to head to the hospital with Kay when all of a sudden everything went black. I woke up to a familiar sight. I was lying in a hospital bed. I wasn’t alone this time.  There sleeping in a chair by my bedside was Kay. Her head was bandaged and her arm was in a sling.  She looked as though she were having a bad dream. “Kay, wake up,” I whispered to her.

                When she opened her eyes and saw me awake a huge smile came to her face.  “It is about time you woke up sleepy head.  You were starting to worry me.”

                “How long have I been out?” I tried to sit up but found that I couldn’t. “And why can’t I sit up?”

                “You have been in a coma for two weeks now. The doctors didn’t think you would even wake up. And they said if you do they don’t know if you will have full use of your body.  Cody, you were struck by lightning again. I saw it happen.  You were climbing into the ambulance when a bolt hit you in the back of the head.  It was horrible.  Your body went limp and you fell out of the back of the ambulance. I am so glad you are awake and talking.  I have been so scared.  The doctors said you shouldn’t have survived at all. How are you feeling?”

                “I feel like I was hit by a truck.” Kay laughed at that.  I had been hit by a truck. And lightning.

                I was released from the hospital a week later.  I was fully recovered.  The doctors couldn’t explain how I had survived unscathed. It didn’t make sense to them.  I don’t know how it happened either.  But I didn’t come away unscathed.   I no longer had my curse. Well, I didn’t call it a curse any more. My power had saved Kay’s life.  That means it was a superpower. It saved the best thing that ever happened to me.

                A few years later, on the day of our wedding Kay asked me, “Do you miss it? You know, your power?”

                “Sometimes. I think that I was given that power to do something and when that something was completed the power was taken away because I didn’t need it any more.”

                “And what was that something? Do you know?” asked Kay.

                “I think that the power was needed to bring us together. If I didn’t have it would you have ever talked to me? We lived by each other for years and yet we had never talked to each other. I think my power was to get us to this point in our life.  Now that we are here we have to do things together without any superpowers to keep us together.”

                “I think that your power has been replaced by a different power,” said Kay. “It is a power that has brought us together here today.”

                “And what would that power be?” I asked.

                “You really don’t know?  You are such a guy.  The power is love. Love is the only power we need.”

If you could have a superpower what would it be?  Would you want to be able to turn invisible? Or maybe fly?  How about being able to walk through walls? Or maybe even super strength? And if you had a superpower what would you do with it?  Would you use it to do good or would you use it to do evil? Would you even use your superpower at all?

My name is Cody Jones and I have a superpower.