Physics 101 — Superhero Source Salad

And Now I Am Starcrossed

One day you’re taking a turn as cafeteria lunch monitor and the next you’re battling supervillains high above the city and safeguarding your secret identity from relentless hordes of paparazzi with press cards stuck in their fedoras. I’m Starcrossed — welcome to my world.

When it comes down to it, I guess I drink a lot of tea. In the morning, in the afternoon, an evening cup, and many in between when at work or grading papers or relaxing after grading said papers, you can find me with tea. Who knew it could come from tea?

All you have to do is watch the news to see all the ways one gets afflicted with superpowers. You can come from another planet. You can inherit a fortune and hire engineers and researchers to build amazing weapons (then, I imagine, kill them so they don’t tell anyone about you). Or, if you’re strapped for cash, you can just opt into getting close enough to a spider for a good, solid radioactive bite to the hand.

So, full disclosure, I am not an alien. Nor I am an heiress. And for me, getting close to a spider is just no because ew.

You may have guessed by now that my “extended abilities” came from drinking tea.

Getting a kettle going every morning led to my surprise superpowers. Not from accidentally steeping scientifically tainted teabags, or being slipped an ancient, magical blend. In fact, it wasn’t really in the leaves at all. It was the water.

Always leaving a little water behind when I pour a cup, adding water to the kettle is the first thing I do in my tea ritual. So, the water left over from making my last cup mixes with the water added for my next. And THAT was my downfall. Or was it my uplift?

Anyway, adding water to the kettle and boiling it every day all day concentrated the heavy water in ever higher quantities until there was so much deuterium and tritium in my tea I started to glow in the dark.

So it wasn’t that morning cup of Irish breakfast tea, or the last cup of chamomile in the evening. It was the teapot, whistling away all the common water and leaving the “D & T” behind that should have warned me.

But I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t know. And once the nucleosynthesis began, it didn’t matter anymore.

At first, there was the occasional high-pitched speaking in a funny voice. Then all my houseplants started really flourishing in spite of my brown thumb. But when I went to blow out my birthday candles and instead incinerated the table and covered all the party guests with icing and cake, my husband suggested I see a specialist.

We ended up at the clinic housing the Superhero Transition Unit Primary Induction Division (S.T.U.P.I.D.). I had heard about superheroes, of course, and my husband had often tried explaining things about them. Never in my wildest nightmares did I imagine I would become one.

In short, the S.T.U.P.I.D. doctors told me what I have told you. There was something hinky about my teapot that encouraged the concentration of heavy water. In fact, my body was now 70% heavy water. My body had become a vessel for cold fusion.

My husband made a joke about cold fusion and hot birthday cakes, but the medical team ignored him. I mean, his wife had become a walking, talking tokamak, and he tosses out a dad joke when 1) he is not a dad, and 2) Oh my god just stop doing that.

Instead, they proceeded to outline my new life.

Of course, I need to continue drinking tea so that my fusion powers are maintained at full capacity. Whatever nucleosynthesis takes place, whether at low levels while idling or elevated to what I like to call “ramming speed,” I need to replace my internal heavy water supplies. Oh, and I need to stay away from iron. Apparently, iron is my kryptonite.

They also warned me to remain vigilant concerning my archnemesis. They could not predict who it might be, but as it turned out she was a very sweet girl from Texas who had survived a drilling accident. Something about a well explosion and fusion with her DNA and some freak concentrations of dinosaur DNA. I don’t know, it’s all so sciency and stuff. Anyway, that’s Oildrum.

Oildrum’s powers are all smoky and smoggy, flame and flashy too. Even though we’re archenemies at work we still make sure to put on a good show for the normies. We fly around each other in tight knots, dogfighting and making tons of noise

Oildrum leaves a black trail in her wake and rattles like a broken catalytic converter. Sometimes she’ll spell out words in her smoke for the tabloids. Other times, when I don’t feel like giving her all the press, I do a little skywriting, too, leaving ionized air, vapor trails, and heat lightning. I think mine is way more aesthetic.

Some days after a lot of fighting we’ll meet up just to unwind with wine and maybe some finger food. Of course, we’re wearing our secret identities when we go out with each other like this. We have never really been caught together and are so good at being careful even Snopes says we don’t know each other outside super stuff.

So that’s my story. The only thing remaining to tell you is my catchphrase. Whenever I take off I cry out: “Coffee, tea, or me!” I admit this confuses me at least as much as those hearing me say it. But I needed something snappy as I flew off. I figure I’ll use it until I can rebrand myself with something better.

So…until then…Coffee, tea, or me!