Telepathy’s Not My Chosen Superpower

I don’t have to waste a wish on reading anyone’s mind — everyone’s so keen to share their every waking thought, already!

I was jolted from a daydream. “If I had a superpower for just one day…” Think, think, think. Suddenly, my ears were burning. Someone had invoked my name. Oh — “Tag, you’re it!” is it, Timothy Key?

If I had a superpower, one I could choose to have, that is, it would not be telepathy. “It’s a gift,” they tell me. Gift, my ass. It’s more like being prank called, all day, all night — until you yell, “Stop! Take it back! I never asked for this!” You can return your gifts, you know. But now and then, you find them re-gifted, ironically enough, right back to you.

I have another superpower. It’s like being an expert marksman at the most corrupt and confusing carnival joint in the world — the carny keeps moving and shuffling and resizing the target while you shoot rubberbands at it. It’s called being a “writer.” It’s true that the pen is mightier than the sword, if you sharpen the nib and jab it into your opponent just so, right between the third and fourth ribs. Otherwise, it’s a bit hit or miss.

If I could trade one of these for a day, I might wish to throw people, the way a ventriloquist throws their voice. Hear me out: I would throw their minds into other people’s bodies, so that they would literally have to walk a mile in one another’s skin. Not their shoes — that’s a great way to share plantar’s warts. This superpower would, I hope, help me to spread empathy to those who dearly need it.

Another cool superpower I’d love to have? Teleportation. I used to think it would be fun to be invisible, until I realized that was just a symptom of aging womanhood. But what is invisibility — for a day — if you can’t snap your fingers and simply “Poof!” to any spot on the planet? This is the flaw in B. A. Cumberlidge.’s idea : Invisibility, alone, does not cut travel time.

But with teleportation, if you time it right, you don’t even have to be invisible. You can just materialize — right there — and scare the crap out of people. Or, if you’re an older woman, keep your mouth shut and no one will know you’re there! You could attend events all over the planet in a single day, without even having to buy a ticket or take a plane!

Flying would be fun, too, but compared to teleportation, it seems too much like exercise.