Imagine

7. Superpower

Spending the midterm break in the hostel was one of my favorite part of being in boarding school. A lot of people travel home regardless of how far that is, just to get away from the routine of school premises even if it would only last for 3 nights or more for those that always extend any break given to them.

For me, it was my period of hibernation. I spend most of my time in my room either sleeping, reading or daydreaming with the only interruptions being to answer nature's call or to pray. The hostel was mostly always quiet because the rest of the few students around spend their time downstairs in the break room watching TV and when I say watching TV, I mean it literally because regardless of what channel is on, they just sit and watch. It's like their own way of escaping the reality of spending the holidays on school grounds. Others play any games, real or locally invented, they come up with and only join the watchers when an actual movie is playing.

Yes, actual movies are played. Two per day to be precise, one in the morning between 10am and 12noon and the other in the evening between 4.30pm and 6.30pm, one strictly religious and the other anything the seniors or teacher's pet pick up from the DVD collection available and those are usually Indian romance or American action or Filipino mystery thriller that was seized from students that snuck them in at the beginning of the term. Only a few people are left upstairs to do whatever and there's a good and bad side to that: the good side is I get my privacy and quiet time with no unnecessary interruptions for as long as I want and the bad side is someone might see that as an opportunity to either pick a lock and steal something or get some kind of revenge for an old grudge by slashing the victims bed or pillow or making some reparable tears to the victim's uniform or some other petty act that they come up with. Now in the circumstance where something is stolen and the victim reports it to the hostel masters, those of us upstairs are obviously the first suspects so the interrogation starts with us and mostly ends there. Usually, the culprit is never found so they either punish everybody or make it compulsory for us, including the victim to contribute some amount of money until it's enough to buy the stolen item(s).

This particular day seemed to be a good one, everything was fine and I was in my bed staring at the rough cement holding the upper deck and reciting all the phone numbers I knew offhand. I was interrupted by someone who came upstairs to announce to her friend that movie choice for the evening was Krish 3(an Indian superhero movie) and I figured they probably had some kind of agreement before hand. I silently willed her to go away and let the hostel return to it's previous calmness that had me so relaxed.

After they left and I was done reciting all the numbers I knew, which was a lot by the way cos I'd always had a thing for numbers, I let my mind drift off to the movie they chose. I had already seen that and I was sure majority of them had seen it too but like I said, for them, it just felt good watching TV comfortably after a long time with no electronic gadgets except for contrabands and/or the boring phone that our parents usually called on. I replayed the flying, jumping long distances on tall buildings, fighting, romance and the ever present Indian music. I remember once I was seeing an Indian movie and my mom joined me,

"These people sing a lot in their movies, it sends a message that they are happy people" she had commented.
I wondered what kind of superpower I would have if I imagined myself as a superhero. I closed my eyes and let my mind do it's thing.

When I opened my eyes, I was sitting at the edge of the roof of a very tall building in a city that I had definitely never been to in reality. I knew the building was very tall because it was nighttime probably close to 8pm and I could see so many other buildings with their electric bulbs scattered in different ways lighting up the interior and exterior of different kinds of houses, restaurants, stores, commercial buildings and so on. I saw the lighting on a confectionery store and just wished I could have a look at all the goodies it was holding even though I wouldn't be able to taste them cos the one rule of my imagination is to never imagine taste as I just feel like it would ruin my expectations in reality, I sighed in disappointment.

All of a sudden, my body began to vibrate and I held myself trying not to fall forgetting that it wasn't going to be a real fall anyway. When the vibration ceased, I opened my eyes which I don't remember closing and noticed I was on a different building directly facing the confectionery store and my eyes had access to everything it had to offer: different flavours of cupcakes and other sized cakes, different kinds of donuts and glaze, pies of different sizes and shapes, brownies, fudge, candies and so much more. I just sat there and let my eyes feast for as long as it wanted until I remembered what had happened earlier. I thought about it and got a little confused, 'what exactly was my superpower? The ability to teleport? Or the ability to make my wishes come true? Or teleportation based on wishes?' I thought for a while, shrugged it off and decided not to dwell on it. It doesn't matter, either way, I can be wherever I want to be whenever I want so I spent a lot of time going from one place to another without breaking a sweat. I visited roadside bars, clubs, boutiques, restaurants and I made sure to take my time observing the imaginary people and their either boring or entertaining or lonely lives.

After I had my fill, I returned to my starting position, enjoyed the view one last time before returning to my reality.

I opened my eyes to the rough cement and felt good and exhausted at the same so I decided to take a nap. I nodded off as soon as I completed that line of thought into an entirely dreamless sleep.

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Iron Man, Thor or black panther?
Or.... Someone else?