Author: Jeff Hill
Upon waking this morning, I was surprised to feel no different. Angry with the world (and the lack of funds in my bank account), I begrudgingly took my shower and yelled obscenities as my roommate walked past me, laughing at my piss poor mood.
“Didn’t work,” I told him as I walked back into my room.
“Oh, no. That’s horrible, dude,” he said, suddenly wiping the smile off his face.
I got dressed and went out to the kitchen to make a lunch for myself and start cooking breakfast when I realized that he had already done both of those things for me. He sat at the bar and looked up at me, concerned.
“Waste of money. Completely and totally.” I told him.
He thrust his fists onto the table. “I hate them!” he yelled, a little louder than I would have usually expected for this early in the morning.
“I swear,” I start to tell him, “If I could get away with it, I’d march down to that building and burn the place to the ground.”
“Hold on a sec… I’m on it,” he said, jumping up immediately and running past me to the back of the apartment, grabbing his car keys and putting one finger in the air, signaling for me to wait just one minute.
“Weirdo,” I mumbled, starting to feel a sense of justice in the world.
He returned about five minutes later with a giant gas can, empty, and a look of pride on his face.
He turned on the TV.
“Local pharmaceutical company ablaze downtown,” the reporter said. He tossed the empty gas can on the ground.
“Dear God!” I exclaimed. “What is wrong with you! You are insane!”
“Well, yeah. Now I am,” he said, loading his shotgun from behind the kitchen cabinets and aiming directly for me.
His first shot missed, his second grazed my leg and I realized while he reloaded that the pharmacist was right. The scientists weren’t incorrect.
“My powers. They work. I can’t believe this is happening.”
He reloaded and raised the shotgun to my head.
“I believe you.”