Problems choosing a superpower.
“…Consider Simona. He lived on the coast of Mexico around the time of the Spanish invasion. He was a fisherman. He asked for the power to feel the waves and know everything that was going on anywhere in the ocean. He could spot schools of fish a mile away. He could have, if he wanted, spotted Cortes with his fleet in time to save that king with the funny name, the king of the Aztecs. Instead, he spent all of his time just feeling waves. All day. All night. He stopped fishing. All of his family starved to death. He lost track of his roots as a human being and became one with the sea. Now I’m getting to the part of the story which I think you may find hard to believe.
“There was this very large turtle that came ashore to lay her eggs. And Simona fell in love with the turtle. At first he offered the turtle flowers and candy. Then his advances became more insistent. The turtle, who had seen a lot of things over the thousand years she had shuttled back and forth between Mexico and the coast of Africa, did not know what to make of Simona. He seemed a nice enough guy, but would he make a good father to her eggs? One day, suddenly, he came onto her a little too strong, and took her by surprise. She bit him. She was a big turtle, and she took a big bite. If I told you the rest of the story, it would keep you up all night. After a while all that was left of Simona was an ankle bone connected to the foot bone connected to the toe bone. The waves of the sea, the unforgiving sea, lapped at these bones until they were lost forever when a passing gull mistook them for a crustacean and flew away with them.”
“That’s a sad story,” I said.
“I’ve always thought so. Sometimes I tell it to little children when I want to make them cry.” (c) Fredric Neuman