“I was in my element.” – Gabe Cordell

“Powerful Being”

 

Fiction. Based on a True Superpower

By Charlie

This journal entry is inspired by true events. Some of the characters, names, businesses, incidents, and certain locations and events have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Any similarity to the name, character or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Trigger Warning: our program often motivates people to discuss their trauma. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, please, take a step back to address emotional flashbacks and trauma before continuing to push yourself. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or the National Suicide Hotline at (1-800) 273-8255.

When I was seven years old, I fell out of a tree. The shame was that I knew the tree. I’d climbed it so many times that I could do it in my sleep. Still, somehow I fell. 

There was this cement bench under the tree that broke my fall. It also left a hole in my forehead about the size of a quarter. I could look straight down to the white meat. That’s how deep the hole was.

Something happened to me after that. Crowds began to bother me. This person was sad. That person was happy. This person was good, and the person talking to my mama was evil. I knew that. How could I know that? 

I didn’t tell anybody. I kept quiet. How do you tell people that not only do you sense other people’s emotions but you also see them in colors? Later, I’d find out that it is called auras, but that’s not the point. I had no way to talk about what I was experiencing. If I were to go all sociological, I’d have to explain how my culture does not have a community where things like this are talked about and accepted, but I won’t do that. I don’t have the breath. 

I grew to ostracize myself. I sat apart from the crowd. I wasn’t normal, or at least that’s what I told myself. 

At nineteen, without warning, I leveled up. My best friend passed away. I believe that at the moment of his death, he came to me. I jumped up from my bed covered from head to toe with sweat. 

“It’s okay,” something said. “Go back to sleep,” and I did. I was sure that it wasn’t a dream. The morning that followed was a nightmare. 

At twenty-one, I went to a technical college to study massage therapy. This is where I learned of the source of my perception, the Third Eye Chakra. I learned that this particular wheel of energy was located between the eyebrows. Its color was purple, and it had something to do with perception. I used it, played with it, tried to balance it. But I was so busy learning other things that I couldn’t focus on just one source of energy. 

It may even be fair to say that I ignored my intuition. You can’t be twenty-one and still believe that you’re a forest fairy or some shit. So, I ignored all the signs, and lived my life. I’m still paying for that. 

The last few years, it’s been impossible to ignore. It’s like every three hundred and sixty five days my powers (if I can call it that) level up. I’ve been everywhere. From catching glimpses of demons scurrying away in the night, to somehow pissing off the ghost of a writer whose home I’d invaded. My most vivid… experience came on my way to work in 2018.

There I was going down the highway when I noticed a white SUV in the opposite lane holding up traffic on its side. The driver brought his vehicle to a complete stop. His light-colored eyes raced from side to side in the rearview mirror. 

When I passed him, I saw a brown dog laying on the side of the road. His fluffy tail was rising up and down weakly in the air. I didn’t stop to help. 

After I made it to work, I got out and headed across the parking lot. Something caught my eye. A brown dog was leisurely running towards me. Tongue hanging, brown, fluffy tail wagging. I don’t know if it was fear or amazement that froze me. All I know is that I couldn’t move, but I had to keep looking because it kept coming. Closer and closer it came. Then it just… disappeared, right in front of me. 

I hung my head and stepped in the building, ready to clock in. My boss, who’d been looking at me from the window asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” I said. 

“Yes, it is. What’d you see?” I hesitated, surprised and maybe even a little embarrassed that someone had seen me.

“Nothing, ” I replied, denying my power for the umpteenth time. But how do you tell someone that you saw a fucking ghost dog? It doesn’t roll off the tongue well.

It’s time I stop denying, stop lying, stop hiding from my power.  Something happened to me when I fell out of that tree all those years ago. My third eye was opened, and like Miroku’s Wind Tunnel, it’s just going to keep growing.   

The truth is that I can sense and sometimes see the spiritual energies of the people I meet. I’m able to pick up on the frequencies that exist in other realms. There have even been times when little insignificant things line up and warn me of the future just before it happens. It’s weird. I’m weird. But, it’s not hurting anybody. So, if calling it a power helps me make sense of it, if it allows me to love myself more, then so be it. It’s a fucking super power. 

I am a powerful being.