(extra)Normalcy
Mar. 16th, 2011 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlight Yeah, this is kind of bad, but I had the idea, and When Needed just wasn't happening tonight.
Technopathy: the ability to communicate with and manipulate technology.
I had to look the word up online, because it was not in the dictionary my parents own that’s about twenty years of out date. Besides, reverse look up are always difficult in the dictionary, and Google is infinitely faster. Especially, when you don’t even have to touch the computer. Because I don’t need to touch the computer; I just sort of think at it, and it does my will. Call it magic, call it a super power even, but if you know what to call it, you probably know why I don’t want to tell anyone about it.
It’s one of the reasons I’m writing this down in a paper journal, because hey, if I suspected someone was a technopath, I would think they would be confident enough to hide confidential things behind a million fire walls or something. But never a journal that they intend to stick in their wall, or burn should anything ever go wrong.
Like someone finding out.
I’m sure other super powered people exist, I mean, I can’t be the only one that this happened to, because it must have happened before I was born. I mean, I don’t remember getting a particular electrical charge powerful enough to flick a switch on in my brain, or going near a vat of toxic goop, so that must mean I was born like this. And if I was born like this, I must not be the only one; I mean I had to get the matching genes from somewhere, right? (Well, that’s if that’s how genes work, I think it is). But still, it’s hard to imagine what would happen if someone found out.
I mean if super humans do exist, than why haven’t I heard about any? And that’s honestly what worries me, that if there are others than how could one never have made enough metaphorical noise to get caught. And if he/she got caught than why didn’t anyone know about it? I don’t want to say government conspiracy, because it could be anyone really, who tries to take people down just because they are different. And being a superhuman is a big difference.
Maybe not. Maybe I’m over thinking this. I mean, I look like most every other girl I know, save for the minor things like what color my hair or eyes is and are. And I suppose, yeah, there’s the matter of ethnicity, but I’ve never really judged anyone by the color of their skin or where they came from (I do have a bad habit of judging tem by their IQs though). But for the most part, I don’t have “SUPER HUMAN,” written across my head. I look, well, normal.
And for that matter, I don’t like the term “super.” I looked it up just now (thanks again, Google), and it means, “of a high quality,” which I don’t think people with extra abilities are necessarily just by definition. I also looked up “meta,” another word for people with powers , which is a term to help define abstract concepts, although the root is something like, “after,” or “beyond.” I don’t think that quite fits either, because saying that we’re after humans, or beyond them is like saying we’re super. I also don’t think I’m that abstract.
I mean, am I? I’m still five foot seven inches, brown hair, green eyes, and I can just make technology bend to my will, I mean, that’s not so abstract, is it? It’s pretty concrete to me, pretty real. It is me.
I’m not really talking about much, am I? Of course, I am also talking to a journal, so ranting might be okay. Maybe I need a good rant. Because I’ve been holding this in for so long, just trying to say, “Hey, I’m not exactly like you think I am. I’m meta or super or extra normal.”
Hey, extra’s not that bad. It just means we have more than we need. And as far as I know, I don’t need to control computers to survive.
My hand was cramping up, so I stopped for a little while, and then Mom called me down to dinner. But what do you care, you’re a journal! You have no sense of time!
Maybe what I need is time. Time to understand all of this. Time to go back and relieve every moment, before my power fully realized itself a couple of years ago (since you have no sense of time, I should let you know that I’m eighteen). I mean, I could do some pretty astounding things with computers when I was a kid. And everything always worked for me, no matter how bad it would be for someone else. But then I started doing it consciously.
I think the first time was when I was tired: I had gone through and done all of my nightly homework and then needed to type up a mostly written essay I had. And I just kind of rested my head in front of the computer, and when I looked up, a document was writing itself, but stopped when I saw it, like it was ashamed of something. And then I thought about writing in the document, and what sentence I wanted and it was that simple, it started writing. I’m not sure if extra normal powers are supposed to be that easy, but mine was, or nearly. I had to communicate through different wiring systems at first, but pretty soon, I could control almost any machine and I didn’t even have to look at it.
I got bad ideas form TV though. You’d think technopathy wouldn’t be such a popular power, but it kind of is. There were all these suggestions like hacking, or taking money from ATMs. I think I might have changed a few of my grades once, and I probably got a little lucky with some twenties at an ATM after that. I felt really bad, but not bad enough to give up the money (and the teacher in that class was kind of a douche, so I just pretended I was surprised).
I think someone might have noticed. We were in the computer lab for web design, and I finished early with what we were doing (and I always do), so I was kind of looking around and I noticed one of the guys staring at me. He only transferred in at the beginning of the year, and this was the first class I had had with him, though I had seen him around, before now. And when I looked up from my work, he was just staring at me. And not in the, he was admiring my feminine curves kind of way.
It was just this unending, unnerving stare, and I just couldn’t understand what he was trying to see. Until I realized I was running the computer just by thinking and not even really pretending to type. He wouldn’t have really been able to see my screen though, because we’re in the same row. And I looked around and everyone else was more interested in their websites or goofing off. He looked away a little while after I noticed him, and I don’t know what he did after I bolted from the class room when the bell rang. I barely gave myself time to stop by my locker and get my books, and didn’t bother with my instrument. I just got to the bus as fast as I could, and was grateful that I didn’t even see him after that.
I am now trying to concentrate on Calculus, but that hadn’t been working, so I decided to write it down and see if it would help get it out of my head. I’m going to try to go back to homework now and see if it worked at all.
It didn’t.
He cornered me before school today.
“I need to talk to you.” I tried not to make a face when he said it, but I still felt my face heat up.
“Yeah?”
“I know you can do…things.” He sort of shrugged as he said it, like he had nothing better to do.
“Things? You wanna talk about this, and all you can think to say is things?” I asked.
“Well, what do you call it?” he retorted.
“An extranormal ability,” I said.
“Couldn’t you just have gone with superpower?”
“That sounds a little pretentious, doesn’t it? But all right, you know, so what?” He ground his teeth so loudly I could hear him, and he cracked one fist of knuckles in the other.
“I’m…extranormal too.” He held out his hand, and a spark appeared which quickly grew into a flame with the air around it. I hissed at him, and grabbed his hand. He dropped the flame and it fell to the ground where he stomped it out. “Like that’s any better than what you can do.”
“I control technology; my ability can be much more subtle,” I said. “Now why exactly did you want to tell me this?”
“Because there are others like us.”
“Duh.”
“What do you mean duh?” He raised his voice, and we both looked to see if anyone had noticed but we were standing off to the side of a crowded common area, so no one really bothered to look. “You know other… extra normals?”
“Well, not personally, but I figured the ability had to come from somewhere so there had to be some others who had abilities like mine.”
“You didn’t just think it was some sort of cosmic accident?” he asked. “That, I don’t know, you were electrocuted and suddenly had these powers.”
“I don’t think much of cosmic accidents,” I said. “And as far as I could recall nothing ever really strange ever happened to me, so I figured it had to be inherited. So what, you want to include me in your little Extranormal group to do, what exactly?”
“Well, I don’t know, we all just kind of talk,” he said. “I mean we show off our powers and everything, but we don’t really do much beyond that. Why what were you thinking of? Fighting crime?”
“I’m just trying to make sure that you guys aren’t the types that rob banks or anything. You never know what kind of ideas people get from TV and stuff.”
“I don’t think anyone’s that stupid.”
“There’s always someone that stupid.” He scoffed.
“You say you don’t believe in cosmic accidents, like you have this great faith in humanity, but you believe that there will always be someone to sink to that level?”
“As long as there are people who don’t want to try not to sink to that level, then yes, there will always be a person who tries stupidest things,” I said. “So are you inviting me to extra normal group therapy then?”
“Look, if you’re going to make fun of it, then you really shouldn’t come.”
“Hey, I’m not trying to make fun of it, but you haven’t exactly told me what you want out of this whole deal yet, so I’m just trying to fill in the gaps.” He rolled his eyes and started grinding his teeth again.
“Yeah, I guess I’m trying to invite you to group therapy. You don’t have to be such a smart ass, though.”
“Well, there’s a role for everyone.” He glared.
“Doesn’t mean it has to be you.”
“All right, I’ll try. So when does the extra normal society meet?” I asked. He slipped off his back pack and pulled out a black sheet of paper and a pen, using the outer brick wall of the school to write down an address. He handed over the barely legible page and asked,
“Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah,” I said. It was relatively close to my side of town, so I could bike there if I had the directions.
“We meet every Thursday, so tomorrow.”
“Cool,” I said, folding the paper into tiny squares and sticking it in my jeans pocket. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“It’s Brenton Smith, you?”
“Michaela Stone. Nice to meet you.”
3/16/11 WC: 2032
Piece Count: Same
Project Count: 36834
Just Finished: The History of Women's Underwear by Muriel Barbier & Shazia Boucher
Technopathy: the ability to communicate with and manipulate technology.
I had to look the word up online, because it was not in the dictionary my parents own that’s about twenty years of out date. Besides, reverse look up are always difficult in the dictionary, and Google is infinitely faster. Especially, when you don’t even have to touch the computer. Because I don’t need to touch the computer; I just sort of think at it, and it does my will. Call it magic, call it a super power even, but if you know what to call it, you probably know why I don’t want to tell anyone about it.
It’s one of the reasons I’m writing this down in a paper journal, because hey, if I suspected someone was a technopath, I would think they would be confident enough to hide confidential things behind a million fire walls or something. But never a journal that they intend to stick in their wall, or burn should anything ever go wrong.
Like someone finding out.
I’m sure other super powered people exist, I mean, I can’t be the only one that this happened to, because it must have happened before I was born. I mean, I don’t remember getting a particular electrical charge powerful enough to flick a switch on in my brain, or going near a vat of toxic goop, so that must mean I was born like this. And if I was born like this, I must not be the only one; I mean I had to get the matching genes from somewhere, right? (Well, that’s if that’s how genes work, I think it is). But still, it’s hard to imagine what would happen if someone found out.
I mean if super humans do exist, than why haven’t I heard about any? And that’s honestly what worries me, that if there are others than how could one never have made enough metaphorical noise to get caught. And if he/she got caught than why didn’t anyone know about it? I don’t want to say government conspiracy, because it could be anyone really, who tries to take people down just because they are different. And being a superhuman is a big difference.
Maybe not. Maybe I’m over thinking this. I mean, I look like most every other girl I know, save for the minor things like what color my hair or eyes is and are. And I suppose, yeah, there’s the matter of ethnicity, but I’ve never really judged anyone by the color of their skin or where they came from (I do have a bad habit of judging tem by their IQs though). But for the most part, I don’t have “SUPER HUMAN,” written across my head. I look, well, normal.
And for that matter, I don’t like the term “super.” I looked it up just now (thanks again, Google), and it means, “of a high quality,” which I don’t think people with extra abilities are necessarily just by definition. I also looked up “meta,” another word for people with powers , which is a term to help define abstract concepts, although the root is something like, “after,” or “beyond.” I don’t think that quite fits either, because saying that we’re after humans, or beyond them is like saying we’re super. I also don’t think I’m that abstract.
I mean, am I? I’m still five foot seven inches, brown hair, green eyes, and I can just make technology bend to my will, I mean, that’s not so abstract, is it? It’s pretty concrete to me, pretty real. It is me.
I’m not really talking about much, am I? Of course, I am also talking to a journal, so ranting might be okay. Maybe I need a good rant. Because I’ve been holding this in for so long, just trying to say, “Hey, I’m not exactly like you think I am. I’m meta or super or extra normal.”
Hey, extra’s not that bad. It just means we have more than we need. And as far as I know, I don’t need to control computers to survive.
My hand was cramping up, so I stopped for a little while, and then Mom called me down to dinner. But what do you care, you’re a journal! You have no sense of time!
Maybe what I need is time. Time to understand all of this. Time to go back and relieve every moment, before my power fully realized itself a couple of years ago (since you have no sense of time, I should let you know that I’m eighteen). I mean, I could do some pretty astounding things with computers when I was a kid. And everything always worked for me, no matter how bad it would be for someone else. But then I started doing it consciously.
I think the first time was when I was tired: I had gone through and done all of my nightly homework and then needed to type up a mostly written essay I had. And I just kind of rested my head in front of the computer, and when I looked up, a document was writing itself, but stopped when I saw it, like it was ashamed of something. And then I thought about writing in the document, and what sentence I wanted and it was that simple, it started writing. I’m not sure if extra normal powers are supposed to be that easy, but mine was, or nearly. I had to communicate through different wiring systems at first, but pretty soon, I could control almost any machine and I didn’t even have to look at it.
I got bad ideas form TV though. You’d think technopathy wouldn’t be such a popular power, but it kind of is. There were all these suggestions like hacking, or taking money from ATMs. I think I might have changed a few of my grades once, and I probably got a little lucky with some twenties at an ATM after that. I felt really bad, but not bad enough to give up the money (and the teacher in that class was kind of a douche, so I just pretended I was surprised).
I think someone might have noticed. We were in the computer lab for web design, and I finished early with what we were doing (and I always do), so I was kind of looking around and I noticed one of the guys staring at me. He only transferred in at the beginning of the year, and this was the first class I had had with him, though I had seen him around, before now. And when I looked up from my work, he was just staring at me. And not in the, he was admiring my feminine curves kind of way.
It was just this unending, unnerving stare, and I just couldn’t understand what he was trying to see. Until I realized I was running the computer just by thinking and not even really pretending to type. He wouldn’t have really been able to see my screen though, because we’re in the same row. And I looked around and everyone else was more interested in their websites or goofing off. He looked away a little while after I noticed him, and I don’t know what he did after I bolted from the class room when the bell rang. I barely gave myself time to stop by my locker and get my books, and didn’t bother with my instrument. I just got to the bus as fast as I could, and was grateful that I didn’t even see him after that.
I am now trying to concentrate on Calculus, but that hadn’t been working, so I decided to write it down and see if it would help get it out of my head. I’m going to try to go back to homework now and see if it worked at all.
It didn’t.
He cornered me before school today.
“I need to talk to you.” I tried not to make a face when he said it, but I still felt my face heat up.
“Yeah?”
“I know you can do…things.” He sort of shrugged as he said it, like he had nothing better to do.
“Things? You wanna talk about this, and all you can think to say is things?” I asked.
“Well, what do you call it?” he retorted.
“An extranormal ability,” I said.
“Couldn’t you just have gone with superpower?”
“That sounds a little pretentious, doesn’t it? But all right, you know, so what?” He ground his teeth so loudly I could hear him, and he cracked one fist of knuckles in the other.
“I’m…extranormal too.” He held out his hand, and a spark appeared which quickly grew into a flame with the air around it. I hissed at him, and grabbed his hand. He dropped the flame and it fell to the ground where he stomped it out. “Like that’s any better than what you can do.”
“I control technology; my ability can be much more subtle,” I said. “Now why exactly did you want to tell me this?”
“Because there are others like us.”
“Duh.”
“What do you mean duh?” He raised his voice, and we both looked to see if anyone had noticed but we were standing off to the side of a crowded common area, so no one really bothered to look. “You know other… extra normals?”
“Well, not personally, but I figured the ability had to come from somewhere so there had to be some others who had abilities like mine.”
“You didn’t just think it was some sort of cosmic accident?” he asked. “That, I don’t know, you were electrocuted and suddenly had these powers.”
“I don’t think much of cosmic accidents,” I said. “And as far as I could recall nothing ever really strange ever happened to me, so I figured it had to be inherited. So what, you want to include me in your little Extranormal group to do, what exactly?”
“Well, I don’t know, we all just kind of talk,” he said. “I mean we show off our powers and everything, but we don’t really do much beyond that. Why what were you thinking of? Fighting crime?”
“I’m just trying to make sure that you guys aren’t the types that rob banks or anything. You never know what kind of ideas people get from TV and stuff.”
“I don’t think anyone’s that stupid.”
“There’s always someone that stupid.” He scoffed.
“You say you don’t believe in cosmic accidents, like you have this great faith in humanity, but you believe that there will always be someone to sink to that level?”
“As long as there are people who don’t want to try not to sink to that level, then yes, there will always be a person who tries stupidest things,” I said. “So are you inviting me to extra normal group therapy then?”
“Look, if you’re going to make fun of it, then you really shouldn’t come.”
“Hey, I’m not trying to make fun of it, but you haven’t exactly told me what you want out of this whole deal yet, so I’m just trying to fill in the gaps.” He rolled his eyes and started grinding his teeth again.
“Yeah, I guess I’m trying to invite you to group therapy. You don’t have to be such a smart ass, though.”
“Well, there’s a role for everyone.” He glared.
“Doesn’t mean it has to be you.”
“All right, I’ll try. So when does the extra normal society meet?” I asked. He slipped off his back pack and pulled out a black sheet of paper and a pen, using the outer brick wall of the school to write down an address. He handed over the barely legible page and asked,
“Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah,” I said. It was relatively close to my side of town, so I could bike there if I had the directions.
“We meet every Thursday, so tomorrow.”
“Cool,” I said, folding the paper into tiny squares and sticking it in my jeans pocket. “What’s your name, by the way?”
“It’s Brenton Smith, you?”
“Michaela Stone. Nice to meet you.”
3/16/11 WC: 2032
Piece Count: Same
Project Count: 36834
Just Finished: The History of Women's Underwear by Muriel Barbier & Shazia Boucher
