Complex Numbers

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It's been said that everyone has a superpower.

PROMPT November 22^nd

You have found that you can do something no one else can do. What is this special talent you have? Would it be considered a 'Super Power'? If you could have chosen this special ability, what would it be?

Still, the idea that "no one else can do" what you do is farfetched. The world population is damn near 8 billion now, which is a number you can hear bandied around a lot, but we don't really have a grasp on it.

If you counted to 8 billion, one number per second, it would take you just over 250 years.

If someone describes you as "one in a million," then they're saying that there are 8,000 people just like you in the world.

Some few people manage to stand out, for whatever reason. Jeff Bezos' superpower seems to be amassing wealth (obviously, supervillains have powers too; I mean, shit, the guy even looks like Lex Luthor). But other people are almost as wealthy. I remember reading about someone who scaled Mount Everest without support oxygen. But other people can do that, too. Some free-divers can hold their breath for minutes -- again, not unique, even if there's one who holds the record. And those people who go ice swimming? Having anti-freeze in your veins is basically superhuman.

It's not unreasonable to believe that we all have some extraordinary quality or ability, but it is unreasonable to expect that no one else has the same power.

I had a friend who thought my superpower was punning. While true, I'm certainly not the only punster in the world, and yes, the others annoy me just as much as I annoy you. Besides, I make an effort to tone it down, like how Clark Kent has to tone down his handshakes so people don't find out he's Superman.

But I think my actual superpower is drinking.

Not quantity, though. A lot of other people can, and do, drink way more than I do, and I'm really not interested in competing at that, because I usually drink more for the taste than to achieve an altered state (that's just a side effect). No, my superpower is being able to drink multiple different drinks, in any order.

There's a saying people have: "Beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you're in the clear." I had to look it up just now, though, because I can never get it right -- and the reason I can never get it right is it doesn't apply to me. It's not that I never get sick or hung over; far from it. It's because the order in which I drink things appears to be irrelevant to the intensity of the effect.

Now, maybe the saying is bullshit in general; I don't know. It's possible that there's a psychosomatic effect involved, too, kind of like the placebo effect, where if you believe it, it becomes true. And as I said, I'm under no illusion that I'm the only one who can do this. But it's a useful talent, anyway.

Still. If I could have chosen a superpower, it would have been total recall. Not of life experiences; there are some I'm glad to have mostly forgotten. But of books, movies, music, etc. Many's the time I've remembered how much I liked or disliked a unit of entertainment, but when pressed, I couldn't come up with a single thing to support my reaction. It would be nice to be able to say more than just "Yeah, I read that, I don't remember what happened or who the characters were, but I didn't like it."

I know, I know, this is probably incompatible with the drinking thing, but as I already have two superpowers, it would be greedy of me to want three.

Or, you know. Being rich would be a nice superpower to have. I solemnly swear I'd use the money better than Bezos does.