A Well Kept Secret

I don't tell anyone that I can teleport. Can you imagine how many people would want to study me, pick my brain, or weaponize me? All I want to do is skip the hassle of traffic. I mean, it's not like teleporting is particularly useful. It's fun, sure. But I can't carry extra weight, so practical trips to Costco are right out.

Mostly I just use it to get to and from work. If I crave a midnight snack, sometimes I pop into a late night grocery. No, I don't steal from stores that are closed. I tried it once, and felt too guilty about the shoes to ever do it again. I ended up giving them to some homeless lady just so I didn't have to look at them anymore. "Did you think to put them back?" I hear you asking. Well, yeah, I did think about that, but I figured as long as I'd already stolen them, I might as well do something good with them.

I can teleport to places I've never been to before, but it's risky. Since I have no idea what's gonna be sitting in the way when it happens. If it's just a small thing, like a small box or maybe a rock or something, I experience a really unpleasant numbness all over my body, and I appear shifted a little to the side of the object. Sometimes, I lose things when that happens. I don't know where they go. The biggest thing I've lost on a trip like that is a shoe. I'd hate to think about what would happen if I accidentally teleported into the wall of a building, or a cave, or a tree.

I've been able to do this since I was little. But this isn't a story about my childhood, it's a story about how I get to work. And the answer is; I teleport into the women's bathroom, handicap stall, and I pray no one is in there when I do it. I've been pretty lucky so far, but I'm looking forward to a really awkward day in the near future.

(Mini-serial I wrote on storylane.com.)