I have an introductory class to the film major with the 30 other students who will get their degree as filmmakers. Our professor in that class is one of the heads in the screenwriting department and every week he gives us a writing assignment. I guess I am cheating, but I thought they would make good posts in this blog, after all it is mine to give it to you.

This one was the latest, we were supposed to write a story about personal life-changing event. Hope you enjoy!

PS: Ale you might cry and it may seem like I am depressed but I am actually in quite a good mood. Just giving you the heads up!

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About Superpowers
by Diego Nájera


So what about imagination?

Most people do not realize the potential within themselves, but I did. I knew there was something more, something special within certain human beings. The possibility for a greater good; for transcendence. Finally, one day, imagination allowed me to discover that potential when it granted me special abilities.

It was through the training of my own mind, and from an early age, that I was capable of developing the section of the brain where the unknown resides. You know, that 90% percent of the brain that people say no one uses, and where special abilities may be developed and controlled. Skills that I was able to discover, making me different from others. I guess you could say I had acquired superpowers.

My abilities were varied, I practiced them according to my mood, and every once in a while I had a good day in which I developed a new one. Those times in which I played and practiced my powers were my favorite time of the day, just next to family dinners; the reunion of food and family was certainly a highlight of my childhood.

Some days I practiced my ability to read other people’s minds, one that soon became easy to master. When mom said my name I immediately knew what she was thinking and what she wanted of me. I guess it was easier since mom and I had always shared a special connection.

Later, on a particularly exciting day, I discovered I could travel through time. It was nothing extraordinary at first, as I could only travel to see things that were about to happen. And subsequently, I could go back to the present in order to modify the immediate future. I was never capable of going back to the past, but I never really tried hard enough. I figured the past was not that exciting. I was all about the future.

After one of those good sessions, I would spend hours at a time imagining all the adventures I could have, all the good I could do when I would be finally able to control my powers completely. I figured it was my duty to share them with the world, to safeguard others who were less fortunate.

Time went on, years passed, and by my eleventh birthday I had acquired quite a few abilities, some of them remained basic, some others I had mastered thoroughly. Everything was going my way, being a seemingly normal kid, bright at school, with an amazing family and a great secret pastime. I never thought that my whole world would fall apart. I had never expected to loose my powers later that same year.

It all started in January when we first heard mom was sick. Just like that, my happy life was soon turned upside down. I was swept into a world of white coats, treatments and therapies. It was not the occasion for games or possibilities; it was the time to confront real life. My usual practice hours where no longer possible so I resolved to help her in the normal manner, the only way I could. I had failed at being the superhero; I had not been ready when the time had come.

Still, I learned a lot about battling evil, about having strength and will, about seizing life and doing everything you can to preserve it. After all, she had always been my model of a hero and she was battling cancer in a brave manner.

Her fight lasted a whole year, and we were able to go back to normal life. Yet, normal was no more, my powers had been lost forever. Real life had overtaken my mind. Accessing my imagination, my gateway to those special abilities was impossible. And what we had thought was an opportunity to return to the past, was proven to be just a break between battles but not the end of war. Three years later, cancer came back again and took her forever.

When she fell, I lost everything in me, even the will to bring my powers back. I did not know how anyway. I lost the motivation to search within myself and explore in the quest for hope, everything was darkness, and everything was empty. I had seen my hero fall and I had been left alone. Home was not home anymore, there was no normal next to the word life, and life as I had always imagined it, was no longer accomplishable.

The pain inside got stationed around my stomach and remained as strong as the first day for some time after her loss. A feeling that has left a mark and that comes back every once in a while. It is in those times that I wish I had my powers back: my power to time travel and share a moment with her again; the power to heal others and bring her back; the power to freeze life, to stay in childhood and never grow up.

Eventually, the only power I got back was that of imagination, a power that allows me to dream of better times, to travel into other worlds were evil is no more and my hero never falls.