Very Mild Super Powers

I have the worst superpower in the history of mankind. Apart from my amazing ability to destroy food when I cook, my other strange ability involves unintentionally empathising with people’s pain, or what I like to call, an “Empath”.

I can sense the disbelief and annoyance you have as you read this now. I’m THAT good.

But in all seriousness, there have been times when my leg has begun to ache for no reason. When I mention my discomfort to someone, they emotionally turn into a 14 year old girl and exclaim: “Like, OMG, me too! Ever since I pulled it swimming!” Instantly, my ache goes away.

I’ve even felt inexplicitly dizzy for no reason at all, when a colleague will mention hours afterwards that they’ve felt dizzy from medication they started that morning. My dizziness subsides immediately.

Coincidence or not, this is the worst superpower I could ever ask for. I don’t want to feel your pain. Hell, I don’t want to feel my own pain.

I researched people who have real-life superpowers and was (reasonably so) irritated by their awesome abilities. I feel like the Magikarp of Pokémon or the Muggle of Harry Potter.

Take Ma Xiangang for example. He is a man capable of something not many others are or would have a practical reason to be — he can touch live wires filled with electricity and feel no pain whatsoever. Or, you know, die. According to testing, his skin and body has a resistance seven to eight times greater than the average human being, which grants him the ability to handle live wires without safety equipment (just because he can).

So science explains his ability. Damn science ruining magic.

So what about Kim Peek – the man who remembers everything? This guy has eidetic memory which is believed to have come from a congenital birth defect, which resulted in increased memory capacity. In layman’s terms; he remembers everything. In his lifetime he could recall 98 percent of everything he ever experienced in perfect detail, including 12,000 books he read.

That has its benefits – I mean, he’d barely have to study for a test. But on the downside, that means he remembers every petty argument, every cold, every nightmare. That’s less cool.

So the third and last real-life superhuman I researched was a gentleman called Dean Karnazes – the man who can run forever, otherwise known as, Tyrolin’s Personal Hell. His claim to fame was running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days. Naturally, scientists (the Muggles) interfered when they caught wind of the news. They measured his CPK number, which shows the amount of damage your muscles sustain from exercise. A normal runner’s CPK stands at 2,400 after a marathon. Karnazes’ was found to be at 447… after 25 consecutive marathons. The study found that his muscles not only damage much less with exercise than the normal person’s, they actually get used to continuous exercise and stop being damaged altogether. In a nutshell, he can run at a 7 mile pace…forever.

But, I still have a superpower, right, no matter how lame it may be.

I’m sensing that someone has a throbbing thumb…wait, no. That’s just my thumb aching from the kitten bite. Close enough.

Have you got a superpower?  Do you pick up the phone just as it texts? Do you get a feeling about someone and later have that feeling verified? Tell me below!