S-Girl no.1

S-Girl no.1

I arrived at the station still with five minutes to spare before my train was due. Just enough time to get a cup of tea from the over-priced café on the platform. Probably.
“Would you like milk with that?” the rasping voice behind the counter asked me, like an advert for quitting smoking.
“Yes, please,” I replied. Of course I want bloody milk, I thought to myself, it’s PG Tips, not fresh bloody leaves straight from Cam-fucking-bodia. I can get a little tetchy when I’m stressed.
“Would you like anything to eat with that?”
I ummed and aahed politely over what I could only assume was a tray of pastries (priced at £3.45 each), before selecting a Twix.
“That’s £3.19 altogether, thankyou. Would you like any cashback with that?”
Do I look like I want bloody cashback, my head asked me. People who are tapping their feet and looking at their watch in an agitated manner generally don’t want bloody cashback!
The yellowing fingers sorted my change agonisingly slowly, giving me no option but to start tapping louder and even drum my fingernails on the counter to signal just how pissed off I was at this point. Finally, I walked onto the platform, looking at my watch.
“SHIT!” I yelled, as my watch told me I’d been ten minutes. Somehow, though, as I looked up at the board on the platform, it showed only three had gone by…

* * *

“So, is it serious?” I asked tentatively.
“Well, depends what you mean by serious, really,” my doctor replied. “Will it change your life – probably. Will it harm you – possibly not.”
“Oh. Well, that’s reassuring.”
“Indeed. The thing is…” he paused for effect, “the thing is, I’ve never actually come across this exact...condition before. I’d like to run a few tests before coming to any conclusions.”
“What kind of tests, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Well, why don’t we start with the treadmill and go from there?”

Five minutes later, I was strapped to a heart monitor, running steadily on a treadmill and feeling, quite frankly, ridiculous. It’s fairly embarrassing for a girl who never excercises and is terminally clumsy to run at the best of times, especially if she’s more “generously endowed.” When you’re being examined closely for the smallest mistake or shortness of breath it’s just plain degrading.
“I’ll just turn this up a notch,” my doctor said, cranking up the speed as high as it would go, at which point my feet sped away from me and I landed face-flat on the floor, several metres away from the treadmill.
“What was that for?!”
“ Just so we can rule out super-speed.”

“NO!” My head rebelled, forcing me back, as I looked down the 40m drop below. “This one I WON’T do!”
“It’s perfectly safe, we’ve taken precautions! Health and safety forms have been filled in!”
“I don’t care! 40 metres to a single crash mat is not safe!” My voice was becoming so high pitched, I wondered if he was going to add ultra-sonic voice to his list.
“Fine, don’t jump. Would you mind just going a smidgeon closer to the edge though, so I can, erm, test your fear levels.”
“OK…” I said, gingerly edging closer to the death-drop. Heights, of all the things I “didn’t so” was the worst, the one thing that could cloud my thoughts so completely I didn’t even notice the white blur rushing towards me before it pushed me over the edge.
Perhaps what was most surprising was the clearness of my thoughts as soon as my feet found freedom and gravity took over. I had time to consider my options as I wondered at the marvel of falling – could I stop time? No, everything else would stop but I’d keep falling. Stopping my own experience of time? Impossible to say if I’d ever get out of it. Anything to grab onto? Don’t be ridiculous. I’d just about run out of ideas when I realised I had stopped. As I turned, as gently and slowly as was befitting such an occasion, and saw the vast amount of air between myself and the floor, I started screaming my bloody head off.
I scrambled as quickly as I could for the side of the building, where I could perch on a windowsill. Unfortunately, however, there was no windowsill and I found myself simply scrambling in mid-air, looking, I can only imagine, very much like a child who’s believes the skills she’s just developed at riding her bike will help her learn to swim.
“You’ll have to fly back up,” my doctor shouted down.
“Bugger that, I’m floating down!” I yelled back and began to do so. It took me nearly five minutes to go down one floor but once I had, my confidence began to grow and I started taking notice of the little movements in the air, letting gentle breezes push me along and small updrafts drift me slowly higher and higher. I closed my eyes and floated still for a moment, standing on the atmosphere before pushing off from nothing and doing a somersault in mid-air. I laughed as I sped off as fast as I could dare, tears of joy and relief being whipped away by the wind as soon as they appeared. It was only when I realised I might have a problem should someone walk past and look up that I could drag myself away from the air and back to the top of the building, where my doctor was waiting for me. As soon as my feet touched the concrete, though, my fear was back, my head started to swim and I scurried as far away as I could from the edge.
“Time to have a look at the results, I think.”

* * *

“Right,” my doctor shuffled his papers before getting down to business. “The car test established quite firmly that you don’t have super-strength.” I nodded in agreement, instinctively rubbing the shoulder that was still in agony from that particular experience. “You couldn’t melt, even when trapped in a room where the only means of escape was a crack underneath the door. Nor could you run at super speed, or much of a speed at all really, no offense, move objects with your mind, read or control thoughts, you don’t have laser or x-ray vision, nothing about you is unusually acidic or alkaline, your cuts and scrapes from various tests prove you don’t have super-healing abilities, super-reflexes are definitely out, as far as we can tell, you can’t control any natural phenomenon and, of course, you don’t bear any abnormal resemblance to any type of arachnid, insect, mollusc or, indeed, any other type of animal. You do, however, appear to be able to fly, as long as you can overcome your fear of heights, become invisible and control time, despite the fact that you were ten minutes late for our appointment.
I can’t be sure, of course, but I believe all this could be due to the amount of tea you drink. It seems the abnormally high levels of caffeine and antioxidants in your bloodstream have combined and the chemical imbalance has caused some…significant changes to your molecular structure. Please don’t ask me to turn that into a viable scientific theory, whatever you do. ”
“So, what happens if I stop drinking tea? Or carry on for that matter?”
“Well, I’d certainly say don’t drink any more than you do now. If you stop drinking tea, however, one of three things could happen: nothing, you could lose your powers or you could die. If you try it, please make sure to let me know the outcome, won’t you? This could make me very successful.”

(This and more can also be read at www.myspace.om/s_girl_totherescue)