Prologue: Calm Before the Storm

I guess we got what we wanted in the long run. At least, everyone seemed pleased by the end of it. Our boss upstairs (upstairs as in the top floor) was in a slump and bored. There had been nothing but repetitive one-sided warfare down on earth for entirely too long. It was like watching a soap opera; you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. So He came to us and asked for an idea, something to make watching life among mortals entertaining again. Either that or He’s going to start a new world somewhere else, watch the whole process from the beginning. Again.

Five of us got together to discuss this new development, four archangels and The Voice. The big guy wasn’t going to join us in person, naturally; He always sends the Metatron who wears a hat with a camera built into it (He got the idea from some older TV show rerun). We sat down to discuss business in Heaven’s version of a break room, which looks pretty much the same as those on earth, the difference being we are surrounded by clouds and lute music instead of inspirational posters and Muzak. I get a kick over how the other archangels and The Voice wear top of the line suits while I go out of my way to wear the most casual clothing at my disposal. I was attired in board shorts, flip flops, and a Hawaiian shirt so loud I wouldn’t have been surprised if people could hear it Downstairs.

One of the four of us suggested we go down and bring about World War 3. It was immediately shot down, with much derision. Another mentioned something about aliens. We laughed at him and said he’d been watching too many sci-fi movies. Then I came forward and said, supremely confident, “Super powers.”

There was a moment of silence. Then high fiving took over for a solid minute. Think five guys don’t have what it takes to high five for that long without it seeming weird? You’ve obviously never watched frat guys party.

Before I get into the story, I should mention that despite the fact that I didn’t personally attend all the events about to unfold, we have TiVo in Heaven (a divine version of it, anyway, which is WAY better), so I was able to record everything I missed. Now, to the action.

Once the super powers idea took hold, mortals to wield them were quickly chosen. First we picked the biggest comic book geek we could find, one who wanted powers more than anyone else on the planet. That turned out to be a young biker named Jak who lived in Utah of all places. Other ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ were chosen with teams in mind, which meant Jak’s closest friends got marked to be potential heroes (mixing it up among guys and girls for maximum drama, kind of like a reality TV show) while potential ‘villains’ were picked from a group of friends in the same age range. The way we drew the line between the two didn’t have to do with which of the groups were good or evil, it was based on who was selfish and who was selfless. The four of us drew straws as to who would power up who. I drew two heroes and a villain; the dude with the lightning, the skin guy, and little miss shadows, since they were all in the same place at the time of the ‘empowering’.

We came up with the powers we would be handing out by considering two different factors; first, we made everyone powerful; no one ended up with mild powers, like turning water into wine or something equally unimpressive (sorry Jesus). And second, the abilities kind of went with personalities. For instance, the girl with the shadows that I just mentioned was a party girl who liked to sleep all day. The skin guy happened to be a wannabe tattoo fanatic who still couldn’t make up his mind on what he wanted his first piece to be.

In retrospect, I feel like kind of an asshole after what happened. I feel like a major asshole actually. Which is weird, considering we had been nonchalantly talking about WW3 for hells sake! In the end, I watched too much, got to know them too well. Made it too personal. Like watching a TV show for so long that you start shouting advice to the characters, or getting into a book so much that you feel the same emotions the main protagonist feels. Oh well, what’s done is done, and what will be, will be.

After we had selected the heroes and the villains, decided what powers to give them over several cups of Heavenly coffee that tastes remarkably like Starbucks, we figured that we should power them all up at the exact same time, for maximum fairness. That date was Saturday, October 4th, at midnight. As it turned out, all we were really doing was turning Salt Lake City, Utah into a powder keg. The spark that blew everything to hell? Her name was Amanda.

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Tell us what you think: Who do you think Amanda is? And what is her superpower that unleashed chaos upon Salt Lake City?