The Limits of Absolute Power

Exiled. Banished. God, these words taste foul in my mouth. Fuck everyone who doesn't appreciate you, that's what I say. In case you're wondering who this is, I guess introductions are due. My name is Far. It's short for Farouche. Anyone looking at me would see a six-foot-tall, somewhat good-looking and slender young man with light brown skin, curly black hair and hazel eyes. My father Jonathan Farouche is Haitian and my mother Isabel Tremblay is French-Canadian. I was born in the City of Montreal, in the Quebec region of Canada, but grew up all over the place. For the past decade I've been living in Washington D.C. I consider myself a normal guy, except that I have a Gift. Being Gifted can be a curse, trust me on that one.

At Howard University, where I study Criminal Justice, I'm surrounded by some of America's finest people. Students of all backgrounds learning in this world-class and mostly African-American school. They're snobs, for the most part, but some of them are cool people. As a mixed-race Canadian, I get mistaken for a lot of things and frankly I find it amusing. The fact that I speak French, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese also confuse a lot of my so-called peers. I didn't tell them that I also speak Russian, Italian, Greek, Gaelic and of course my father's native Haitian Creole. Part of being Gifted means having a way with languages. Among other things. Sometimes I envy my peers. They're so normal. Of course, sometimes I think about all the shit that happens to normal people and I thank God that I'm not one of them.

Since the beginning of humanity, there have always been Gifted people. We are all around you. We're Black, white, Asian, Latino, Native American, Arab, and everything else you can think of. We are in every race, every religion and every walk of life. Lately, though, it's gotten really tough to be Gifted because the Normals are feeling threatened by us. I can't say that I blame them sometimes. In January 1, 1999, the existence of the Gifted was officially revealed to the world when a young woman named Alexandra Kensington killed eleven men and five women from the Los Angeles Police Department after they shot her older brother James due to a mistaken identity thing related to a shooting he basically had nothing to do with. Just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How did she do it? Merely from touching them. She turned them into skeletons with a simple touch. You see, Alexandra Kensington wasn't just a short, chubby Black chick from the hood. She had the Gift of Decay.

What happened to her? She was eventually arrested, taken into custody by the United States Government and then exposed to the world. It was the first time in five thousand years of human history that all of mankind knew about our kind. Before that dark day, us Gifted people could live normal lives because the Normals didn't think we existed. Plenty of us used our Gifts to get wealth and fame. I won't divulge any names but have you ever seen a really awesome football player who's just too damn good? How about an eerily beautiful woman who's also smart as a whip? Maybe they're just normal people or perhaps they're members of my sub-species. The Gifted. Psychics. Those guys who win the powerlifting contests. Some of the world's fastest swimmers and track and field people. Yeah, odds are some of the people you worship in the NFL, the NHL, the WNBA and the NBA are like me. Born different. Gifted.

Since the discovery of our existence, the United States Government has teamed up with the governments of Great Britain, Brazil, Germany, Cuba, the Republic of South Africa and China to round up the Gifted. As usual, Mexico and Canada were left out of the big leagues because they're not considered to be major powers by the big shots at the United Nations. Across the globe, it's illegal to be Gifted, apparently. In parts of eastern Africa and places like Saudi Arabia, we're executed on the spot when we are detected and apprehended. Elsewhere, men and women armed and trained by various governments are coming after us. And they won't stop until we're all dead or languishing in cages. The thing about us Gifted people is that we're not stupid, and we didn't survive these eons among mankind, the cosmos most intolerant species, by being anywhere near dumb. Most of us went into hiding. Me? I did no such thing.

You see, I come from a family that was used to dealing with adversity. In the eyes of the world, Canada is a bastion of tolerance, openness and multiculturalism. Well, if you look deeper into it, you'll see that it's a racist, xenophobic nation just like every country where people of different races, religions and viewpoints have to coexist. We have the same problems that the States and other diverse, industrialized nations face but it's not considered kosher to discuss Canada's struggle with diversity and inclusion so we don't talk about it. I came into the world because a Black man from the island of Haiti moved to the City of Montreal, Quebec, in search of work and education. My father met my mother at McGill University in Montreal, and they fell in love. Not to go all cliché here but even in the cosmopolitan Montreal of the late 1980s, interracial couples ran into their share of racism and prejudice. My parents endured hell from the local bigots, but nevertheless got married and had little old me.

That should have been the end of it. I should have been a nice, normal guy. Born into a fairly unique family. I should have grown up in beautiful and diverse Canada, which emerged unscathed from the financial crash of the mid-2000s to become a new super power rivaling the United States of America. Instead, I was a freak. You see, every Gifted person only has one special talent. Some of us can change objects form and mass just by touching them. The Gift of Shapes. Others can do different things. It's quite rare to run into two Gifted people with the same ability. Our talents are as unique as our fingerprints. Both of my parents are Normals, and somehow they gave birth to the rarest of all Gifted people. The One with the Multiple Gifts. What can I do? I don't mean to brag, but maybe you should be asking me what can't I do?

I first became aware of my abilities when I walked in on a convenience store robbery in the Queens boulevard area of New York City. I got shot five times by some random thug, a Puerto Rican guy in a ski mask. I should have died. Instead, I healed instantly. Yeah, my injuries vanished ten seconds after I got shot. Apparently I possessed the Gift of Regeneration. I can heal from any injury. Sounds cool, right? Um, I can do other stuff as well. I can also block the powers of other Gifted people. I don't know how I do it. Like that time when this chick named Astrid Sanders came after me. Astrid, now that's one crazy bitch. Tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. All-American beauty. And one crazy psycho bitch. Astrid has the Gift of Fire. She can set things on fire just by thinking about it. Oh, and fire can't hurt her. Astrid grew up in a rough home, folks. Her parents were abusive. Her first boyfriend Trevor tried to rape her and paid for it with his life. She burned him to a cinder. Astrid has been on the run ever since. She finally came to Washington D.C. and got involved with my buddy Jose, a Latino dude from Puerto Rico who has a serious craving for white chicks.

First time I saw Astrid on the Howard University campus, I knew she was trouble. I kind of have a sixth sense when it comes to troublemakers. You see, it's got nothing to do with being Gifted and everything to do with the fact that I have lousy taste in women. Scratch that, I don't have good taste in guys either so I guess you could say I got lousy taste in people. My first girlfriend Sarah got sent to a mental hospital after burning down our high school gymnasium and Kyle, the first guy I hooked up with, well, he's currently at San Quentin Prison in California. Yeah, I attract psychos. So I knew Astrid was one because I thought the bitch was hot, with the kind of big round ass you rarely see on white women. Well, my suspicions turned out to be right. Astrid put my buddy Jose in the hospital, and took off with his car and money. I went after her. I don't have many friends at Howard University. Among the students of this predominantly African-American campus, it's not considered cool to be an openly bisexual guy who's neither black nor white, talks with a French accent, and collects antiques.

I confronted Astrid near the D.C. airport, after she nearly burned the place to the ground and injured dozens of people. She tried to burn me, but somehow I temporarily turned off her power. Long enough to knock her out and I let the D.C. police have her. For that reason, I'm hated by the Gifted. I surrendered one of our own to THEM, the humans. The normal people. I'm a traitor to the community. I tried not to let it bother me. I only intervened to help a friend. Jose is the only normal person who knows that I'm Gifted. And he's cool with it. He's a womanizer and a loudmouth but he's a good friend. The fact that I'm bisexual doesn't bother him either, even though he's a staunch heterosexual and a macho Latino. That's cool, right?

So here I am. Trying to lead a normal life at Howard University in Washington D.C. I got a job working as a security guard to help pay the bills because they're charging me international rates on account of my being Canadian and all. Jose keeps trying to fix me up with different girls but I tell him that the last thing I need in my life right now is the confusion that sex and romance bring. Oh, and no, I am not interested in meeting guys either. Both sexes suck, man, and not in a good way. The fact that my abilities are spinning out of control is also cause for concern. Originally, I could regenerate. Now I can do other stuff. I can generate and control fire, like Astrid can. I can also change form when I really concentrate. The other night I transformed myself into a cat. It was scary, and kind of cool. I switched back to human form an hour later because it was getting a bit creepy. And I have gotten this weird ability to always sense when a Gifted person is nearby. It's uncanny.

The thing about having great powers is the fact that they seem to attract power-hungry fools and freaks far and wide. So, yeah. I've developed new powers. And all they've done is complicate my life. Someone told the United States Government that there is a Gifted person with extraordinary powers in the D.C. area so they're looking for me. I'll have to watch my ass even more than usual. Both the Normals and my fellow Gifted want me dead or captured. They will do anything to get me. And honestly, I am worried because I don't want to die or end up as a lab rat. All that, and I still have to worry about passing Criminology this semester. And you thought you had problems. Sheesh. Wish me luck, folks. My black ass is going to need it.