Chapter 3

I awoke so refreshed that I almost thought I was still dreaming. I could feel the power deep inside me still, but something had changed. The amount of power I held hadn’t changed, but it’s container was larger. After breakfast the mailman knocked. My Amazon order had arrived.

I had ordered a new 65 piece set of flatware to replace the two 40 piece settings I had mangled in my energy experiments. I also had ordered a dozen sets of steel plates. Each set was a 3 pack of 6 x 6 x ¼ inch hot rolled steel. Each weighed about 2.5 pounds each. The mailman left the packages at the door, and just stood there, daring me to pick it up.

I smiled, thanked him, and opened the coat closet, where I pulled out a folding dolly and unfolded it. Then I glanced up at the mailman.

“Morning Charlie, mind setting those boxes on the dolly for me?”

He looked doubtful that he wanted to pick them up again, but nodded, and stacked them up on the dolly. I handed him a $20 bill, and wished him a good day. He smiled as he climbed the three steps to street level.

With his back turned, I easily wheeled the dolly out of the way, and shut the door, flipping the lock. The remainder of the flatware from the two old, mostly complete, and almost matching sets went onto the kitchen table. It’s not that I’d ever needed 16 place settings at once, but had soon discovered a single 8 person place setting was insufficient to get me through a single week, running the dishwasher only once.

My new 12 person set went into the dishwasher after coming out of the package. A quick clean of the silverware caddy in the drawer since it was empty, then I decided to stick it in the dishwasher also. I pulled an old unused aluminum pan out of the pantry, one of those large ones you are supposed to use only once, but to cook a turkey in. I had only tried cooking a turkey a single time, but the pans had come in a 2 pack.

Standing at the table, and holding the plate covered in congealed metallic dust over the pan, I contemplated it. And yes, I giggled to myself about contemplating a plate of contemplated table wear over a table.

The plate, the mound of metal, all of it dropped into the pan as a fine dust. You would think the impact of it falling would have caused the presumably atomic sized dust to puff up into the air, but the material was so desperate to reconnect its many bonds that it simply stuck where it landed.

The energy release was huge, and I felt the burning heat drain away into the storage hole I felt deep inside. The storage space didn’t feel anywhere near capacity. I quickly went through the metal plates nine times, to verify that my ability had increased beyond yesterday’s limit of eight. I wanted to do more experiments, and sitting at home wasn’t going to cut it.

The Uber dropped me off at the beach, where I meandered past pillar barriers, and down a rocky path to a rough sandy beach. I ignored the seagulls, and the trash. I had first contemplated trying this in my bathtub, but then remembered that water broke down into oxygen and hydrogen, and that probably wasn’t a good combination in an enclosed space.

I stepped to the oceans edge, and stuck a hand into it and contemplated the molecular forces involved. The rush of intense heat into my body knocked me back onto my butt. The wave that came crashing into the space left behind as the water turned to monomolecular gas, crashed over me in a miniaturized and localized tsunami. I was soaked and stoked in equal measure.

I sputtered for a bit, laying on my back, trying to get a grip on the fire burning through my body. I could sense myself down to the tiniest cells. The fire was leaving me cosmetically unchanged, as I desired, but it had slipped past my control and was refurbishing every cell in my body. It was both pain and ecstacy in equal measure, and I closed my eyes tight as my optic nerve exploded in the light of cellular renewal, and every muscle twitched in pain as every nerve in my body was reborn.

I awoke about thirty minutes later to a voice calling out, “Hey buddy are you ok?”

I raised an arm, and coughed. “I’m alive, just soaked by a sneaker wave.” I declared.

“Hold on, I’m coming to you.” said the voice.

Firm hands grabbed onto me, and pulled me up into a sitting position. I could see the bearer of the voice now. Young guy, maybe about 45. He was wearing torn jeans, a couple of button up shirts, and smelled of alcohol. I couldn’t assume homeless, but I wouldn’t have been surprised either.

“Here, let me help you up.” he said, and rough hands lifted me upright enough to get my legs under me. “There you go buddy.” he continued.

I took stock, and glanced around. This little section of beach was basically abandoned. Caught between a couple industrial buildings, it had little going for it. We were well below street level, and I might hear a car go by, but I wouldn’t see one, nor would one see me. I got suddenly nervous.

I looked the man in the eye, and reached out to shake his hand. “Thank you for the assist.” I told him. He responded with a hand of his own, grabbing mine tightly in a social reflex hammered into all of us.

“What were you trying to do, be Moses?” he asked, missing teeth smiling crookedly.

“I’m older than he was, I guess, just didn’t expect the ocean to react to me quite like that.”

“Must have been 300 yards straight out, the water just vanished, and you fell over. I started to head your way, then the big ass wave soaked you. I could see you moving, so just let you lie there, thinking maybe you didn’t want to be disturbed. I got worried when you went still though, thought maybe you had a heart attack and here I was just watching you twitch.” It all came tumbling out of his mouth in rapid fire excitement.