'Imagine it all,' Someday said.
'Hmmm,' Tom said. He kissed Someday's freckled shoulder.
'We're going to get married and own a home. We're going to have kids....' she said.
Tom stopped kissing her freckled shoulder. He stopped moving his fingers. They could hear the refrigerator.
'...someday,' Someday quickly added.
The moment she said it, she shrank. It started happening all the time.
'I'm going to paint the bathroom ...' she'd say.
'Don't say it!' Tom would yell.
'... someday,' Someday would say. She'd shrink.
Every time Someday used her superpowers in combination she shrank, and every time she shrank, she shrank by a little bit more. When they'd met in March, Someday stood 5'4". By May she was 4'7". At the end of august she was 11". By October she was sleeping on the cotton from a bottle of aspirin.
The last time Tom saw her was in December, through a microscope. She stood next to a dust particle.
'Someday, I miss you!' Tom told her.
'Someday you won't,' she said.
She disappeared."
This is from an amazing book called 'All my Friends are Superheroes' by Canadian writer, Andrew Kaufman. One of the most adorable, clever and stick-with-you-afterwards books EVER! My friend Dawn introduced it to me a few months ago and I have read it numerous times since (no, she hasn't gotten her copy back yet, whoops). So I thought I would share it with you.
It's basically about a man named Tom who doesn't have a superpower. All his friends and ex girlfriends have powers, which are all exaggerated attributes of their personalities. The book tells of their superpowers and what happened on the day they realized they had powers. For example;
"The Frog-Kisser was in high school when she first discovered her power. Dating the captain of the football team has left her drained and unfulfilled. That’s when she discovered Brain, the head of the debating club, and her latent powers emerged.
Blessed with the ability to transform geeks into winners, she is cursed with the reality that once she enables his transformation, the origin of her initial attraction is gone."
The storyline revolves around the fact that Tom and his girlfriend, The Perfectionist, are struggling with their relationship... she can't see him, he became invisible to her by another man with superpowers. But I'm not giving anything else away.
It's a small book, only 108 pages so you can read it in under a few hours, but it's fantastic and an amazing insight into how we behave socially. I strongly recommend that you pick it up. It will have you trying to guess what your own superpower is for weeks afterwards.
Here's another little taste from the book. Really, you got to read it!
"The Couch Surfer;
Empowered with the ability to sustain life and limb without a job, steady companion or permanent place of residence, the Couch Surfer can be found roaming from couch to couch of friends' apartments all across the city. The Couch Surfer is not only able to withstand long periods of acute poverty but is also able to nutritionally sustain himself with only handfuls of breakfast cereals, slices of dry bread and condiments. Mysteriously, he always has cigarettes."Aoife x
