Sometimes, my ADD gets the better of me.
My parents used to give me drugs for that. It calmed me down. I wasn’t as “random” as I liked to call it. I could focus on the tasks before me. Problem was, the meds, they didn’t last long enough for me to get through the day, so by noon, I was back to being my old random self. How things logically went from one thing to another, I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. It did for me, though. You talk about the beach, and I’d tell you about how great Stone Temple Pilots is. And then I’d air guitar it for you, just in case you didn’t get it. And you didn’t get it.
I lost a lot of friends that way.
But I gained a lot too. I hung out with the emo crowd, the weirdos, the ones who cut themselves or were into pulling off wings from flies, or wasps if they were feeling particularly brave. If they drowned puppies, I didn’t know any of that, but none of the cutting girls would have stood for it.
They thought I was funny/weird, but didn’t like to hold conversations with me when I was off meds. We played video games and I watched them cut themselves, and the guys would try to drum along with the music of the games.
Then my mom had heard they had once a week shots for my condition. It was experimental, but it worked well on the rats and the few people they already experimented on. I hate needles. But my mom, who’s draws blood for a living, she said a single shot wouldn’t hurt as much as a bunch of shots, and yeah, it probably would hurt depending on where they put it.
So we went for the experiment – they gave me a $50 gift card – and I took the shot.
It was like the world was different. Clearer. I could see pattern and order and things that were right. Leaves on one tree were the same. Cars seemed to be designed mostly like bullets, except for the boxy cars or trucks or vans.
My friends gravitated from me, as I wasn’t funny/weird anymore. I could carry on a conversation about whatever was in front of me, and be serious about it. I tried to hang around with different cliques in school, but none of them would have me. I was the weird kid. Now I was the lonely kid.
I graduated from high school and was supposed to go to college, but my parents couldn’t afford it and I wasn’t smart enough for a scholarship. Instead I found myself on a construction crew, hanging up dry wall.
Mom decided I didn’t need the shots anymore, so I was Random Boy again. I made designs with nails on the dry wall before painting them over. I hung up dry wall in the wrong place. I cut badly. I got fired.
I moved from job to job, my randomness mostly pissing people off. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t keep a girlfriend, because she thought I was really weird.
I heard the experimental drug was now official, so I begged anyone and everyone to give me the shot. I finally found a doctor who would give it to me, and then…patterns. Clarity. Intelligence.
And electrical fires.
I didn’t know about that until later.
It should have come out during the time I was taking it in high school, they said, if I was a mutation. However I might have been exposed to chemicals at one of my job that started the mutation and then it manifested like this.
What did ADD meds have to do with fire?
I knew about it because when I went to a job interview and someone shook my hand, he got shocked and burned. I didn’t get the job.
A lot of things that I touched – only when I was nervous, scared, or angry – would get shocked and burst into flame. I could control the flame’s direction, but I couldn’t put it out. I wasn’t that good, and never could be.
For an experiment, I stopped taking the shots. I could still shock someone, but no bursting into flame. By the second week, there was no shock. So it had to be something in this shot.
There were few jobs I could do, so I went back to live with my mom. I’m 19 now, and I found a group that I could be involved with. They give me some people to go see, and I just get myself scared and attack them. I don’t like the smell of burning flesh. But if it’s what gets the job done, I do it.
I hope this helps you, Mr. Sullivan. If you still want to do a story on me, that’s fine, but as for how I get my powers, I don’t think anyone needs to know, right?
Yours Truly,
Aries.