Bloganuary Challenge Prompt: What is a superpower you’d love to have?

A friend once told me that I was a fanatic when it came to the subject of weather, and she wasn’t wrong. The way I’ve referenced the polar vortex, thundersnow or straight-line winds, it’s possible that I may have been a radio or television weather reporter in a past life.

So, it isn’t a big leap to fantasize having a superpower like Marvel’s Ororo Munroe; aka “Storm.” Played by Halle Berry in 2000’s X-Men, Storm is a weather manipulator. She is able to both create and disperse all forms of weather to hinder an enemy or help those in need. She can even fly (in order to whip up the winds to create a tornado) so she has more than one superpower already built-in. Count me in.

This question about superpowers and my instant choice, brought back a memory from long ago. I was vacationing in Acapulco, Mexico with my fiancé. We were staying in a hotel right on Acapulco Bay. We had just finished eating dinner when the telltale rumblings of thunder began to overpower the sounds of the breaking surf.

“Let’s go take a walk on the beach” I said, grabbing my fiancé’s arm, leading the way.  I could see a few people on the beach and I just felt this driving interest to explore the developing weather.

It was dark and already raining, but not hard. As we walked along the semi-circular shaped bay, we watched the sky flash and the water in the bay briefly dance in the light before the water retreated once again into darkness. If the rain became too strong, we thought that we could run to one of the many palapa huts lining the beach to wait it out.

I was in my element. After pausing our walk to take it all in, I first stood, facing the bay. It was such a tiny microcosm of the endless, powerful Pacific Ocean behind it.  Then slowly I turned towards land, in awe of the expansive arc of the evening lights of the many hotels. I was mesmerized by the sheer beauty and scale of it all.

And then, there was a blinding flash and an immediate response of thunder and as we stood rooted, barefoot in the sand, we watched those lights of the hotels shut down, left to right, one after another, all the way down the bay. The black vastness of the Pacific remained at our backs but we now had an equally complete darkness in front of us too. With no perspective, we were instantly reduced to a speck of dust in an Aztec galaxy. The darkness felt ancient; commanding. It was absolutely unnerving, but it was also a rare, spectacular moment.

IF I were to have an origin story to accompany my superpower, this might be it.  Suddenly, in that all-encompassing darkness, in a land far away, a bolt comes down and hits me. The electricity surges around me, but it doesn’t hurt, it strengthens me.  The power outage is not from the lightening, but rather from some unseen enemy that I now have the power to conquer. It has a nice ring to it, anyway.

But seriously, aside from having a superpower that would safely place me within my passion for the elements of rain and wind and electricity, I could also help hundreds of thousands of people by steering away hurricanes or the nasty blizzards hitting right now. Or, stop the rain to prevent the terrible floods in Europe that happened not that long ago. I could help with climate change. Literally, the sky’s the limit. It’s only a fantasy, but it’s a good one.