In my first writing I told you all about my wife Maria and I growing up and discovering our ‘abilities’, how we met and how we decided to get married. Now I will tell you what came next.
The first two years of marriage were very good. We got to know each other and found out we had more shared interests than we had imagined at first. We also realized we were not as mature as we thought and that sometimes living with another person is not quite as easy as it seems. We considered having children and decided that we would wait on that as we weren’t quite mature or old enough and wanted to accomplish other things in our lives before going in that direction. But what were those other things? We of course used our ‘abilities’ when people were not around, sometimes together and sometimes apart. It was quite enjoyable sharing our gifts with each other and not having to hide them or somehow feel ashamed of them. Yet we always wondered, what was the reason that we had been selected to have these gifts? Why were we different from anyone else? And how could we help others, since ultimately helping others just seems like the thing to do while one is alive on this planet. Besides, isn’t is always preferable to leave a place better than you found it?
We did develop our special costumes but they seemed like we were just doing cosplay for fandom or a convention and not for any other particular reason. But I must admit they were comfy and pretty cool to look at.
This idea of helping others began to take up a bit of our time each day and we wanted to not quickly jump into anything, but to explore our options completely before deciding what to do. The problem was we did not know how the world would react. Should we adopt a conspiracy theory and fearful attitude like many people easily do (some of our friends believe in some crazy theories!) and worry that perhaps the government or the military would kidnap us, study us and if we were lucky enough to even be left alive, never give us our freedom again? Or if we were to ‘come out of the closet‘ and show the entire world our abilities, would we be tempted by money or fame? Would this revelation end our marriage? Or should we just enjoy these abilities and keep the status quo and not let anyone know about them and just share them with each other and not the world? These questions became the elephant in the room each day. One week we would both agree on one course of action but then the next week we would change our minds. Some weeks we just tried not to think about it but that did not work either. We also really wanted to know if any other people on earth had special abilities. How could we find out this information? Of course both of us individually had searched the Internet for years for hints or traces that other people might be hiding various abilities, but we never got anywhere in our searches. We would always end up being referred to science fiction or graphic novels.
Each of us had doctors that we liked and trusted and one of them seemed less interested in material rewards for being a doctor and to actually want to help people. He had taken several trips to especially poor countries in South America and donated his time and money while taking a bit of a risk. This would be Dr. Daniels, Maria’s general practioner and family doctor. His office was in Sunnyvale, California. Even after moving to Seattle, Maria had decided to keep him as her doctor.
Dr. Daniels seemed to have some of our same ethics and that was important to us. He had been her doctor for six years and she had never mentioned anything to him about her running on water, and during those six years she had been in good health and he never indicated to her that her test results were abnormal in anyway. As a matter of fact, he complemented her for being in good shape and she always credited it to her ‘hobby’ of running. After all, she did like to run fast, but just not necessarily on terra firma.
We decided we would remind him that our discussion would be under doctor-patient confidentiality. We decided that since he was her doctor we would not mention my own ‘ability’ right away, as that might be a bit too much for him to process and we wanted to see how things went.
After the examination Dr. Daniels came back into the room. He told Maria she seemed to be in good health but of course we wouldn’t know until we got her blood panel results back in a day or two.
We were both silent and looked at each other as it had been decided that Maria would broach the subject to the good doctor, and this was that time.
Maria started, “Well Dr. Daniels I seem to have an ability to run quite fast when certain conditions are present.” Dr. Daniels seemed a bit confused and asked what conditions she was refering to.
Maria replied, “Well perhaps if I tell you it might be confusing and might be better if you could observe this ability for yourself.” She quickly added, “But this could only happen if you promise to respect our doctor-patient relationship and not discuss this with anyone else, not even your family.”
Dr. Daniels smiled and replied, “Well of course I always honor the doctor-patient relationship as that is what we do as doctors. Why don’t you just tell me what exactly you're talking about?”
We looked at each other again with a bit of fear and apprehension.
Maria continued, “Well Dr. Daniels, you see sometimes I can run fast if the medium below my feet is not ground.”
Dr. Daniels looked a bit confused and asked, “What do you mean?”
Maria went on, “Well doctor, you really do need to see this unique gift, um ability.”
Dr. Daniels asked, “What exactly is this so-called ‘gift’?”
I nervously interjected a bit too quickly, “Dr. Daniels, I don’t know you as well as my wife does but what we want to discuss with you may sound odd and a bit crazy. I know you have known my wife for six years now and well, you’ve seen us together for a couple of years. I am just trying to point out that we are levelheaded individuals not prone to anything extreme or outrageous.”
The doctor replied with honesty, “I don’t know you, but yes I have known your wife for a number of years and yes, from what little I know you two seem to be a fine couple.”
I cautiously continued, “We chose to discuss her ability with you because we know you have taken risks yourself and gone to other countries to help the poor and people that don’t have easy access to medical care.”
Dr. Daniels replied, “Yes, I just felt I had to make those trips to help the less fortunate in the world but I am certainly not the only doctor that does things like that. What does this have to do with Maria?”
“Well, we also want to help others. But first we need your help to find out from a scientific perspective why she has her gift and if others might also have such gifts.”
Dr. Daniels said with a bit of a chuckle, “Some people are just blessed to be natural athletes, there is no need for a scientific investigation.”
Maria looked down at the table which the three of us were sitting at then looked up at the doctor and stated in a lowered voice as if almost shy and ashamed, “I can walk and run on top of water. You know, like Jesus.”
The doctors facial expression looked genuinely concerned and shocked.
The ball had dropped.
