Random stories

The cathedral walls of pure white clouds continued to swirl in the ethereal golden light of the Great Bestower's temple as you awaited your "power". You had heard this story enough times on the news. You'd be going about your daily life and then boom, flash of light, angels singing and soon enough you opened your eyes and found yourself looking up at a building size throne being looked down upon by the thing that no-one quite understood. The clouds implied something like God, but the appearance resembled the cliche depiction of Zeus.

Scholars agree the Being chose a form our minds could understand for the duration of our interaction. What no-one else can agree on is why the hell it does what it does.

"Uh...hello. I'm John. Are you the, thing?"

"HELLO JOHN!" the Devine voice boomed as it's voice echoed around the unsolid walls "WELCOME! YES I AM THE THING!" It didn't seem insulted at the name, not amused either. In fact, it didn't appear to give off any emotions at all. "YOU SHALL BE GIFTED THE ABILITY TOO..." Your heart beat in your chest and you hoped it wasn't something too dumb. The last guy had the ability to know the answers to important tests, but only after he had no option to change his answers. Hopefully it wasn't something as torturous as that.

The godthing had passed for effect. It seemed that even if it had no emotions, it did have a taste for dramatic flair.

"....KNOW WHEN A DIGITAL FOOD TIMER YOU ARE USING IS DONE!"

"Oh...that's not too bad I guess. Maybe I could let chefs know when their food is done perfectly..." You mumbled to yourself not really expecting a response.

"NOOO!" it boomed, shaking the room again, "YOU CAN ONLY KNOW WHEN IT IS GOING TO EFFECT YOU! AND ONLY CHEAP DIGITAL TIMERS! YOU HAVE BEEN BLESSED!" it emphasised the word blessed and then swept it's hand up causing an updraft that made the clouds on the ground swirl and cover your vision. And when the clouds dissipated you was back in your kitchen, the same dinner you were in the middle of making still on the table. It was still frozen.

"Well. No time like the present." You threw the hot pockets onto the plate and went to put the microwave on for 5 minutes, but just as you were about to hit the 5 your hand seemed to have a force applied by something unknown and your finger hit the 4 instead. What? Ok then...you tried to hit reset and your finger slipped on nothing again and hit the 3. You tried again and before you could stop yourself you had entered 4 minutes and 38 seconds. Your hand drew itself closer and pressed start. Nothing to do but wait and sure enough, 4 minutes and 38 seconds later the beep went off and you got your hot pockets out and they looked...fine? I took a bite expecting the usual blistering heat in the centre and to my surprise it was nicely hot on the inside, but not too hot. And the outside was hot and slightly crispy. "Cool" you could get used to this.

A few days later, a few perfect meals and you were walking through downtown to pick up some groceries. The past few days you had been experimenting with your gift and discovered that when someone else entered the timer for your food and if it wasn't long enough you could tell how much longer it needed. If it was too long you knew exactly when to press stop, but, just as the thing had said, only if it was your own food. Sure, people could use your food as an example and put it in the same but no two foods were exactly the same and it seemed that even a few seconds was enough to over or under cook the food just enough to not be satisfying.

You were pondering how the power worked when you felt the feeling tug at your power. "What?" You looked around the area but weren't sure what was happening. It was the same feeling you got when you knew someone had put the food on for too long. You had the urge to stop it before it was overcooked but how could someone be making food for you? You didn't know anyone the area, your nearest friend was at least 20minutes away.

The feeling was pointing you towards a public bench. Oddly enough you saw a bag that someone had left on its own and your finger was being dragged irresistibly towards it. You approached, opened it up and inside was a bunch of wires, a bottle of some kind and a cheap countdown timer with big red letters and they read 10 seconds! You were an idiot, you knew an IED when you saw one but what the hell could you do? You shouted "BOMB!" but for some reason no-one took you seriously and they just stared. You knew you had to do something and your power was forcing your finger towards one of the thin black wires and before you could stop yourself you had pulled it out of the timer with 1 seconds remaining.

What the hell? Your power was meant to be useless. It was only meant to be used for food? You played back what the godthing had said, had it really said it had to be for food? Really though it had said that the timer had to be digital food timers but it didn't necessarily say the food timer had to be timing food...

Of course, someone had called the police on the maniac shouting BOMB and you were arrested despite your insistence you didn't do anything.

Explanations about the god powers were ignored by the local police. It wasn't until an FBI agent came in that you felt you were taken seriously.

"Hello John. Interesting power you say you have. Please put this on." The agent gave me a wrist band of some kind that I put on. "Now tell me. how long until the timer in my pocket goes off?" I didn't even have to think. "36 seconds. 35...34"

He got out the simple looking timer in his pocket. It looked no different than what was used in microwaves around the world but it was connected to a small circuit board.

"When this timer went off you were going to receive a small electric shock delivered by this wrist band. The fact you could tell when that would happen is very interesting to us. We might have a job for you..."

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Submitted by 1mTheKing on Sun, Sep 04, 2022 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

You are the latest victim of a God who is known for handing out superpowers. Unfortunately this God has a twisted sense of humour and only gives out superpowers that are useless to the person receiving them. You are determined to make the God regret giving you powers.