Tea Scenes: A Bready Baker Collection

Hindsight is Always 20/20

Run

That's all it ever told me.

Run

Over and over. Day in. Day out. In hindsight, I should have listened.

Run

Everybody's power is carved into their neck at 16. It's not painful, and it happens in our sleep. We wake up the morning of our birthday to a word describing our power. Mine says hindsight, but as my lungs burn after 15 minutes it's starting to seem more like foresight. Another power had another melt-down. The powers are small. My best friend has napkin engraved in her neck and she can summon a napkin of any kind at any time. But more recently powers have been having what are called melt-downs: when the small power gets big consequences. Flower. That was all that was engraved on this poor kid's neck... a singular flower was all he could summon. Summoning is the most common in every way. A singular flower. But it appeared in his neck, and powers forbid anybody try to pull it. He just needed to learn to control his powers better, everyone said. He did. He summoned a singular flower in his mother's garden every day. It was beautiful. Until it wasn't. The melt-down happened at school when he tried to give a poor girl a flower. It came out of her mouth. He tried to summon another one to fix his powers but it came out of his mouth... and then they just kept coming. Flower after flower after flower. My powers always start talking seconds before the meltdown, and they only ever say one word: run. Over and over and over until it's over. It's endless now though... they aren't stopping... oh... so this is what it's like... for a melt- 

Everything goes black. I can't breathe... The cafeteria? But I just ran- I cough. Petals go flying out in front of me. What? I ran- It's jarring. The taste of blood. The impact of the ground. The roughness of the concrete. The bright blue of the sky. The ability to breathe. Hindsight. I get it... I'm 17 now. My powers are getting stronger I guess... Dad said that might happen... what could have been. Powers that be... that's what could have been? I shiver on the ground. I feel bad for the people that got stuck in the cafeteria. A car pulls up next to me.

"Alex? What the hell?" My dad shouts from the driver's seat through the passenger window. 

"Hey dad... my powers got stronger." I chuckle. Appear. That's what it says on his neck. Think of the devil and he shall well... appear. 

"Yeah and I was in the middle of a meeting!" He furrows his brow.

"And I nearly died!" I shout back . There's no way he's meeting's going to seem very important now. He's silent for a while...

"Get in." He says firmly.

I sit up slowly, the taste of blood still thick in my mouth and finally see what I missed the first time, "Um..." My breathing quickens as my brain processes what it sees and kicks the pain receptors back on, "Da- dad- I need-" I can't even get the words out before I fall back onto the concrete and everything goes dark. The car door slams and footsteps run to my side. Is it Dad? I can't understand what he's saying... he sounds panicked... Dad has it handled. He always does. I'm going to go to sleep now. Dad has it handled.

Run.

The lights are bright against the starched and sanitized blinding white of the hospital.

Run.

It repeats. Ugh, not like I can... I've got casts on my right leg! Damn power. I'll have to suffer through whatever's coming.

Run.

Woah. I didn't know it could do that...

Run.

Jeez you got a wheelchair or- a wheelchair appears next to my bed... that's not normal.

RUN.

Ah! I didn't know it could scream at-

RUN.

Okay okay, give me a-

RUN

This-

RUN thing RUN is RUN panick RUN ed.

I give up trying to form a coherent thought and shift myself over to the wheelchair, being careful on my way out of the bed. My arms raise just in time to shield my face from drywall dust as a doctor comes flying through the wall behind my bed. I wheel over to the opposite wall where he landed. The voice isn't yelling anymore, "What happened?"

"Melt-down."

"Oh..." Everything blacks out. I cry out as I feel my ribs shatter against a wall and I cough into my hand as I try to regain my breathe but all I manage is the expenditure of energy and blood in my hand... oh shit.

"Hey... hey!" I snap back to the current reality, "Are you okay, kid?" The doctor's shining a light into my eye. Ouch, I blink in response. 

"Hindsight."

"What?" He turns the pen light off and narrows his eyes.

"My power..." I turn my neck so he can see, "It's called hindsight. If I hadn't moved when I did..." I stare off at the wall that the doctor just hit. There's a dent.. "You should get some x-rays Doctor."

"What? I'm fine." He inhales for a deep breathe but ends up coughing and... yep, blood in his hand. 

"You have broken ribs. Not too sorry about that." I say.

"How do you-"

"It would have been me if I hadn't moved..."

Run.

But I just-

Run.

Sure, okay. Whatever...

I push myself past the doctor and through the open door of my examination room. The doctor calls after me, but I'm more concerned with listening to the voice. Seems like every time it shows up now it gets more and more dangerous. Somebody needs to find a cure for these melt-downs. Hopefully I'm not moving when the Hindsight hits like it did last time. That ended so well. 

I hear a crash behind me and the voice stops chanting. I skid to a stop and wait. It's going to hap- The tile is the first thing I recognize. It's a different color in the rooms versus the halls. The doctor's lying in front of me, his head is- my stomach swirls at the sight of it. It's not gone but it's not attached nor intact... I pull my hand away from my stomach that I had grabbed in reflex and notice that it's covered with blood I look down and see a clipboard sliced through my stomach. It's got a word burned across the top: Management. 

Management powers are no joke... they're usually accompanied by some kind of extra power used to keep people in line. This one seems to  be strength. Management powers often have powers good for well management. Some have words such as Sales or Report and are uncannily charismatic. Others have words such as Finance or Accounting and they're crazy good at math. Like, they can balance a multi-million dollar budget in their head good at math.. 

How would management be able to do this? Is Management having a meltdown? By the powers... I'm going to be running a lot if Management powers are having meltdowns now. I hope this leg heals soon-