Superheroes are bull – y’know. No one exists like Spiderman or Wonder Woman. Well, that’s what I was told when I was younger. My parents aren’t – weren’t – special. Is anyone really? If we are all unique, then are any of us?

That’s what I struggle with on the daily. Wondering if there is anyone who has a shred of understanding as to what I am. Even if you would or could call me a Superhero… I wouldn’t be a very good one. Nah… I’d be pretty crappy at best. I wouldn’t even get a comic strip in the newspaper.

I stopped telling people what I see when I was a kid. No one believed me anyway. I actually considered standing in a nursing home to perform my gift, but that would be way too dark. Plus, I’d probably be arrested anyway. Loitering or Soliciting probably.

Oh, I guess I should tell you about my ‘gift’. It’s simple really. Clocks… not clocks. Timers on people’s heads. I can see them. They tell me how much longer you have to live. Found out that meaning the hard way. My younger brother… Thought it was odd that his timer was so short. My mom heard the scream from the yard and ran outside. EMS claimed he fell out of a tree playing with friends. To this day, I think he was pushed. Evil intent of a five-year-old? Probably not, but possible…. It’s things like that that make me want to intervene and sometimes I want to tell people. But like I said, who would believe a teenage kid like me? Even if they did, I’d probably freak them out.

And by the way, I don’t like coffee. I’m more of a soda-drinker. But I get coffee every day now. The coffee shop a few blocks from my dorm, called Bean and Leaves (they sell tea too), is where I spend a good portion of my morning. Most of the time only about an hour and a half.

There’s this girl… Now, I know what you’re thinking but it isn’t like that. Jeez. I may be a teenager but I’m not stalking anyone because I like them. I’ve never even seen her face. And why would I even bother telling you about my gift if it was not relevant to the story? Okay.

No matter when I show up to B&N, she’s already there. And she always leaves before me – strategically before me. I mean that, when she leaves, there’s always a crowd that she can disappear into. Like she knows I’m there, watching. But if she knows, then why hasn’t she said anything? She must know why I come there each day. Unless she thinks I really like coffee. Or I’m a stalker.

I’m starting to think that my gift does not work on her. But then questions of why began to pop up. Each day that I see her, sitting in the corner of the shop with her back turned, typing away on her computer, I glance right above her head. The timer doesn’t have a number. Just a sign that you hear about in math class but never can truly reach. “∞”

Impossible. That’s what I thought at first. That’s what I still think. Monday, October 24th was the day I finally got the courage to sit right behind her. She wasn’t as kind as I had imagined.

“Don’t speak to me,” she said without flinching. “I know you’ve been watching me. Every day. Every single damned day. I don’t care what you want. Know this, you are in a very dangerous situation following me.”

“No.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. It hurt. My stomach was in knots. “You don’t understand why I’m here. I’m curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” she whispered and took a sip of her tea. Herbal – every day. “And you too, if this conversation continues.”

I turned around to face the back of her head. She scolded me almost instantaneously and I spun around the armchair. “You want answers? Come with me. Wait five minutes after I get up and meet me in the parking garage behind the old shoe warehouse.”

This is it! I’m going to die. Too bad I can’t see my own timer because then my heart wouldn’t be beating so fast. She stood up, packed up her laptop, and left. Five minutes went by in a flash and I stood up, tossed my barely-touched coffee in the bin, and started the ten block journey to what could be my demise. “Demise” sounds better than “death” anyway. Makes me feel like I’m in a movie.

Okay now I really feel like I’m in a movie. The parking garage she was talking about has been deserted for decades. Vandals spray their ‘tags’ on the walls and those who believe the ghost stories of the shoe warehouse and surrounding area may show up here from time to time. But it’s otherwise desolate. Today, only one car parked at the very top of the lot. Tinted windows, blacked out rims. Nothing inconspicuous about that! (Yes, I’m being sarcastic! I’m trying to diffuse the tension).

And then, the window rolls down and I come face-to-face with the mysterious woman for the first time. The only thing that draws me to her face are three scars equally spaced sliced across her face. But it isn’t grotesquely distorting anything, just lighter lines of skin extending up into her hairline.

“Get in,” she demands. I oblige.

The car’s nice, very nice. I wonder what she does for a living? What gave her that scar? I’m sure I was about to find out.

Silence. I broke it. I usually do. But I don’t usually blurt out something stupid like I did… “I can see your lifespan above your head. Yours must be wrong. It says -.”

“I’m immortal,” she replied.

I laughed, half nervously, half in disbelief.

“Do you laugh because you already know this?” she turned to me as I slid into the back seat. “Or because you do not believe your own eyes?”

“Okay then,” I was still laughing. Tearing up at this point. “How in the hell are you immortal? That’s impossible.”

“How are you able to see another’s lifespan?” she inquired. Question with a question. It stopped me from laughing, that’s for sure. “That’s impossible. Come back to the coffee shop to meet more of us.”

“But I don’t understand.”

“You will. Oh, and I’m Vanessa by the way.”

“Steven.”

That was my first experience with the group I called the “Infinities” (I’m not very creative). They say that they’re just a different type of human, but I don’t know if I will ever believe that. In the United States alone, there are only about a thousand of them. The World? Maybe 100,000.

I’m sympathetic to them. Each one has their own abilities, like me. Vanessa can manipulate objects with her mind. Before my classes, we gather together and hang out. The first friends I’ve ever really had. A few months go by and they ask me to do them a favor. To meet them in the same parking lot as before. All they tell me is that it is a “test to prove my loyalty.” and that “they’ll answer my question when it’s over.” The question that I’ve been asking since I first met Vanessa – Am I an “Infinity?”

Here I go. Just a few more hours and it’s ‘test’ time with them. I hear familiar and unfamiliar voices and I can see a bonfire flickering at the top of the parking garage…