Shatter The Earth

 STRIKE! A surreal vision of ancient 3D images replaced the scoreboard on one of the screens suspended over a bowling lane. Constant clattering sounds echoed throughout the alley as ball struck pin over and over. The sound, and that of the automated score announcer’s voice coming through the TV screens had long faded into the unintelligible din of the bowling alley for the employees. 

Rena stood up from placing some newly sprayed bowling shoes on the rack. Boredom suffused her entire being. She stretched out, grabbing her arm with her other hand, and extended her spine. Stretching for relief from knotted muscles. Returning to normal posture she walked back to the desk. Mia sat at the desk chair playing a little game on her phone. 

“Think Tom will come in today?” Asked Mia, still fingering the colorful screen. It was already a quarter to 8. The night shift counter crew would not be complete until Tom arrived, and he was often extremely late, or extremely absent on most days. 

“Doubt it. We don’t need him anyway. It’s a Wednesday. I’ll do all of his work anyway. I don’t need him here looking stupid while I do.” Rena replied

“Ha!” Mia said. Her attention was clearly completely engrossed in the game. Rena didn’t have to ask, she already knew what game it was. And she could see the attractive anime boy on the screen for confirmation. 

It was already dark out. Dry leaves hopped and skipped across the parking lot pavement, excited by an autumn breeze. Sparse clouds covered the sky. A bright and vigilant moon floated in a pool of deep blue. A few stars, twinkling, only the brightest of them. 

Rena fiddled with her phone as she sat on the curb out front the alley. Break time. She balanced a slice of pizza on a greasy plate in her lap. Scrolling through her twitter timeline. 

There were several subjects one could expect to find scrolling Rena’s timeline on any given day. Most were the usual suspects. Videos of cats doing silly things, fanart of her favorite anime characters, new videos of various superheroics from around the world, photos of cats doing silly things, food videos, and the like. 

Rena fullscreened a video of a man jumping from atop a tall building and landing on a speeding car. His body was wreathed in flame and he changed direction several times  in midair to precisely strike his target with a fiery explosion. She minimized the video and continued scrolling. 

A large bite of two pepperonis was taken out of the pizza slice. Rena set the phone down to wipe the grease from her mouth. The wind stirred and several orange and brown leaves crossed her path. In the dull light of the moon and streetlamps the parking lot was like a black field. Three cars were parked varying distances from each other, seemingly randomly. 

On a wednesday, in this town, at this time of night there weren’t going to be many visitors to the alley. A couple of families and friends were inside bowling. By the distance of the cars Rena could discern each group did not come together even if she hadn’t seen them inside bowling separately. 

Rena liked the night shift. A devoted night owl, who spurned the sun and embraced darkness. The less people around, the more she felt at peace. Fewer eyes, fewer bodies, less stress. The bowling alley was not a bad fit for her but still, it was drudgery. She had been working at this dead end piece of crap job making minimum wage for almost two years now. After graduating college she had entered the typical malaise of a 20 something with no direction and no ambition. 

She looked back to the screen at a video of someone doing a stupid stunt with powers. All around her in the world it seemed like everyone was living a more fulfilling life than her. For Rena’s negatively inclined mind it was hard to imagine it not being so. Everyone seemed happier, if not happier, more fulfilled, if not that then at least more interesting.

 Some people could fly. Some fought crime. Some did crime. Rena cleaned tables in a musty old bowling alley. Any way she thought about it she found this to be unacceptable, and yet she still could not find the drive to change it. The bowling alley was dull, mind numbing, noisy, but comfortable. At least when she had to work less people came in, so less work to do. More time to be bored was better than more time running around stressed, she thought.

A car turned into the parking lot, headlights blinding Rena for a second. The car approached in front of the curb beside her. She knew who it was, of course. Tom’s car. Tomald’s car. 

“Hello, Tomald.” She said as Tom slammed his car door shut and pressed the button on his keys to lock the door. “I’m surprised you decided to work today.” 

Tom shrugged off the use of his full name. A name Rena knew he hated, which made it perfect for getting under his skin. He was feeling a bit frenzied, as Rena could see. Tonight Tom brought a particular energy with him to the alley. His car disturbed many leaves on its approach, and an autumn breeze picked up once more. 

“Yeah . Hey. Uuuh is Chelsea in?” one of the managers. 

“Nope. She’s late just like you. Or maybe she’s not coming today.” Rena replied looking back down at her phone.. Chelsea, one of the couple who managed the bowling alley, was everyone’s boss. She wasn’t the most hands on with the alley, but as long as the staff were present, she often didn’t come in on less busy days, or only came in for a few hours to make sure things were still running. 

“Oh… oh ok…” Tom fiddled with the keys inside of his coat. He was already dressed in the bowling alley uniform. A beige shirt with the emblem of Runner Ball bowling alley emblazoned on the left breast. Tan khakis.

Tom stood there, looking at her for a second. Fiddling with those keys. He looked jittery, which set Rena on edge a tad. He looked at her, then down at the ground, then looked up at the door and walked in. 

That was fucking weird. Thought Rena. 

Rena did not like Tom very much. He was even more of a slacker than she was, and awkward. Well, she was awkward too. Whatever. The empty plate on the concrete next to her was now the frame of a small paper window, soaked through with the grease from the pizza slice. She picked it up, dusted off the butt of her khakis, and went inside. 

One of the families was finishing up and putting their shoes back on. Tom had gone behind the desk and swapped out the family’s shoes. Two adults and two children. One of the children had an ice cream cone he had just been given. 

Possibly a reward for good bowling? Rena thought to herself. She had developed the habit of watching the customers. Trying to figure out little things about them. By this time a subconscious habit, and she usually tried to stop when she caught herself doing it. 

The mechanical ding of the door sounded as the family exited the alley. Another clash of bowling pins sounded in response. 

The next hours passed peacefully. A few more groups of young friends came in to bowl up until closing time. Rena passed the time chatting with Mia about an anime they were mutually watching. Their tastes didn’t exactly line up but there was enough overlap for them to converse about the usual things everyone had seen. Mia was a much bigger watcher and would often watch it on her phone or on the desk computer at work. Sometimes they would watch things together. 

Tom would watch as well, but Rena got the sense that he was far more into anime than he let on and would often hold himself back during discussions. And he wasn’t interested in the girlier stuff Mia would sometimes talk about. Rena was on her phone while Mia and Tom were talking about something or other. Scrolling as always. Liking the occasional post. Sometimes she would even comment on a friend’s post, never anything serious. Forgettable lives. Forgettable people. Forgettable me, she thought. 

A particular post caught her eye and she scrolled back to make sure she caught it. It was a retweet from an account she followed, in big letters it read “HOW TO GET SUPERPOWERS” at the top. She’d seen posts similar to this before. 

Most people wanted powers, many people knew someone who had them. In the grand scheme of a life, Rena knew that super powers didn’t change much. They weren’t especially uncommon, and there didn’t seem like any reason anyone couldn’t get them, but nobody knew how. It seemed there was no surefire way. If such knowledge were public, everyone would have them by now surely, Rena often thought, and yet the idea enticed her, and she was bored, and she clicked on the video. 

The video was similar to others of the sort she had seen. New age mumbo jumbo. Something about chi, or soul energy, ancient secrets and what not. 

Rena knew that all these things were real. Magic was real, “soul energy” or something like it, maybe several other things, were real. Several professional superheroes and others used them. Such things could even be read or used to predict someone’s life circumstances in some cases, although finding actually reputable readings was very difficult as the common unpowered didn’t know how to tell if someone was really using magic, or just bullshitting. 

It was easy to prey on suckers by telling them you had some sort of power and could change their life, tell their future, find their true love for a price. If someone really had the knowledge to grant others powers or teach them how to acquire them, there would be no way they would give away such information for free. Regardless, with her headphones in she watched the video. It was only 20 minutes long. Perfect to pass the remainder of the slow night until close.

Rena entered her room in her little two bedroom apartment, threw her work clothes on the chair beside her bed she used to store clothes, and jumped into bed. It was now nearly 2 AM. It took about 30 minutes to ride the bus from work back to the apartment complex closer to the center of the city. Sylvie was probably sleeping in the room next door, her door closed, light off. 

Rena’s mind returned to the video she had watched earlier. On the way back home she had forgotten about the video. She pulled the phone out of her pocket and rolled over onto her back to watch it again. She had already watched the entire thing, but pressed play to refresh her memory.

Basically, the gist of the video was to close your eyes and enter into a meditative state, and harness your life energy. It claimed this was the first step to learning soul energy manipulation or something, and showed various psychedelic imagery of people unlocking their third eye or chakra points. Overall it didn’t seem like much really. It just said to meditate and focus your energy around a certain point inside your body. Rena scrolled on her phone for a little while. Rena had heard it said many times before that meditation was the key to good sleep, and various other benefits, but she had never really given them much thought or attention but she was half interesting and thought to try it this time. Crossing her legs. Closing her eyes. Trying to feel the cosmos.

Supposedly the way you would know it worked is if you felt something envelope your body, like energy, and you should be able to see it around the bodies of others as well. She didn’t really feel anything after about 5 minutes of vibing. She did find it easy to settle into the vibe however. She looked at the video again, skipping through it, tried for another 10 minutes, and tossed the phone on the bed. 

Rena returned to idly scrolling twitter. Mind growing vacant.

Rena had made some food in the alley kitchen before coming home, but now, a few hours later, she felt a small hunger. She went to the kitchen at the front of the apartment to get a snack. Sylvie was there, awake. The lights were off in the small “living room” area. Rena could tell Sylvie was laying on the couch by the bluish glow of the TV. She went into the kitchen area, separated from the “living room” by a short bar counter, and fumbled through the pantry for some pop tarts. She wasn’t that hungry, one pop tart would do, and so she slipped a single tart from the package and placed it into the toaster. Rena wandered over to speak to Sylvie, and ask why she was awake so late. It wasn’t unusual for her to be, but Rena had no better ideas on how to pass the time. Rena would be awake for a few more hours before inevitably falling asleep. Likely watching some stupid video on her phone before drifting off unintentionally. As she opened her mouth to speak to Sylvie she noticed something strange, however. The TV was not on. 

The TV was not on, and yet Sylvie was still illuminated as if it were. Sylvie layed on the couch and glowed. Maybe she’s on her phone? Rena thought as she got closer and quickly abandoned the thought. Sylvie was on fire. Blue fire. That was the first thought that sprung to mind upon seeing it. She also was not awake. Rena crept around to the front of the couch to get a good look at the sleeping Sylvie. Her body was wreathed in ethereal flame, or maybe not flame. Somewhat like… smoke? But not like smoke. It clung to her, and seemed to pour out of her before dissipating a few inches from her body. She was snoring very lightly and the intensity of the aura increased when she inhaled and decreased as she exhaled. 

Rena returned to her room. 

“I’m such a fucking idiot.” she said to herself under her breath.

 It was literally that simple. That was literally all it took. If she had known power was so within reach she would have searched and found it years ago. So much wasted time. So much wanting and not having that could have probably been remedied by a quick google search. It was laughable. In fact. She laughed about it. She kept laughing, the laughter growing louder and louder as she continued. Until she heard a knock on her door.  

Sylvie was no longer wreathed in blue aura. Rena peaked her head through the crack to see her with a hand up, and enter her own door, closing it. I woke her up woops. Sylvie had just been indicating for her to shut up. And she did so. Now she sat on her bed, trying to conjure the vibe again and see her own aura. She found she could not see it well in the light, so she turned her light off. She could see it now. The calmer she got, or really, the more she got into the vibe the more the aura grew. It started out dim, then grew. It was.. White, or maybe off white. And it extended out a few inches from her skin. She turned her hand over to see the beautiful sight. It clung to her arm, but also emanated from it.