Eventually, the sun rises and I am grateful that I have something to distract me. I get up, get dressed and walk to the store in silence. Only here can I be normal again. Days pass like seconds, like drops of water that are born and die in moments. After a few hours, this escape begins to end. It has been another quiet day, and as usual, I am grateful for it. Even if I am not particularly excited about going home to be ignored.

I’m finishing arranging the kitchen sponges in their box when I feel a finger tap my shoulder. It’s seven forty, we’ll be closing soon, there are rarely any customers at this hour. “Just a second,” I reply, putting the box back and turning around. It’s Mel. But she’s looking at me strangely, impatiently. Her eyes are shaking a little. “…Hello, what’s wrong?”

When I straighten up, I see she doesn’t have her store apron on anymore. She points a finger up and indicates she’ll meet me outside, then walks away. Typical of her. She hasn’t said another word, but this is the first time she’s ever started a conversation. Or whatever that was. I haven’t responded because I was so surprised.

Immediately, I check to make sure the place is okay. I don’t know when Mel has finished packing all the things that were hers, she is always very efficient in that aspect, but I have noticed that she does not like to be seen. I finish packing what I had left quickly, sweep my section and give my apron to Mr. Long. “Tomorrow at eight,” he always says the same thing. “Yes, sir, have a good night” and I always answer him the same. I put on my coat and go out into the cold street. Melpomene is sitting next to the main door, on the windowsill that faces the store counter. She looks at me with more impatience.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Yes”, sure, it would be the first time we do it that way.

She walks without looking back. I imagine she hears my footsteps, although her black boots make more noise than my sneakers. We cross the street, walk two blocks, and Mel turns into an alley next to a restaurant. At the end, a hidden area awaits us, behind the restaurant, with some garbage containers. It smells horrible.

"Why are we here?" I ask almost immediately, this is not where I expected to go. I wasn't really expecting anything, but I'm confused about where we ended up.

I try to remember everything I can about the girl I blindly followed into a dead end. Meanwhile, she speaks. “I… need help,” are the first words she says to me without answering.

From the moment I walked into the store, I felt her watching me. At first, though, I assumed it was out of curiosity. I'm a normal guy, but my situation has become less so in the last few months – my injuries cause me pain, pain that prevents me from performing certain actions or moving quickly, pain that has incapacitated me for hours at a time.

Mr. Long and Mel have never inquired about it, although the former probably assumed it was because of the paperwork I had to submit to get the job without getting into trouble. And yet, they have been nothing but kind and reserved at the same time.

Then, a while later, I noticed that her stares continued, but they didn't feel like she considered me a threat. What did she consider me then? I had made every effort to be friendly, and really, I wasn't just trying to make an impression. I was being genuinely friendly. Or so I think. Although the more I think about my virtues the more selfish the whole train of thought seems. Looking at this girl, I know what I'm going to say, but I think about her instead.

 “What's wrong?”

Mel takes a moment to clear her throat. She looks worried.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“…Yeah, sure”

“First of all…can I trust you? That you won't tell?”

“Yeah, I…wouldn't do that”

“How can I be sure?”

“Well, I wouldn't have anyone to tell it to”

“What are you talking about?”

I feel comfortable, if she wants to tell me her secret, I guess I can tell her mine too.

“Really, I don't have anyone to tell it to”

Mel looks at me confused. Her eyes are bigger than I thought.

“I'm…alone? I think…What I mean is that I don't talk to my family, I don't have any friends… Dongxi and Mr. Long are the only ones I interact with…oh, and you”

“Mr. What? You mean Mr. Lau, right?”

“Is it Lau? I didn't know, I've always called him Long”

Mel laughs, it's also the first time I've heard her laugh out loud. She usually just smiles when I tell her things about a client. She looks calmer now. She clears her throat once more. "I need help," she says. "They put a curse on me”.

“A curse? How did it happen? What's wrong with you?”

“It's strange…”

Mel reaches out to the dumpster and starts to wiggle her fingers. I feel confused now. She continues to do this for a few seconds, and I keep looking at her. Then she lowers her arm and looks at her hand, bewildered. “What’s wrong?” I ask her, and she remains silent, looking at her hand. Out of nowhere, she has started to frown. She looks upset. What should I say to her? I can’t imagine what she’s trying to do, maybe something’s wrong with her hand. I hardly know a thing about curses. Mel raises her hand and looks at it. I still don’t understand what’s happening. Is it part of her curse? In a sudden movement, Mel extends her arm and fingers, and closes her eyes. I can see her hand shaking. It’s getting colder. The dumpster is still the same.

“Hey,” I say, tapping Mel on the shoulder. She ignores me. She starts making a humming noise. Her hair starts to rise. But, there’s no static in the place. Mel’s hand extends fully, and I can feel a gust of air coming from it. The lid of the dumpster shoots up and hits the wall behind it. The impact scares me. Mel continues to extend her arm, and the dumpster begins to rise. It’s hovering a few inches in the air. Then, she closes her hand, and the dumpster falls to the ground. Despite being low, the dumpster makes a loud rumble as it hits the ground. Mel lowers her arm and looks at me. Her eyes had been shining, but when she opens them, the light that covered them fades and her pupils return.

“That… isn’t a curse”

“How?” she answers confused

“Mel, you have a superpower”

“What? …No… I wouldn’t say that”

“What was that then? It was incredible!”

I walk over to the container and try to lift it from the bottom. Impossible, it weighs a ton. I look at the lid closely. There are no strings, no springs or anything. It’s all been genuine. Turning to look at Mel, I’m excited to tell her a lot of things, but she looks embarrassed. She calls it a curse. Something must have happened, but…

“How about we go to the park? We can talk better there?” I say. Mel just nods. We're back to normal. We start walking out of the alley. I hope no one heard us.

…

“It started after my grandfather passed away like half a year ago, I mean, right away… I was sitting in my room, and out of nowhere things started floating. I barely got it under control when my mom came with the news. I didn’t realize it until someone said the time of death… I’m not entirely sure he had anything to do with it, though…” While she’s telling me, Mel uses her power to pick up pieces of trash from the grass and put them in a can. The park is empty, so I’ve asked her to show me more of her ability. “And what have you done with this power?”

“Nothing, really… it's unstable…”

“Unstable? I see that you have a good handle on… what you do… “

“Yes, the thing is that… it's not just one…”

“You have more powers!?”

“Hush!”

“Oh, yeah… sorry, do you have more powers?”

“Something like that… and they're not powers”

“You called it… curse, did something happen?”

“It's just that… it's difficult, look”

Mel gets up from the bench and reaches out to a bird bath. A stream of water begins to float out. Mel turns it into a sphere, then splits it into a dozen smaller portions. “There are several” she takes seven of those portions and puts them in front of me. “They are unstable because every day they change, sometimes I can make things float, sometimes I read minds, sometimes I can heal… I think I’ve been able to kill” Mel takes the portions and begins to join them with the other ones that were left. “Then they change because of my feelings, because of the things I say, or if I try really hard using one in particular…” Mel combines them all into a single stream again but lets small drops fall to the ground. “And then, things float on their own, I hear everyone’s thoughts, people begin to steal my energy, and I fear that one day they will begin to die when they get close to me”. Finally, Mel lets the water fall to the ground.

“What do you want me to help you with?” I ask her, she has convinced me that it is not that great. “I was hoping to start looking for an answer on how to get rid of this, but something told me… I wouldn't be able to do it alone”.

“Yes, I will help you… and if we can’t free you from them, I will help you learn to control them” Mel turns to look at me. I don’t know why I said that. “Thanks, Sam” she says and sits back down on the bench.

It’s late to stay here. I should walk her home and then go home. Mr. Lau is expecting me in the morning. “Let’s go,” I say, and we start walking. It’s nighttime and the moon looks gigantic. That strange feeling returns, my skin crawls. I don’t think it’s because I don’t know what to say to her. I turn to look at her, Mel is frowning. “Don’t you have a strange feeling?” she asks me. A person peeks out from the bushes in front of us. He’s wearing a huge black trench coat, heavy boots, and a mask. In his hand he holds a huge knife. “So there you are” a muffled voice sounds under the mask.

“I've had a hunch all day... and I was right, we finally met... How about we jump straight to the point?”