Invisibility

They say, people who wish for the power of flight are good and those who wish for invisibility are evil. This story follows the journey of a good man who’s granted the power of invisibility.

George had been standing at a busy intersection, when an old woman with a walker ambled into onrushing traffic. George sprung into action, with barely a thought, stepped into the road, wrapped his arms around the woman’s waist and yanked her backwards and to the side, they both tumbled to the ground next to the curb, George cushioning her fall with his body, the truck came to a screeching halt 40 feet down the road. The woman’s walker was now a crumpled twist of aluminum piping, lodged under it. George’s laptop bag had gone directly beneath the heavy vehicles tires and was flattened beyond repair.

The old woman rolled off George’s chest, he helped her to her feet, a few people looked on, asking if they were okay. The old woman smiled at George and placed the palm of her hand on his chest. She seemed to thank him in a language he didn’t understand, Italian maybe, he thought or Greek, he really didn’t know and his guesses were wrong regardless. Her smile was one of clear thanks and a glimmer in her eye hinted at a bit of mischief. Her hand felt odd on his chest, like a warmth, at the time he passed it off as the adrenaline rushing through his heart from the near death experience. She stood and dusted herself off as George walked over to retrieve his laptop bag, opening it and looking inside to see broken plastic and bits of laptop. By the time he turned back toward the woman, she was gone. The feeble old woman had disappeared into the crowd.

He didn’t know how, but George knew that the woman he’d saved had gifted him with magic, or perhaps cursed him with magic. He didn’t realize anything was odd until he’d gotten up the next day, taken a shower and while washing his chest, noticed something written on his skin. Like a tattoo, half hidden under the hair on his chest. It looked like a word, but he couldn’t make it out. He got out of the shower and stood in front of the mirror to get a better look. In small print, written so that it was correct in the mirror, was the word “arcanus”. He’d uttered the word out loud that first time reading it. Wondering what it meant. How it got there. Eventually remembering the old ladies hand on his chest and the strange feeling. He would go on to learn the meaning of the word, and the gift given to him. Hidden. Whenever he uttered that word, he became hidden to the world of man. To him, he remained as visible as ever, with no noticeable change. But the world around him ignored him as if he didn’t exist. To rejoin the living, he only needed to utter the word once again.

At first, George didn’t know what to do with his new power. It took him several days before he came to understand it. That first day, he’d gone to work, without anyone noticing him. Nobody said good morning when he entered the office. Nobody paid any attention to him the entire day. His emails left unread and unresponded to. He stood next to his buddies’ cubicle asking him to go out to lunch only to be completely ignored. Eventually getting angry enough to shout at his friend. No response. Nobody even looked his way. That’s the moment that he realized something was definitely not right. He went through a series of hand waves, gestures, moving his friend’s keyboard out from under his hands, trying to get his attention. But still, nothing. Finally, he poked his friend in the hand with a pencil. That got a reaction, his friend finally realized George was standing there. “What the fuck did you do that for?” he yelled, holding his hand. George apologized profusely, and the second his buddy looked away, he’d seemed to have forgotten about George’s existence. Rubbing his hand for a moment before getting up and heading for lunch.

George wandered off, stunned by the revelation that people didn’t seem to notice him. He tried the same experiment with other people in the office, with the same results, nobody paid him any mind, unless he hurt them. At which point they’d see him, but it didn’t last long before he’d become “invisible” to them once again. He found himself in the men’s room, his shirt unbuttoned, staring at the word on his chest. Some other colleagues came and went while he was there, paying him no attention of course. Upon uttering “arcanus” once again, everything changed. “Are you alright George?” a co-worker asked, seeing him standing at the mirror with his shirt half opened. George apologized and quickly buttoned up his shirt. The method of his new found powers slowly dawned on him over the remainder of the day.

Over the next few weeks, George became emboldened to take advantage of his powers. At first, it was simple things like walking out of the convenience store without paying for his coffee. Nobody seemed to notice. He ramped it up to a grocery cart full of food. He also found that it wasn’t helpful to be “invisible” when he called people or needed to order food. People would answer the phone, but not hear anything he said, and hang up. He could stand in line, but nobody took his order or served him.

It wasn’t until his third day with the new powers that George tried anything “daring”. He uttered the word and walked into the women’s bathroom at a fast food establishment. The woman he bumped into as he opened the door, ignored him and walked past. He stood inside for a moment as another woman washed her hands at the sink. He walked up next to her and used the sink beside her. She didn’t pay him any mind. He worried that cameras would catch him and that if he did anything truly heinous, someone would review the video tape and he’d be caught. But no cameras in a bathroom, so… he waited until he saw an attractive woman enter a stall. She was blonde and young and as she went to close the stall door, he caught it with his hand. She made a few more attempts to close it, then gave up and began to unzip her jeans. George cracked the door open and peered in at her as she hovered over the toilet. She didn’t seem to notice the man staring directly at her. Not being into water sports, George turned and left, having realized the girl didn’t notice him staring at her as she lowered her panties and jeans.