Many, many times, my tardiness and lack of initiative have cost me minute inconveniences. The most notable of these is my unluck in catching buses. Their arrivals are random enough for me to be unable to plan for them entirely, but my uninterest in running to make them often leaves me waiting for tens of minutes to catch the next one.

This exact scenario met me, for the plentieth time, last week, though for only the first time on my eighteenth birthday. I was only, say, fifty metres from the bus stop, when the bus I was waiting for drove up and opened its doors. Two people got off, and one was getting on. I contemplated rushing for a moment. ‘No, I wouldn’t make it,’ was my thought. The person getting on stepped on, but she seemed to be taking a while paying her fare. ‘Maybe,’ I thought, and tipped forward a little, but the woman was managing quickly now and there were still twenty metres between the bus stop and myself.

‘Ugh,’ I moaned. ‘If only I could teleport to the bus door, and be there like that, without any effort.’

The thought was a fabulous one, and not one I hadn’t amused myself with in the past. I started imagining what it would be like if I just appeared in the bus, in front of the driver, ready to pay my fare. I even closed my eyes to picture it better, while continuing my steady amble towards the stop that would serve as my place of stay for the next twenty minutes at least.

When I opened my eyes, however, I was most greatly surprised. My next step was a long stride, but instead of my leg reaching onto the ground before me and carrying me forward, it extended and directly hit the bus driver’s booth.

‘Are you looking where you’re going?’ he asked me, and I was too dumbstruck to answer him. ‘You going to pay? We don’t take credit here,’ he continued.

I scrambled into my pocket to retrieve the two coins necessary, and dropped them into the slot that ate them. The bus doors closed behind me, and with me still standing a little uneasily at the bus’ front, the driver set into motion.

I wobbled to the nearest seat available to me and dropped down onto it. ‘What just happened?’ I thought, but it was evident enough to me that I didn’t sit wondering for long.

However I had done it, I had just teleported. Did I always have this ability? I wondered. What did I do differently this time round that allowed me to move through space so effortlessly? My mind was so lost in musing, that I almost missed my stop.

I entered my home still a little uncertain. Reality was feeling somewhat unreal. I closed the door carelessly, and my mom was alerted to my arrival.

‘Oh, here comes my birthday boy!’ she pampered. She ran up to me, squeezing me in a tight embrace and flurrying kisses onto my forehead and cheek. She was unaware to my disturbed mood.

‘How was school?’ she asked, and I told her it was fine. She asked if my friends gave me any gifts, whether I got any cards, whether—oh, who cares? Would she think me crazy if I told her what happened?

There was no way I could tell her. I must have imagined it, and notwithstanding the materiality of the whole event, I would have to dismiss it as a slip of a tired mind. My sleep hadn’t been the greatest recently, after all.

I assured her I got no gifts, but some of my friends gave me joking cards. She was thrilled to hear it, and told me she had prepared my favourite lasagne to celebrate. I nodded pleasantly, almost politely, and started walking up the stairs to my bedroom, where in solitude I could process everything in my mind.

‘Oh—Mikey!’ cried my mom from the kitchen. I kept my place halfway to the top of the stairs, and she ran up to me to give me a white envelope.

‘Your dad—before he died, he left this for you. He made me swear to give it to you only on your eighteenth, and you’re—oh you’re so big already!’ her eyes swelled as she started reminiscing. She sniffled and straightened her voice.

‘I don’t know what he wrote, he didn’t tell me, but he was very strict that you were to receive it only on your eighteenth. Here is his gift to you.’—she gave me another kiss on my forehead—‘Happy birthday, sweetheart.’

She walked back down the stairs. From in the kitchen she shouted that the lasagne would be ready in a minute, and I should get ready to come down. I leaped up the remaining stairs, clutching the letter like it contained the answers I was looking for.

I took off my shoes and tossed them in the corner of my bedroom. I draped my jacket on my desk chair and took my small penknife from the desk. I hopped onto my bed. Lying back, I opened the knife and slit the top of the envelope.

Inside was a folded piece of white paper. I removed it and disposed the envelope to my bedroom floor. I unfolded the letter to reveal some writing inside.

It was my dad’s handwriting alright, as best as I could remember it from the little writing I saw him do when I was a small. I did not know what to expect: I hadn’t thought him to be a sentimental person, at least not from how mom spoke of him. With eager eyes I started reading. 

Dear Mike,

If your mother has remained faithful to her promise, and I have no reason to think she would not, then at the moment you are reading this it should be the date of your eighteenth birthday.

How big you must have grown! I won’t be there to see you, I don’t have that many years left—the doctors aren’t even giving me a month, but I have to make it to your ninth birthday, I’ll never forgive myself if I can’t stretch out that far!

Now, you know I’m not a sentimental person—or at least I hope your mother isn’t making me out to be one.

However, the nature of this letter is not only heartfelt, but I must also inform you of something very important, and I will implore you not to do or think anything crazy before reaching the letter’s end.

Right after you were born—eighteen years from this day!—the doctors informed your mother and me of a very innovative procedure. You had just been born, the two of us were overjoyed, and we were ready to listen to anything anyone was interested in telling us.

From the outset, these doctors assured us that the procedure was entirely tried and tested, perfectly safe, and in all their trials on both animals and humans, not a single error had occurred, and that even with an allowance for human error, the procedure was entirely safe, and nothing could go wrong, but carrying the procedure out could entirely change your life, and only for the better.

Like I say, the two of us were overjoyed for our newborn son, and we wanted only the best that the world could possibly offer him—the best the world could offer you. We asked the doctor what it was that the procedure involved, and here once again, I will ask you to please not think anything wild, and reach this letter’s end with a mind as calm as possible.

The doctor told us that the procedure would implant a special device into your brain. The device was a small chip, you would never feel it and it would never interfere with your life or cause you pain. However what the chip could allow you to do was entirely extraordinary.

With the help of this chip inserted into your brain, along with a special charged capacitor—also non-intrusive—you would be capable of teleporting anywhere you wanted in the world.

Now: please, please do not think of teleporting anywhere at this moment. Keep your thoughts focussed on my letter and my letter only, and once you have finished it, you may think freely.

The reason I am so adamant about you finishing this letter, is because of how this chip happens to work. The chip, which is responsible for all the scientific magic that lets you teleport, is powered exclusively by the one capacitor attached to it in your brain, and this capacitor is only large enough to hold a single charge.

This means, dear son, that you can only ever teleport a single time. That is why I am trying to be so careful: because I do not want you to waste your one chance to be anywhere in the world on proving what I’m writing here true.

You might not necessarily believe me, and I cannot say I blame you, but there is no need to try testing this practically. If you really want to see if such a thing is possible, then the doctors provided ample evidence footage when they presented us the procedure, and you can see such teleportation in action in these tapes. I, however, believe you are smart enough to know I wouldn’t lie in circumstances such as these, with one foot in the grave. That being said, if you still do not believe me, then that does not entirely matter, because as long as you remember in a moment of dire trouble to close your eyes and imagine yourself somewhere else, then the teleportation will work, and you will not need to believe me because you will see for yourself. That is how the teleportation is triggered: you must close your eyes and imagine yourself somewhere else, and you will be moved there; but once again I entreaty you not to experiment with this, no matter how anxious you may be to try it out.

This may take you a little time to process, and I understand that I have presented you with a great deal of information in such a short span of time. You are only seeing this letter now because the doctors, and your mother and I, agreed it would be best not to let an immature mind have the options presented by teleportation, however seeing that you are now growing to be a man, I expect you to have the maturity to know to reserve such a deus ex machina for only the times that cannot be solved without it, as sometimes unfortunately befalls even the most honest of people.

Your mother was a little apprehensive to the idea for a while, but eventually I was able to persuade her that the potential benefits of such an ability outweigh the unfortunate side effects of the procedure. After all, impotence is a small price to pay for the gift of teleportation!

Anyway son, that is all I wanted to write to you on this special day.

Happy birthday, I love you,

Dad.

I read it in its entirety, slightly numb from tension. When I reached the end, I dropped the letter despondently on the bed, still tossing its words around in my head. Then one particular point caught my eye, and I fervently grabbed the paper back up.

‘Impotence?!’

9.X.21