Elektra Voltare: Blessed with Awful

Episode One: Awfully Blessed

ON THE DAY of my baptism, I killed my father. Shortly thereafter, I killed my mother. Then, I burned down the orphanage where they had placed me. Not a bad trail of destruction for an infant. But I was no ordinary infant. My name is Elektra Voltare, and I am blessed with suck.

At least, that's what my father would have called it, if I hadn't killed him, or rather if my blessedness hadn't killed him. I found that term, blessed with suck, in his journal with a list of his favorite comic book and fantasy characters. Korg the Mighty, who manifested superhuman strength but only when so terrified that it aided his panicked fleeing. Or Talsia the Good Witch, whose conscience only allowed her to do good, but whose supernatural power only could be used for evil. Or, more aptly, Adam Nucleo, tops on his list, who could manifest and survive a thermonuclear explosion which would vaporize everything in a twenty-mile radius, but which also caused the deaths of his parents from radiation poisoning when his powers began to manifest as a child. No one could come within twenty feet of Mr. Nucleo unless covered in lead.

Since I'm typically clad in lead these days, I'd like to meet Adam someday, if only he were real. Perhaps my dad would be delighted to see his daughter hand-in-hand with one of his favorite fantasy characters? I'll never know. But I have never read a comic book nor a fantasy novel, so all I know of Adam and the others is what I read in my father's journal. I bet I'd be up at the top of the list with old Adam, if my father hadn't fallen victim to my blessed suckiness, but I'll never know for sure.

No one ever blamed me for all the destruction I caused, but it was all my fault. But being at fault did not mean I was blameworthy. I just was who I was, and the suck I was blessed with did the rest. I live now in the basement of a monastery where my blessed condition is well contained, so nobody else has to die. But even when I'm not out-and-out killing people just by being, I am a total nuisance to the modern world. If you ever met me, you'd best not have a smart phone or a watch, unless you have one of those old-style watches driven by a spring. Then you'll be fine. But batteries? Well, you'll just need a new one. Cell phone? That's a bigger problem. You'll need a recharge and to restore all your data. Any electricity, including deadly sources like lightning and power transmission lines, I most blessedly suck and ground, and heaven help you if you get in the way.

The basement of the monastery is cool, especially my cell, if you enjoy dull lead. I don't mean lead paint. I mean a coating of lead on the walls and ceiling. It may look like a prison, but it's not, though I'm not allowed to leave. They call all the bedrooms in the monastery cells, not just mine. The poor Clares freely take a vow of enclosure, so it's like a voluntary prison, in a way. But they aren't being punished for crimes.

There's no electricity in my cell, so there's no problem. Skulking around by torchlight, reading by candlelight. That's my nights, anyway. I join the sisters for prayers, but I first have to suit up in lead, so I don't draw the juice out of the place and give them a nearly infinite electric bill. My condition is not fully understood, and thankfully the scientist who discerned my condition was also a priest, so I was not subjected to the battery of tests others might go through. As a mere babe, I was shuffled off from the remains of the orphanage I burned down and left in the care of the sisters, who prepared this neato place for me in the basement. I guess neato is an archaic word. My education is mostly from my set of Collier's encyclopedias printed in 1988, and it was even an old word back then. But old suits me. I'm a disaster in the modern world.