One sunny Sunday, what must be 6 years
ago now, we were having lunch at the pizza restaurant near our office
– it was not really the best, but your options in a business park
are limited on a Sunday – and it had gotten to the topic of “if
you could have any superpower, what would it be?”
While my two friends would soon start
to out-do each other with their powers, I'd gone for what some might
call a clichéd choice of teleportation. There was some minor
additional discussion over the preservation of momentum and if I'd
have to know exactly where in the world something was, if I ever had
to have been there before, and so on, but on the whole it was decreed
as a good choice – if just for the savings on time and bus/plane
fares.
As the plane lifted off and I started
to look down on the land as the rare sun beamed down, I think I want
to change my choice.
Flight was perhaps underrated and while
I had considered it briefly at that restaurant the lazy benefits of
teleportation had won out. After all, why spend 30 minutes flying
somewhere when you can reach it instantly. Thinking about it more
though, there would be risks with teleportation such as if somebody
had put something where you were going to arrive. Flight would be far
safer a means of transportation. And arguably cooler. Teleporting
away in a blink would sure shock people, for both people seeing you
blip out and for those where you blip back in, but imagining to be
able to float off and the spectacle of it with people watching. That
sounds pretty cool. We're not even talking about how fast either and
even if not going at Superman-level supersonic speeds and being
limited to, say, the same as terminal velocity of falling vertically
with all the wind drag that entails this still all sounds appealing.
Advertising opportunities abound, just as the movie Mystery Men
parodied, with the first thing coming to mind being those banners
small planes would drag behind them. Skywriting would be impractical
but perhaps still possible with practice. Delivery service and
courier are obvious and can even save on having to deal with building
security and elevators. Why stop with that when instead can save
people from the upper floors of buildings in danger?
As the plane banks right and the angle
of the sun sends the warmth through my window seat window, the
feeling of that freedom of flight escalates. Of course, I'm nicely
inside in this warm glow and the wind chill outside would be a
challenge that needs consideration. Even in this fantasy you need to
keep your feet a little grounded.
