[ WP ] For the first time ever , a person is born with a genuine superpower . They proceed to live out their entire life without noticing or realizing it .

Music was the source of Isaac ’ s power. His mind could absorb the sinusoidal waveforms and extrapolate from them how the universe was woven. Listening to Wagner or Nine Inch Nails he could fundamentally understand the chaos of human motivation and conflict. Listening to Vivaldi he understood why the flowers bloomed and had a telepathic connection to the bees seeking them out. 
 
 He had glimpses of his power when he was young, in his middle school chorus class. Hearing Jeannie Elmin ’ s solo during a practice one day, his mind linked to hers though her voice and he instantly knew all of her thoughts, memories, dreams and future. 
 
 That ’ s how he found out that she didn ’ t think he was cute. She liked that stupid asshole Dave Merinich instead. He knew, not knowing exactly how he knew, that she would eventually marry Dave. They would never amount to much, and she would be miserable working a gas station in her 40 ’ s because Dave could never hold down a job. Isaac assumed this was just a revenge fantasy since he had no reason to think otherwise. 
 
 In college he found that he could study so much more easily with a little bit of background music. It didn ’ t matter what kind of music – he liked them all. With a Lady Gaga playing, he could memorize his entire organic chemistry textbook in minutes, absorbing the knowledge directly from the pages through the harmonics of “ Born This Way ”. A lot of people like to listen to music when they study, so he didn ’ t think this was unusual. He did very well in school. 
 
 Many years later when as a surgeon, he insisted on having Shostakovich ’ s symphonies played, in order, during all of his procedures on the old CD player he kept in the OR for that purpose. It helped him concentrate he said, and no one objected since all of his operations went flawlessly year after year after year. He ’ s a talented surgeon, and no one wanted to mess with a formula that always worked. 
 
 Retirement seemed to last forever for Isaac. Time seemed to stop while he laid on his couch listening to Beethoven, imagining what the cardinals singing outside his window might be thinking, not knowing that he was reading their minds through their songs. Each day felt like it took a thousand years to pass, as his command over the universe forced time itself to slow to a crawl. 

