[ WP ] You are an omnipotent god . Out of boredom you decided to live an ordinary human life vowing not to use your power . 15 years has pass and you have a 9 to 5 working for a major tech company . Your boss has been tormenting you for years and you have reach your limit

Omniscience is hard to describe in normal, mortal terms. 
 
 Imagine a hobby that you're good at. After a while, particularly with many years' practice, it becomes something of a second nature. Muscle memory, reflex, instinct, intuition... They come from hundreds to thousands of hours of practice; each successive move faster by virtue of a smooth understanding of what comes next. 
 
 For people with years of practice, imagining a time before that instinctive movement, that almost prognostic awareness of circumstances before they happen, it can feel like stumbling forward blind. 
 
 So, please, take a moment to forgive the stumblings of a blind god that lead to what has to be one of my most shameful moments. ( One, of course, preceded by the creation of the platypus. I am told most beings experiment with creation on alcohol. I still regret mine. ) 
 
 The pixels on the screen switched violently, splashing harsh blue across my face. I glared at the screen, and decided that if the platypus was my biggest drunken mistake, there must be some programmer out in the world drowning their sorrows in a scotch over Windows Vista. 
 
 I leaned under my desk, thumbed the power button more aggressively than necessary, and waited for Richard to come ambling by my desk. One did n't need omnipotence to know that Richard only walked by when something goes wrong. I suspected he has some power of supernatural awareness, but one he only uses to be a dick when things go wrong. 
 
 As my computer's boot screen appeared, I could feel the shifting floor behind and beneath me. Richard, all 250-or-so pounds of impatience, shuffled up behind me. `` Good afternoon, Sarah. Do you usually only turn your computer on at...'' I did n't need to look to know he was looking at his watch with exaggeration. ``... 2:15 PM?'' 
 
 I smiled to the monitor in case he was looking at my reflection. As I turned in my office chair, I made careful effort not to look angry. His eyes flashed to my chest. My suit was cut beautifully, but low. The cleavage that looked so fetching earned more attention from Richard's dick than it did from Dick's critical eye for employee dress code. My smile turned an inch more brittle. 
 
 `` Sorry, Richard,'' I began, voice sweet, `` the computer crashed again. The policy of keeping the custom anti-virus program running is too much for it. The newer computers are fine. While it's the best thing for cleaning up viruses once they've broken into the network, IT's firewall should keep daily use safe. Otherwise, my machine will keep crashing.'' 
 
 Richard looked at me, confident, handsome, not quite concealing the thoughts I'm sure he has about all of his female employees, and smiled a patronizing smile. `` I've talked to IT about it, and they came one day and looked at my computer for hours. If my machine does n't crash under the strain, then the only thing crashing yours is bad habits. When's the last time you've run a defrag?'' 
 
 `` Yesterday afternoon, when you suggested it. Came back clean. The problem is n't me, it's my hardware. This computer is six years older than yours, so of course custom-coded, resource intensive scans are going to crash my machine. Not to mention the operating sys-'' 
 
 `` Sarah, Sarah. I appreciate that you *think* you know so much about computers since your brother is a software engineer.'' I do n't have a brother, I studied computers extensively prior to taking this vow, but this is n't something Richard would accept from someone who looked like Sarah. `` But the IT team knows exactly what they're doing, and I'm telling you to stop slacking and get back to work.'' 
 
 As he walked away from my cube, I heard ``... Women.'' under his breath. 
 
 I narrowed my eyes, but said nothing. I thought very hard about breaking my vow. 
 
 A quarter until five, the computer crashed again. Apparently running both a resource-heavy scan and a small rendering project pushed it too hard. I should've rendered it in the lab downstairs, but it would've taken longer to walk to IT, borrow the mandatory USB drive, walk back, wait for the ancient machine to encrypt the file, walk the drive downstairs to the computer lab, render, encrypt the result, walk back, copy the file, unecrypt, wipe the drive, and return to IT. What should've been a ten-minute render was going to have me working late. 
 
 I blew out a breath and jabbed the power button on my tower. 
 
 As if by divine intervention, Richard materialized behind me. His watch, gaudy and gold, was pointed at my face. `` 4:51 PM is not time to clock out, Sarah.'' 
 
 I glared at him, anger cresting from eleven years of rudeness, condescension, and sexual vulnerability. With the last of my patience, I reigned in the mental phrase that would return my powers, and smiled at Richard. `` I'm not clocking out. In fact, I ’ ll stay late, because the render I was trying to do on this machine failed.'' 
 
 `` Your render was supposed to be done yesterday. What took you so long?'' 
 
 I could hear the clock on the wall. Tick. Tock. `` Aside from being pulled onto a different project by you all day Monday, and having my computer crash daily, it would have been done had my render not crashed.'' 
 
 Richard rested his hand on my shoulder. `` Why not render it downstairs?'' 
 
 It was as if his hand turned to slime, and his smile turned to slime. It took every bit of patience I'd learned over the past decade not to break down and give up right then, right there. `` Would have taken too long. But I'm going now. Excuse me,'' I said, pushing his hand off of me, `` I need to go speak with IT.'' 
 
 He grabbed my wrist as I moved to go around him. 
 
 I surged with furious anger, righteous beyond mortal comprehension. `` Let go of me, Richard, and I wo n't report this to HR.'' 
 
 `` Report what to HR,'' he began, I could feel his breath on my neck, `` we're just two colleagues talking.'' 
 
 I ripped my arm from his grip and stomped away. 
 
 After getting back to my cube, file rendered, computer restarted, file named, stored, made the back-ups, clocked out, and shut down. The only people left in the office were me, the robotic vacuums, and maybe Richard. 
 
 When I turned around, Richard had both palms pressed to the sides of my cube. I could n't leave without going through him. Although I had cooled off downstairs, it was n't enough to stave off all the anger that came rising back up. Instead of the what I'd wanted to say, I said, `` Excuse me.'' 
 
 `` No.'' 
 
 `` Move, Richard.'' Control was almost gone. 
 
 `` No.'' He said, closing in with all of his size and weight. The hideously cramped confines of the cube would've been cataclysmic for anyone else who weighed 109 lbs at 4' 11''. I was n't anyone else. 
 
 With the thought of a single phrase, the entire world shrank and exploded at once. Richard slipped forward, intent on tearing my jacket and shirt in one meaty paw. I rolled into his grip, captured his wrist, as if a part of a dance I had long memorized, and spun him head-first into my computer. The first part to fail was the aluminum siding, then the housing for the CPU's heatsink, which crashed into the third RAM chip, unseating both. Since the computer was shut off, the power supply did n't fail. The disk drives, CPU chip, and power supply could have been saved, but the motherboard, heatsink, and RAM were beyond saving. Richard's head, slammed squarely on his right temple, fared equally poorly. The cut, three inches long, two millimeters deep at its lowest point, would take six days to heal completely. 
 
 Anger rolled off of him. The date that left him in high school, his best friend in middle school who stopped talking to him after he tried and failed to force a kiss on her, his camp counselor who never knew he had a crush on her. I could see his hand start to move, and I already knew he intended to punch me. 
 
 I placed my foot where his would be, lowered my center, and pushed gently into him. His footfall, finding no purchase, forced him to slip to a pinwheeling fall. My shoulder touched his left pectoral, moving him twelve degrees over from where he could recover his balance. He pitched into the side of the cubicle. It would cost the company $ 27,215 dollars to repair the cubicle wall, both desks, replace two mice, three monitors, two keyboards, in-out mail boxes, and pay physical therapy for Richard's back. It could cost less, but the contractors will cut corners in rebuilding the cube, and it will fail again in a year and a half. By that point, the contracting company will have folded. 
 
 Richard spilled into the neighboring cube, through the wall, hammering into Liam ’ s desk. The ensuing cataclysm of wires, keyboards, and plastic sorting boxes for mail left Richard moaning quietly in a small pile of debris. Richard would later report this to his doctor as a 7 on the pain scale. His father, still alive, would have reported the same at a 4. His future wife, a school teacher from Brooklyn, a 6. His son, a full two decades later, will report a similar injury as a 5. 
 
 I turned my thoughts from that, flooded with billions of details buried in the cheap carpet of the office. I could n't return to human living, not anymore. I turned to Richard, and told him quietly. `` If Joan ever has to call HR about you again, I'll see to it that you lose your job. Until then, I quit.'' 
 
 The door to the front of this office needed maintenance. It required 1.7 lbs more force than optimal levels to push open as I left. I felt the weight of the universe settle on me as I joined the foot traffic. The world enveloped me, and had anyone been looking, Sarah vanishing would've made a seven minute segment on the 11 o'clock news. A nearby beggar turned to panhandle a passing business man. He would go on to earn $ 6.27 that day. 
 
 Joan never needed to call HR on Richard again. She retired thirty-two years later, at 57. Her third grandchild's favorite animal is the platypus.
