I do have to be careful however, as it’ll only become easier and easier to permanently knock someone into madness, and even if they deserve it, it’ll attract suspicion if every place I go has people go insane.

He heaved up another brick, then smacked it down onto the glue, before repeating the motions again and again. As he did this, time flew by and the Sun shone ever harsher, and he finally put down the tool and wiped the sweat off his face. Finally… Ugh, when I’m done here, I won’t be doing this crap anymore.

He dusted his clothes and crept along catching sight of a group of people huddled together.

“What the hell happened to Kevin? Is he on drugs?” One man asked.

“I did hear that he had a drinking habit, but I never thought it was this bad...” Another said.

“Drinking? That was something else… That was… He was completely gone… He must be snorting something really nasty...” Bill said.

“I don’t think so, I’ve seen people wind up like that before… Although, not that bad...” A large older man sighed. Matt listened in for a moment before sneaking away and heading across the road to a small supermarket.

The guards scowled at his tattered clothes before letting him in and he scanned over the shelves for things cheap enough for him to buy. One item caught his eye. A bundle of tomatoes past their expiry date, he peeked at the back, skimming past the useless nutritional information and thought, Only two months over, it’ll do.

He sighed, picked it up and slowly made his way across many aisles to the cashier. But when he got there, he caught sight of a queue which felt like it went from one end of the store to the other. Ugh, queues are the worst...

“Hurry up!” A man in the distance shouted.

“What the hell?” Another shouted and Matt’s eyes bored into the tall man in his way as the queue moved forward at a glacial speed. Ugh… He moved forward step by step, growing ever more annoyed when a man with a long goatee shoved him out of the way and jumped in-front.

Oh, hell no. He began channeling feelings of desperation and a desperate desire to make money to the point of insanity, imagining himself stealing good to make do and condensing it all into a ball of madness and thrusting it into the fool.

The man trembled, a pulse of insanity streaming through his body and pouring into his cranium. His eyes stilled, scanned around and slipped his hand in the pocket of the man in-front of him. As he pulled out his wallet, the man punched him in the face, seized the wallet, and eyed him like a hawk.

Haha, that’s it, he deserved i- The man rose up, eyed the man, and jumped at the next person in-front trying to pry the wallet from his hands.

“What the fuck?! Let go!” The man screamed, his face turned red as he thrusted the man with the goatee away, and as he was about to leap at the next person, two muscular guards grabbed each of his arms and dragged him away. A bit much, but I like it, he deserves it.

He flailed and howled as he tried to break through, and despite their efforts, he broke through with a burst of inhuman strength and pounced at man like a wolf locking onto its prey. He ripped the wallet out of his hands and shot towards the exit with the man and guards in pursuit.

Matt’s mouth dropped open and the people in the queue unconsciously clutched their pockets or checked their purses to see if their wallets were still there, breathing a sigh of relief upon seeing and feeling the familiar pieces of leather.

Matt looked down and thought, This power is incredible… He completely ignored everything, pushing himself to his limits to break out of their grasp… Just to steal a wallet… Incredible. Not even a delusion about being king… Just an impulse overriding all… This power… Hehe…

This will be very useful to me… Very… very… useful..

Matt shook in excitement. He resisted the urge to break into laughter and waited as the queue moved forward a step at a time before he finally made it up to the summit before the cashier. The cashier was a well-groomed man in his early twenties, he had long black hair and donned a corporate uniform with the supermarket’s logo embroidered on it. He looked in disgust as Matt’s attire and tossed the tomatoes in-front of the scanner.

“Ugh, do you really want to buy this crap? It’s expired.” He said.

“Yes.” Matt said.

“Ugh, damn it, you know what. Take it for nothing, it’s your problem if you end up in hospital.” He waved his hand shoo-ing Matt off, but not before a pair of guards walked up to him. The scanned him with their shifty eyes and said, “We’ll need to check if you stole anything.”

The tall muscular man on the right stepped up to search him, but he thought, Oh, hell no. I’m not having your bastards search me. Take this.

Feelings of infinite lust welled up and poured into a bubble, making it pulsate with each passing moment. Images of the goatee-ed guard joined it and he smashed the buddle right into the man who trembled and turned to his friend.

He grabbed his arm and began searching him while Matt calmly walked out, pulled the package open, and popped a tomato into his mouth. Ah, not bad, two months are the best. Aah, wonderful. But I’m not going to settle for this crap for long…

He hummed as he took small hops in excitement across the road, watching out for traffic, and stepping onto the gravel that was the construction site. He looked around for Kevin and grinned before grabbing his tools and returning to the half-finished wall.

He slathered the top in cement before heaving the heavy blocks onto it, and whistled as his power came to mind.Behind him, Patrick casually walked by, and surveilled the wall.

Matt took the chance to conjure up the image of himself being an incredible man with godlike mastery over bricks, while simultaneously conjuring up images of supreme incompetence from Kevin and the other supervisors.

The bolt shot out from between his eyebrows and into Matt’s cranium taking root in his psyche, as he turned to return for tea. He stopped for a moment, took another look at the wall, and departed. I hope that works... If it does… Well, we’ll see.

The hours went by, as the mid-day Sun descended, as did the scorching heat. Patrick never came back and the same motions of putting down brick and slathering cement over and over as if it would last for eternity before the end. Another hard day’s work… Urgh… What a pain, maybe I should look for a higher paying job when I’m not completely broke, I should be able to do a thing or two with my power…

Matt stepped away from the wall and headed off the gravel when he heard someone shout, “Matt.”

Matt turned and spotted Patrick walking up to him. Could it be…

He stopped before him and said, “You did some good work today, now that I think about it, I never did appreciate the meticulous work that you’ve done. I’d like to give you $50 as a bonus for your hard work. I hope it’ll motivate you to keep it up in the future.”

Matt grinned as he handed him an envelope and he turned to leave when a car shot by him at twice the speed limit with several police cars in pursuit. Little did that he know that in that car was the very man who stole his spot in the queue. Fifty dollars, finally some recognition for the crap I do every-day, not bad. Might even make me consider coming back tomorrow.

Matt stepped onto the road, made his way down towards an old bus stop and stopped. A man with an eye-patch stood next to him as they waited for the bus to arrive. Let’s not drive someone insane this time, I’d like to make it back without going through that alley.

He stood there waiting, while the eye-patched man pulled out a lighter and a cigarette. He lit the tip and breathed in the fumes as the clouds built up. Several water droplets dropped down, but not anything uncomfortable. The eye-patch man took several deep breaths as Matt stared into nothingness as the minutes went by.

As he did, a small green bus came around the corner, and just as it was nearly there, Matt took notice of it and readied himself. The steel door opened up and the door ascended into the frame.

“The man who stole a bus this morning has been apprehended, his name is Jim Davos, 32 years old and cur-” An old man with thinning hair and a white beard sat there listening to the radio. Matt walked up to him and he said, “Three dollars.”

Matt’s heart ached as he opened up his wallet, took out three dollars and placed it on the plastic table. The old man quickly grabbed it and Matt sat down as the eye-patched man also went up to the man. Urgh, three whole dollars lost… just like that… Ugh… Don’t… don’t worry about it… It won’t be long before three dollars is nothing, ugh… still… horrible…

Matt held his head in horror as the eye-patched man walked past him, looked around for the ‘best’ seat and sat down next to the door. Matt looked out the window at the construction site, with Patrick stepping into his car and two guards smoking before the bus shot down the road.

The bus began to rattle and shake as it picked up more and more speed before abruptly moving to the side as a black car and several police cars shot by, but more importantly, Matt who was bored enough to stare out of the window caught sight of the driver.

That… That was… The guy who stole my spot in the queue… I used that power on him and he turned into a wallet stealing demon and that was great and all but… How the hell did that turn into a police chase?

Matt’s eyes alternated between his window and what little he could see of the windscreen, but it wasn’t long before the group went around a corner at high speed.

Damn, I wanted to see what happened, especially to see if he’s still affected by that power… Ugh, well I’m sure the result will be on the news… Maybe next time, I’ll influence them in a way which won’t get them in trouble with the law or get them sent to a madhouse.

He shook his head and thought, Maybe, I should try it on this guy… No, I’d like to avoid people who haven’t messed with me, also I don’t want everyone I go near to wind up in jail or people will realise before long that I’m in the middle of every mess, ugh… This power is great and all, but it’s also very inconvenient, even if I try to be sneaky, I’ll still get caught on CCTV footage… What should I do… What should I do… There must be something… Well, there is something but…

Matt trembled as he actively pushed away psions from the two. Maybe I can exercise it like… this… But it’s really not much but… When I’m back home, there’ll be plenty of people there coming back from work… This isn’t much now but… Every little helps...