Skill Set

     Today is the four-year anniversary of me developing my Skill Set.

Four years and one day ago, I was a typical twenty-six-year-old college grad with a girlfriend. I had my own one-bedroom apartment, I worked in accounting, Nicole worked, still works, in a way, in marketing. I was just kind of drifting through life, feeling like I should be doing something greater with my time on Earth, but lacking the willpower to do something about it, to take action.

     Four years ago, I woke up, and, compelled by some unknown force, logged online, found a worldwide chess tournament, and was beating grandmasters by lunchtime. I had this tremendous urge to just play chess, so I called out sick from work to play all day long. Nicole wanted to me to go to her place for dinner, but I told her the truth, and said I needed to play chess that night. She thought it was weird and told me to suit myself. I don’t think she actually believed me.

     I woke up the next day and, word of honor, you couldn’t have made me think about chess even if you put a board right in front of my face. The only thing my mind would let me think about, bypassing the need to pee or for food or water, was getting my hands on a guitar. I called out of work again, said it might be some kind of flu, skipped the bathroom and breakfast, drove to the closest music store, and waited out front 35 minutes for them to open. By the time they did, I almost peed my pants. As soon as the store manager appeared on the other side of glass and unlocked the door, though, my body forgot about its need to pee and bee-lined it for the electric guitar section. I plucked a dark green and black fender off the wall, plugged it into an amp, and before the manager could come over to stop me and explain their policy about needing employee assistance, I was creating sounds that stopped her in her tracks. I progressed riffs from Chuck Berry to BB King to Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jack White, John Butler, and then new stuff that came from a place that would not reveal itself to me. Mind you, up until that point, I’ve always had an appreciation for music. I liked to think I’d enjoy good music when I heard it. But, I have never played a guitar before.

     There in the music store, after a nine-minute solo, the fierce need to get my hands on a guitar subsided, as if I temporarily satiated whatever was taking over me. When I was done, I put the guitar down on a stand next to the amp and asked the manager if I could use their restroom.

     The store manager stood there motionless. Her face hung open. She managed to raise her arm to point to the corner of the store, where the bathrooms were located.

     When I got back, the manager was still standing where I left her.

     I went over to the guitar with the intention of returning it to the wall, and explained that I never played before, but something was pulling me to come here and do what I just did.

     When I brought the guitar back to the wall, the store manager stopped me. “Keep it,” she said, picking up her mouth off the top of her black leather boots. “If you’re not bullshitting me about that being the first time you ever played guitar, even if you are, I mean, fuck. That was good. You can have it, just as long as you promise to tell people that you got your guitar from here.”

     I wondered what the hell was happening, what cosmic force was making me do all these things. I didn’t even register the fact that she just gave me a brand-new guitar.  

     “But, uh, first,” she added, “do you mind playing something else?”

     “Can I try out an acoustic?” I asked, registering the words in my mind only after they left my mouth.

     The manager gestured to the acoustic guitars as if to say please, be my guest.

     I grabbed the first one that I looked at. One that looked normal. Somewhere in the mid-range.

     “Here,” the manager said, unfrozen and now moving again, “you can plug that one in too.” And as I plugged in what was soon to be my new acoustic guitar, she pulled out her phone to record me.

     I took a seat next to the amp. Resting the guitar on my knee, I plucked each string and put them in tune. Without the aid of any other tool, I perfectly tuned all six strings. I knew each of them by name and sound and character. My fingers could move over them and communicate to make sound as fluently as my vocal cords and tongue produced the English word. Once I was satisfied with their tuning, I picked scales, then, I guess drawing on some hidden memory, my body unleashed a flawless rendition of Flight of the Bumble Bee. My fingers whizzed up and down the frets, all along the strings, playing a song I hadn’t heard in years, not since I watched some movie about a school band. After a solid minute or so, I transitioned from the controlled chaos of that song into the smooth and peaceful lullaby of Claire De Lune, taking my time to give each note the attention a good lover offers a partner. I then brought the tempo up, summoning the amalgamation of everything I’ve ever heard, creating my own sound that had the pulse of rock, the harmonies of classical, the twang of western, and the soul of blues.

     After a few minutes, with my inner force appeased for the moment, I stood up and made another effort to the bring the guitar back to the wall.

     “Keep that one too,” the manager said. “And here, you should probably have an amp and plug. And, here, take all these picks.” She gave me a box of like, a thousand blue guitar picks with the music store’s logo. “Again, you got those guitars here, and when people talk to you, give them one of these picks.”

     When I got all my new gear back to the car, I called Nicole and told her to leave work and meet me at my place.

     She said she had to work, but she’d come over right after.

     “Yeah but this is crazy,” I said. “Here, listen to this.” I climbed into the backseat with the acoustic, put the phone on speaker, and started strumming all of her favorite songs, but, honestly, and I hate to be the braggy type, better than they were originally composed.

     “That was beautiful and all,” Nicole said, a bit skeptical, “but Jake, come on, who are you with? Who’s playing guitar? And why aren’t you at work?”

     “This is better than work!” I said. “And that’s me. I’m playing guitar. I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s like how yesterday all I wanted to do was play chess, and then I was, like, ridiculously good at it.” The silence coming through the phone said Nicole still didn’t quite believe me about becoming a world-class chess player overnight. “Well, today, I don’t give a shit about chess. I honestly can’t remember which color the queen and king go on. But, whatever that urge was that told me to play chess yesterday, well it was telling me this morning to get my hands on a guitar. And babe, I’m like, a freakin’ Guitar God.”

     She still didn’t believe me so I switched the call to a video call.

      It took all of five seconds to prove to Nicole I was 100% serious and hadn’t lost my marbles.

     She left work early to come to my place for the night and watch and record me play.

     Honest to God, I played until my fingers bled.

     The drive to play guitar superseded the pain coming from my left hand’s fingertips.

     I would have kept playing, but Nicole convinced me to take a break so she could tend to my bloody digits.

     The next day, reverting to my pre-Skill Set days, I sucked at chess and I couldn’t tell you the difference between E and E major. Instead, when I woke up, in addition to bandaged fingertips, I had a new unmistakable itch. Submitting to the initial burst of compulsion and addiction, I grabbed a pen and notepad out of the kitchen drawer, and in the ten or so minutes it took Nicole to drink her coffee, I drew a beautiful and flattering realistic portrait of her.

     After a trip to the closest art store, we went to the pond in the park for the afternoon, since it just happened to be a picturesque October day. Nicole sat and read on a quilt while I got to work. By the time the sun set, using our favorite candid image of the two of us, I completed a 16x10 hyper-realistic oil painting cementing our love for one another, smiling forehead to forehead.

     By the way, I was out of sick days by this point, so I started eating into my vacation days.

     “What do you think it’ll be tomorrow?” Nicole asked as we lay in bed that night, staring at the painting now hanging on the wall.

*

     When I got up, she was already awake with the excitement of what it might be.

     “Uh oh,” I said.

     “What? What is it!?”

     “I, uh…”

     “Tell me!”

     “You know the movie Gladiator?” Honestly, I started to panic. I had this unflinching compulsion to go fight people. Anyone. Anyone that would fight back. No matter the form or weapon; well, except guns, I guess. But yeah, I just wanted to fucking fight someone. Hand to hand combat.

     I drove to the nearest MMA gym, and said I needed to spar with someone, that I’d pay anyone for their time. The best there was at the gym. It didn’t matter boxing or jiu-jitsu or full MMA or whatever.

     I now know of course how tight knit the community is at a local gym, so I can only imagine what the guys thought of me when I first showed up. But eventually, the guy who everyone looked up to the most, Rick, stepped up and said he’d roll around for a few minutes.

     He asked me how BJJ sounded.

     Rick was a second-degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and had been practicing for thirty years. Up to that point, I think I got maybe to yellow belt in karate when I was six.

     It’s a good thing I had him tapping out via an arm bar in less than forty-five seconds, because in those forty-five seconds, I was winded. I guess no matter how good my body told me to be at fighting – and it definitely instructed me to be good – it couldn’t make up for the fact I hadn’t consistently exercised in the last, oh, I don’t know, twenty-six years.

     I woke up the next day sore as hell, my body aching all over from spending the whole previous day with the guys at the gym. I had scabbing fingertips, and when I walked out to my living area, well, I just looked at all the books on my bookshelf differently. Suddenly, I understood plot, and character development, and thematic structuring, and dialogue, and well, everything it takes to craft a good story. And I understood it all in such a deeper and more meaningful way than I could have ever imagined.

     By the end of the day, after spending all day on the computer, bandaged fingers typing with reckless abandon, I had three short stories that made Nicole laugh, cry, and contemplate her place in the universe.

     After Narrative Writing Day, as I now call it, well, the next day was Nicole’s favorite day. That day, the apropos name might be: Lovemaking Day.

     I woke her up with a soft and gentle touch and then we spent, figuratively, all day in bed. Literally, we spent the day moving across every inch of my apartment, practically glued to one another. It was as if her body was a chess board the first day, or a guitar the second. I knew how to touch and interact with her in ways that, well, let’s just say were good.

     “Holy shit,” Nicole said when we took a break for dinner. “Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. I’ve never come so much in my life.”  

     That night, as she lay snuggled up on my chest, she told me she’s loved every one of these new skills so far, except of course the fighting one, but that, after what we just did, she asked how we could maybe get me to keep these skills.

*

     The next day I woke up and had regressed to being an above average lover.

     Honestly, in that moment, I hoped I hadn’t just ruined all future sex for Nicole on account of my one Casanova day, by giving myself some impossible standard I could never live up to again.

     And to put icing on that cake, the loss of Lovemaking Day’s skill was further compounded when, in its place, I felt deep within my soul, as True as Jesus is to the Pope, that I was now a world class juggler. The unyielding craving made me go to the local hobby shop and before I knew what was happening, I was juggling 12 balls, which, I guess, is a world record. What a stupid useless talent, I thought.

     Juggling was the seventh day.

     The next five days, real quick:

     My voice had been touched by angels. I woke up singing and it sounded as if the vocal cords of Freddy Mercury, Robert Plant, Pavarotti, Tina Turner, and Lady Gaga all got together for a voice orgy and had combined to make one single baby: My Voice. I sang all day long.

     The next day my vocal cords felt like someone had sand papered them, and I was then an Engineering Wiz.  I could engineer anything. Structural, mechanical, electrical, bio, sound, whatever it is, if there’s engineering behind it, I could do it. I spent my time that day designing a dream house.

     Then came Poetic and Lyrical Writing day. I wrote a poem that made Nicole love me more than she already did, and magical verses to a song that I would have forgot the melody to the next day, had it not been for Nicole recording me sing them with tone-deaf precision.

     Then, Chef Day. Oh my god. I made the best food. Lots of it.

     And on the twelfth day, that’s Luckiest Guy Ever Day, Lucky Day for short, but at the time, I didn’t know it.

     Instead, I woke up and there was no impulse driving me to do something new.

     I just kind of woke up.

     And felt like I was back to normal.

     At the time, I thought it was all over. That all the skills were gone and all I had to show for it was some recordings of me playing guitar, a painting, a couple short stories, memories of a sexual marathon I could no longer live up to, videos of me juggling, of me singing, a rudimentary design for a house I wanted to build, a few touching songs and poems crudely sung, and some amazing leftovers, which, like my skills, would soon be gone forever.

     Now, having the reminders of those amazing days are good and all, but, having had the ability to do all those things, and now, it was just me, boring accountant me, well, I felt like a 10-ton excavator intended to break ground on my dream property had instead ripped my heart out of my chest.

     As I lay in bed, depressed, Nicole posted some of the videos she took of me singing and playing guitar. She yelled from the other room and asked if it was okay if she shared my short stories. I said sure, whatever. What about pics of the lyrics for the songs and poems? Fine, whatever, I said, not really thinking about that, more thinking about what I lost.

     She then wrote a heartfelt post about what we just went through this past week, being brutally honest, and with that, shared pictures of the poems and songs I had written, along with a video of me poorly singing them.

     She shared her documentation of the past eleven days with her 682 followers (all friends and family), and for some unknown reason decided to make it a public post, so that anyone in her network could share it, or anyone outside her network could see it. Normally, Nicole kept her posts private.  

     Little did I know at the time, but Nicole’s friend Alysha saw it, shared it, her friend Liz shared it, and so on and so forth for three more links before, lo and behold, Lady Gaga saw it.

     Thank God Lady Gaga didn’t share it right away, because who knows how fast things would have blown up for me, without the ability to juggle it all. In hindsight, I suppose it was lucky she didn’t share it on the spot, given how much the post amazed her. What Lady Gaga did instead was reach out privately in regard to the rights for the lyrics I had written. 

​

*

     Reeling from speaking with Lady Gaga, Nicole and I went to sleep with grand aspirations for the next day, albeit aspirations that were not grounded in me developing some new world-class skill overnight.

     But, to our surprise, I woke up, and, well, I played chess all day long. Chess Day.

     The next day, Guitar Day, I picked up my acoustic, and the first thing I did was create a new melody and accompanying music for the song I had written the previous Poetic and Lyrical Writing Day.

Artistic Day, we went back to the park and I painted an exquisite impressionist landscape of the leaves on the trees around the pond at peak foliage.

     Fighting day, I, despite Nicole’s pleadings to do something else that day, went back to the MMA gym for another round of physical punishment and reward. At lunchtime, I told the guys at the gym what was going on. For some reason, once I provided evidence of everything that was happening, the guys found this wacky new thing going on with me easy to believe. They suggested that on other days, I should try to carve out at least an hour for exercise, so I could get myself in better shape for my Fighting Days. At the rate I was going, it wouldn’t cut it only doing physical exercise one day a week. No matter how good I was at fighting, I couldn’t keep up.

     The next day, Narrative Writing Day, I outlined a novel based on the past two weeks or so with the belief that this pattern would repeat itself ad infinitum. At the time, I still hadn’t recognized the 12th day as Luckiest Guy Ever Day, but that didn’t matter much. In my outline, I said it might just be a reset day. Either way, based on the fact that I’d be able to produce quality writing once every twelve days, I figured I needed at least 80-100 cycles before I finished the story. That’s assuming I write a good 1,000 words every Narrative Writing Day. So, quick math said it’d be about three years before I had a completed first draft of my novel. Maybe less if I could bust out more than 1,000 words a day. I didn’t trust my knowledge of writing and storytelling to work on it any other day.

     Nicole called out of work the next day, for Lovemaking Day.

     Then, cursing the fact one of my 12 precious days was devoted to juggling, I decided to make additional use out of it. I trotted for a few hours on the treadmill while juggling four red balls.

     And by the way, thanks to the advice from the guys at the gym, I committed to allocating 30-60 minutes at the end of every day to exercising, once I had quelled the day’s impulse enough.

     On my second Singing Day, accompanied by the the previous Guitar Day’s recordings, I sung the lyrics to the songs I wrote. Over and over and over again.

     For the second Engineering Day, I bought some simple computer software and did all the sound and song engineering to put the pieces of Guitar Day and Singing Day together. I sent Lady Gaga the final recorded version of the song I wrote, the one she purchased the rights to. I still can’t believe that I just wrote that sentence, that I’m now friends with Lady Gaga.

     On Poetic and Lyrical Writing Day, I wrote some new poems and songs.

     On Chef day, so we had world-class meals for the next eleven days, I did meal prep from morning to night. All we had to do was take the chicken cordon bleu, vegetable curry, braised ginger and cranberry short ribs, or whatever, out of the freezer and re-heat.

     Then, on the second Luckiest Guy Ever Day, I at first thought, since I woke up with no urges to do anything, that it was kind of like a buffer day. That it was the reset before starting again tomorrow with Chess Day. So, compared to the first Luckiest Guy Ever Day, I was a lot less depressed. In fact, things were definitely looking up. I mean, for God’s sake, we were now texting on a regular basis with Lady freakin’ Gaga. As such, Nicole and I decided to treat ourselves.

     “Where do you wanna eat to celebrate? Zahav?” I asked, joking.         There were never any reservations at Zahav.

     “Fuck it,” she said, “we might as well try.”

     “Yeah,” I said. “Why not. What’s the harm?” I called the number, despite the fact they were closed and weren’t set to open for another seven hours, and to my surprise, someone picked up on the second ring.

     “Hi, I know this is crazy,” I said, “but would you happen to have any open reservations for two, tonight? Anytime would work.” I flashed Nicole a fat chance type of look as I asked the question.

     “Actually,” the voice on the other side of the phone said, “Someone literally called right before you and cancelled. Can you do 7:30pm?”

     After ending the call, I said hot damn, I guess we’re eating at Zahav tonight!

     Sitting on the bed up against the wall, Nicole got this adorable smile in her eye, clapped her hands twice, and jumped on top of me with a great big bear hug. She smooched my cheeks a few times.

     Just as things were really starting to feel good, that they were looking up, my phone rang.

     A call from work.

     I hesitated to answer, knowing I had been pushing it with the unexpected and consecutive days taken off, even though I had been telling them I was still sick. At last, I answered, faking a groggy voice. “Hello?”

     In effect, work said, “We’ve seen all the videos. You’ve been lying to us. You’re fired.”

     The beacon of light in my life that she is, Nicole looked on the bright side, said, “Hey, that could be a good thing! It gives you more time to work on your skills. We’ll figure it out.”

 

*

     It took four cycles through my new Skill Set before I realized the 12th day was Luckiest Guy Ever Day. On those days, I don’t think I ever saw a red light, I always got front-row parking, and new and exciting opportunities popped up, always and only on that day, from people connected to Lady Gaga, or some other musician or writer or art collector stumbling across my growing collection of work, saying they needed to speak with me about a project they had in mind. And more and more frequently, while using that day to run any errands I needed to run, I’d meet people in unusually good moods. These people would talk with me and share their good fortune, passing along positive energy to me. It’d come in the form of the owner of an antique store catching a windfall right before Nicole and I popped in to take a look around, and that owner giving me a big discount on a gorgeous 1912 chess set made of polished walnut with shiny brass pieces; or it’d come in the form of some other person having a good day, and really, just smiling at me.

     Finally, after we hit our fifth straight green light and a call came in from Jack White looking to collaborate on a new song, Nicole just randomly said, “Hey, maybe day 12 is just your Lucky Day.”

     Thinking she may just be right, I went to the nearest convenience store and bought a scratch lottery ticket. And lost. I’d buy lottery tickets every Lucky Day there on out for a year or so, but I always lost.

     What I didn’t know then, but know now, is that if the concept of Luck is something fortunate happening in my life, then winning the lottery wouldn’t have been the luckiest thing to happen for me. Who knows how it would have changed my behavior.

     Because, I’ll tell you, once I fully registered getting fired, I was about to have some serious money problems if I didn’t find a regular source of income. Selling a song here or there, on a lucky whim, wouldn’t fit the bill.

     Luckily, Nicole, an angel on earth, helped me develop a plan to monetize my new Skill Set.

     We started an LLC – Jacob’s Skill Set (JSS for short) – and she put her marketing skills to work. As luck would have it, Nicole had a friend that just started his own agency and was looking to do a pro bono project for a cool company, all so he could bolster his portfolio. He offered to build me a website for the cost of registering a domain name. Day 12 was a Lucky Day indeed.

 

*

     From there, it was easy to develop a routine.

     On Chess Day, I’d look for cash competitions online.

     On Guitar Day, I’d create new melodies. (And would tag the guitar shop in any videos we put out.)

     On Artistic Day, I’d paint or draw or sculpt or something, and slowly grow my online art store.

     On Fighting Day, I’d fight and train at the gym and think how I could put this to good use – read: make money – without getting my head caved in.

     On Narrative Writing day, I’d work on the novel.

     On Lovemaking Day, well, you know.

     Now, it took a few cycles, but I’ll tell you, I eventually realized Juggling Day was a blessing. I don’t know how or why it’s connected this way, or even how I came to figure it out, but I soon understood that it didn’t have to be physical juggling that I needed to do. I guess, one day on Juggling Day, I woke up overwhelmed by the emails flooding my inbox and all the people that wanted something from me, and my brain just started juggling all the different projects in the space between my ears. It compelled me to sort it all out in an organized manner on my computer. So, thereafter, on Juggling Day, I juggled the swirling craziness of my life.

     On Singing Day, I’d sing whatever new songs I had yet to sing.

     On Engineer Day, I’d produce all the songs, and, when time allowed, I’d continue working on designing my dream house, down to the outlet.

     On Poetic and Lyrical Writing Day, it was time for more songs.

     On Chef Day, food prep all over again.

     And on Luckiest Guy Ever Day, well, things just really came together quite nicely.

     Honestly, I don’t know what I did to deserve this windfall. But, luckily, I had the wherewithal to be grateful for it all. I found myself constantly saying, in my head, “I don’t know where this is coming from. But thank you.”

 

*

     Now, here we are. In the present.

     I’m a Grandmaster, Grammy Award winning, dream-home-owning, best-selling, married Novelist. We have a beautiful baby girl and highly treasured works of art created by my two hands. Nicole works full time helping me manage it all, and we get along quite nicely. Our company, JSS, is the fastest growing media and production company in the world.

     And earlier today, Luckiest Guy Ever Day, I kid you not, I had a conversation with God.

     Nicole was working in the office with our daughter sleeping when, standing out in the garden, grateful for the heavenly garden I had to stand in, a voice from nowhere spoke in my mind. 

     The voice was soft but strong, peaceful and wise, a mix of Morgan Freeman and Jeanne D’Arc, whatever her voice may have sounded like. 

     “Hello Jacob,” It, the voice, God, said.

     I thought that I was maybe losing my mind.

     “No need to panic,” said the voice from within me. “You are not losing your mind. To make things easy, I’m just going to come out and say it.”

     “Ok…” I found myself saying back, out loud, when the voice paused for a few seconds.

     “Jacob, I am God, the Universe, whatever you want to call It, speaking to you. No doubt, over the past four years, you have never stopped thinking about why all these skills came to you.”

     “Yeah…” I said. “And…”

     “And I am aware of how grateful you’ve been, outwardly, inwardly, thanking God – Me – for the skills, even though you didn’t know why you got them.”

     Standing in the garden looking at the lilies in bloom, my heart started pounding in my chest. I walked over to a corner of the garden and took a seat on the rocking chair I built over the course of a few Engineering Days. I couldn’t believe it. I was talking with God.

     “Believe it,” God said. “I’m just making myself known because I want you to know, now, why this has been happening to you.” 

     God sure did know how to pause for dramatic affect.

     Or perhaps God was waiting for me to calm down a bit.

     “Breathe, Jacob,” the voice in my head, God, said. “Breeeaaathe. Once you are calm, I will tell you.”

     It took over a minute for me to really calm down, during which God was more than kind enough to help.

     “I’ve got all the time in the world,” said God. “Take your time. Just remember, breeeeaaaaathe.”

     After a bit more silence, keeping God on hold, God finally let me know: “Okay, Jacob, look. You’ve got these skills – your Skill Set as you’ve been calling it, which I rather like – as sort of a test run. I’ve been unhappy with the way people’ve been acting lately, and have been thinking of ways to spice things up a bit, if you will. So what I did was, first, I identified you. A kind-hearted good-natured young person that is where he is strictly due to a road that has been paved for you by many people you’ll never know. You’ve been wanting to do more with your life, but found yourself in a job that really could be done without you. Your soul felt like it was getting smushed by a boulder made of digital spreadsheets. So, with the only pre-requisite being that you are indeed a good-hearted and kind-natured human, I decided to spruce up your life a bit, change some of your DNA and brain structure, on specific days, to make you the best you you could ever be, at those things. Little did you know, that under your accountant self, all these skills you’ve showcased lay quite dormant. I just enacted them for you, brought them to their full potential, right away without the tens of thousands of hours of practice their full potential would normally necessitate. You did the rest.”

     “But,” I said, not able to process what God was telling me as fast as God was speaking. “But… why me? Aren’t there others? Like people more worthy?”

     “Well, sure there are,” God said, laughing. “And don’t you worry. They’re all getting a shot at this thing too. Mind you, I hold dominion over, just about, infinity Universes, infinity Earths. Every time a decision is made by any human, a new universe pops into existence in which they made a different decision. So scattered among the infinite iterations of your reality, I’m choosing one deserving person in each iteration. In this reality, you're the chosen person. Unlike some of the other test runs though, you’ve continued to demonstrate admirable use of your skills, so I’m going to let you keep them. There are conditions, though.”

     “Okayyy,” I said. “What conditions?

     “The first is that you donate at least 50% of the ridiculous wealth you will amass in the process to charity. So long as you do that, then you can keep the Skill Set.”

     “Wait, I thought there were conditions.” I said. “Are there any others?”

      “Oh, I almost forgot,” God said, as if it were common practice for God to forget something. “Fighting Day, as you’ve called it. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and do not put that skill to use on someone who does not consent. That day is like a release valve for your body. It lets you get out any toxic energy that’s been building up on account of these skills. So, yeah. Donate to charity. And don’t fight anyone that doesn’t want to fight back. Follow those rules and you can keep the skills.”

     “Donate and don’t fight,” I said, still somewhat shell-shocked. “And I can keep the skills. Got it.” I didn’t really know what to say after that. All I managed, was:

     “Wow…

     “God…

     “I’m not sure what to say…

     “So…

     “I guess…

     “Thanks?”