Now You See Me

 If I could appear and disappear at will, I would not waste the ability doing parlor tricks or sneaking into bank vaults. I know what it is like to be needed in a moment that decides everything. I know what it feels like to wish I could vanish from a moment that hurts.

So here is how I would use my superpower.

When my son faced his first night behind a locked door, I would appear beside him. Not to break him out. Not to bend justice. Just to sit. To tell him the walls were temporary and the world outside was still waiting for him. Fathers cannot always fix, but we can always remain.

And when the decision came down from a judge with more power over my family than any human should have, I would disappear into my own calm, just long enough not to let fear speak for me.

I would appear in the homes of every hiring manager who tossed my résumé aside after fifteen years of loyalty evaporated with the word “redundant.” I would stand right in front of them until they could not ignore my face, my work, my worth. Then I would vanish, letting discomfort do the talking.

I would appear at my mother’s funeral.
Not digitally. Not as a pixel in a livestream.
Present enough to kiss her forehead one more time.
Present enough to carry the casket with my brothers.
Present enough to say thank you where she could hear it.
Then I would disappear into the memory before grief insisted on dragging me under.

I would appear in the cockpit of every airplane cardboard promised me I would fly, if only to remind the child I was that dreams do not expire when circumstances change. And I would vanish before anyone thought I was a ghost.

I would appear just behind anyone who threatened my wife’s dignity or my family’s safety. Not to strike first, but to make sure I am the one who finishes last.

Disappear again.

Because power is not in being seen everywhere.
It is in choosing where presence matters.

Maybe that is the real truth of this fantasy.
I already learned how to disappear.
Every man who has survived long enough has.
The trick I am still mastering is knowing when to show up.

If you can appear anywhere, anytime, you finally understand something most people never learn.

Visibility must be earned, and invisibility must be chosen.

So let me ask you directly, dear Reader, because you love the real questions:

Is what you crave the ability to vanish
or the certainty that when you appear, you will be exactly where you are needed?