Exiled. Banished. God, these words taste foul in my mouth. Fuck everyone who doesn't appreciate you, that's what I say. In case you're wondering who this is, I guess introductions are due. My name is Far. It's short for Farouche. Anyone looking at me would see a six-foot-tall, somewhat good-looking and slender young man with light brown skin, curly black hair and hazel eyes. My father Jonathan Farouche is Haitian and my mother Isabel Tremblay is French-Canadian. I was born in the City of Montreal, in the Quebec region of Canada, but grew up all over the place. For the past decade I've been living in Washington D.C. I consider myself a normal guy, except that I have a Gift. Being Gifted can be a curse, trust me on that one.
At Howard University, where I study Criminal Justice, I'm surrounded by some of America's finest people. Students of all backgrounds learning in this world-class and mostly African-American school. They're snobs, for the most part, but some of them are cool people. As a mixed-race Canadian, I get mistaken for a lot of things and frankly I find it amusing. The fact that I speak French, German, Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese also confuse a lot of my so-called peers. I didn't tell them that I also speak Russian, Italian, Greek, Gaelic and of course my father's native Haitian Creole. Part of being Gifted means having a way with languages. Among other things. Sometimes I envy my peers. They're so normal. Of course, sometimes I think about all the shit that happens to normal people and I thank God that I'm not one of them.
Since the beginning of humanity, there have always been Gifted people. We are all around you. We're Black, white, Asian, Latino, Native American, Arab, and everything else you can think of. We are in every race, every religion and every walk of life. Lately, though, it's gotten really tough to be Gifted because the Normals are feeling threatened by us. I can't say that I blame them sometimes. In January 1, 1999, the existence of the Gifted was officially revealed to the world when a young woman named Alexandra Kensington killed eleven men and five women from the Los Angeles Police Department after they shot her older brother James due to a mistaken identity thing related to a shooting he basically had nothing to do with. Just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How did she do it? Merely from touching them. She turned them into skeletons with a simple touch. You see, Alexandra Kensington wasn't just a short, chubby Black chick from the hood. She had the Gift of Decay.
What happened to her? She was eventually arrested, taken into custody by the United States Government and then exposed to the world. It was the first time in five thousand years of human history that all of mankind knew about our kind. Before that dark day, us Gifted people could live normal lives because the Normals didn't think we existed. Plenty of us used our Gifts to get wealth and fame. I won't divulge any names but have you ever seen a really awesome football player who's just too damn good? How about an eerily beautiful woman who's also smart as a whip? Maybe they're just normal people or perhaps they're members of my sub-species. The Gifted. Psychics. Those guys who win the powerlifting contests. Some of the world's fastest swimmers and track and field people. Yeah, odds are some of the people you worship in the NFL, the NHL, the WNBA and the NBA are like me. Born different. Gifted.
Since the discovery of our existence, the United States Government has teamed up with the governments of Great Britain, Brazil, Germany, Cuba, the Republic of South Africa and China to round up the Gifted. As usual, Mexico and Canada were left out of the big leagues because they're not considered to be major powers by the big shots at the United Nations. Across the globe, it's illegal to be Gifted, apparently. In parts of eastern Africa and places like Saudi Arabia, we're executed on the spot when we are detected and apprehended. Elsewhere, men and women armed and trained by various governments are coming after us. And they won't stop until we're all dead or languishing in cages. The thing about us Gifted people is that we're not stupid, and we didn't survive these eons among mankind, the cosmos most intolerant species, by being anywhere near dumb. Most of us went into hiding. Me? I did no such thing.
You see, I come from a family that was used to dealing with adversity. In the eyes of the world, Canada is a bastion of tolerance, openness and multiculturalism. Well, if you look deeper into it, you'll see that it's a racist, xenophobic nation just like every country where people of different races, religions and viewpoints have to coexist. We have the same problems that the States and other diverse, industrialized nations face but it's not considered kosher to discuss Canada's struggle with diversity and inclusion so we don't talk about it. I came into the world because a Black man from the island of Haiti moved to the City of Montreal, Quebec, in search of work and education. My father met my mother at McGill University in Montreal, and they fell in love. Not to go all cliché here but even in the cosmopolitan Montreal of the late 1980s, interracial couples ran into their share of racism and prejudice. My parents endured hell from the local bigots, but nevertheless got married and had little old me.
