It isn't a superpower.

Getting out of bed at 5:30am on every weekday doesn't feel like a superpower.

So I do it.

My alarm goes off at 5:30am, most days I wake somewhere between 5:28am and 5:45am. I wash my face with face-wash that works for me and my budget, I brush my teeth with the toothpaste that was last on sale, and I comb my hair with the brush I was gifted as a teenager. Making good fiscal choices isn't a superpower.

Sometimes I moisturise, sometimes it's with hand-creams or body moisturisers because they were a gift, or they come in bigger tubs than face cream. Sometimes I wear makeup, sometimes the mascara wand is a little too dried out to be worth adding. Re-using and re-purposing doesn't feel like a superpower.

Sometimes I'm just too tired, in the haze of not using my voice yet, because there's no-one there yet. I find I can forget things then. I'd like the power to remember everything all the time, or at least the things I want to remember.

I make my lunch; store-bought sandwich filler, because it's the same stuff in the pre-made sandwiches, crisps that are on sale, mini-rolls because they come in family packs. I find my water bottle, it's only the plastic disposable kind, I don't have a dishwasher so the reusable kind get just a little too gross after a while without a proper wash. I'd like the superpower to turn back time on objects to make them new.

It's 6:05am, shoes on, they aren't styled for work or for the walk to work, they are somewhere in between, or at least what the local supermarket thinks is an all-purpose shoe.

I check the train app on my phone, the train I need is at 6:31am, it takes 15 minutes to walk to the station. I want to wait in the house if the train is delayed, because the next one isn't for 45 minutes after that, and in mid-December, the station with no waiting room is a cold one. I'd like the superpower to keep myself and everyone warm against the cold.

The train is on time today.

It's still pitch black when I leave the house, the street lights on my road work, but the first and second of three on my eighty-two step stairs down to the street below don't. I grab my little flashlight and take quick steps down to the street below. I hustle through two more streets downhill to the station, I look behind me a lot in the darkness, but I often pet cats on their way somewhere, so that's nice. I've dreamed about the power to create light wherever I want to go, but I'd admit that the power to summon cats to pet would win in a heartbeat.

I creep through a tiny dog park and down an alley behind some houses, I know I shouldn't, but it would add two hills and 15 minutes to my journey. So I risk it, I try not to consider the possibilities of my untimely death right at that moment. I turn off the little flashlight though, I figure I'd hear them coming first, and shouldn't have a light that gives away my position. I feel like a superhero in a game sometimes, listening for the bad guy to ambush me.

I check the light and debate whether to take a less impactful shortcut behind some garages, most days in the dark I don't, it's just too much of a risk for the limited reward of two extra minutes.

It's 6:29am when I arrive at the station, two platforms, no barriers, one attendant that arrives at 7:00am, one broken ticket machine that doesn't take cash. Maybe my superpower would be to hack things from afar, I could make the machine print tickets for the next decade.

I buy my ticket on my phone, £9.10, I would buy a season ticket, but it's a big lump sum at the moment. I convince myself not to work out how much of my workday that money equates to.

The train arrives two minutes late, not bad. Sometimes I stand, more often I can sit. Occasionally, despite running this train every day for more years than I've been alive. They run a train with only two carriages, I am crushed then, and there are disgruntled murmurs of frustration at the next station when some people get left behind.

I think about those people a lot, I wonder if they have more important days than me, are they nurses? Doctors? That paramedic that stays with a young boy long enough to save him?

Are they what people call superheroes? Is knowing how to save someone in cardiac arrest or stop them dying from a cancer a super power?

We arrive in at the first main stop on our journey.

Many people leave the train, some run, are they the super heroes?

The train waits, not long, not for anyone specific, just waits.

Eventually it leaves on its journey again, trundling past the waking world until it arrives at my stop.

Lots of people work where I work, lots of very important people who influence whole countries are there.

Do they have superpowers? Is influence a super power?

I leave the train, the flow of quiet shuffling guides me to the station exit. I ponder a way to define my work, and decide that the best description is that all I do is be a little cog in a very complicated engine, and the best thing I can do at work, is be great at being a cog.

I walk into the office, the strip lighting is harsh but effective, I say good morning to the people in my team. I don't know the others in the office, it's a big office.

I clock in at 7:13am, I clock out for lunch at 12:15pm, I eat lunch at my desk, it is the warmest part of the building. I clock back in at 12:45pm. I finished lunch 15 minutes ago but you must have a 30-minute break, or more specifically you must be provided with a 20 minute break every 6 hours worked. Which has been transmitted as a mandatory 30 minutes during the central part of your day. I dream about the power to fast-forward through my day, like that movie Click. But then I remember that movie ended badly, so I acquiesce.

I am booted off my hot desk part way through the day, it's technically a fixed desk for someone else, so I find somewhere else to sit. It isn't too bad; I have a drawer in a filing cabinet across the office for my things.

I clock out at 3:52pm, I want to accrue as much time as possible as Flexi-time, it doesn't earn me any more money, but I can use it when I run out of holiday later. Being conservative isn't a super power, but it's useful, so I do it.

I wait for my train home at 4:02pm.

It's cancelled. Being patient isn't a super power, so I wait until 4:25pm for the next one.

This train is over-full, I stand in the doorway, I can't reach my headphones but the scenery through the half window in the train door is entertainment enough.

It begins to spit with rain.

I arrive at my station, two platforms, no barrier, no attendant, they've gone home for the day.

I begin my walk home, the light has gone by now, but it's not pitch black yet.

It's uphill the entire way, through the dubious shortcut, down the back alley, across the dog park, up the two streets with a gentle incline and only a short climb up the steep eighty-two steps to my road. The streetlights still don't work, they won't be fixed for a couple months, and then their fix will be to have then on all the time, which annoys the houses next to the stairs.

I stumble with dead legs into my close, that leads to my rental house that I don't like as much as I want to. I'm soaked through by tiny droplets accumulating on my hair and skin, I have a little umbrella but the effort of climbing the stairs and holding it up proved too much. I'd like the superpower of endurance, or at the very least hydrophobic clothes.

I put my keys in the lock, I take off my stiff and sodden shoes, I worry they are ruined. I flop down on the sofa covered in remotes and tat that doesn't have a place in the house, mainly because there isn't enough furniture in this house to hide the tat.

The heat of the inside makes the juxtaposition of the cold outside horrendous on my skin, I feel like I am burning. I let out a few coughs. I hope the person who was coughing on the train, or in the office, or on the hot desk I switched to in the day hasn't made me sick. I'd like to have the super power to never get sick.

I wait for my partner to get home, he is the one that drives, it's too expensive for me to learn and insure me. I wish I had the superpower to fly, even just to go to the supermarket.

I don't think getting up at 5:30am every weekday is a superpower. But I sure as hell am going to need superpowers to do this over and over for the rest of my life.