SOURCE: "Talent" by Theodore Sturgeon (Beyond Fantasy Fiction, September 1953)

DESCRIPTION: "...I'll live in a big house in town, and look out of the windows, and bust up people and change'em to ducks and snakes and things. I'll make flies as big as chicken hawks, or maybe as big as horses, and put'em in schools. I'll knock down the big buildings an' squash people..." ("Talent" by Theodore Sturgeon)

NOTES: Joachim "Jokey" Purney has "talent", he can make anything happen with his mind. His mother indulges him because she lives in fear of his retaliation. Jokey turns himself into a giant stag beetle which Precious Brent squishes with her shiny new shoes.

HISTORY: This story has a very similar plot device as "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby (Star Science Fiction Stories No. 2., 1953) published the same year. Bixby's story became famous as an episode of The Twilight Zone.

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