The Great Being appeared to Donovan. “You have one wish,” it said, “and no tricks like asking for three more wishes; I’m on to that scam.”
Donovan thought a moment, then asked, “How long do I have to make up my mind?” and the Being said, with a smirk, “take as long as you like; I’ll be here.”
“Aha,” Donovan thought, “that’s the trick. If there’s no deadline, the Being knows I’ll never make a wish, because then my power would be gone. Better to keep my strength as mere potential – I could take over the world by threat alone – if anyone believed I had this power.”
But then a second thought: “So, the Being must know that I will never make the wish. And people will realize that, too, that I could spend my life thinking of something I could do with my one wish but I’ll never actually do anything. So they’ll just ignore me.
“But – who’s to say that the Being has the power to grant me a wish at all? Maybe it’s bluffing. Maybe it’s part of some freshman psychology experiment. Or it’s fucking with my mind just because it feels like doing that. Or perhaps some greater Being has granted this Being one wish and its wish was to pass that wish on to someone and it picked me, Donovan, as its victim.
“So now I’ve decided: I’ll pass my wish along to someone else, who will believe he’s been given the greatest gift in the world – until he thinks about it.”
>> “books Terence Kuch” on Google or Amazon will lead you to more writing from a naturally curly mind <<
Memorable Fancies 
Leave a Reply