A Consideration of Wishes

A tall woman with a mannish face bearing a hint of a mustache on the upper lip stormed through the streets like a tiny self-contained hurricane beating against the flow of bodies.
            If one more person calls me ‘sir’ I’ll scream, she thought.
            Then she took a breath, which was immediately followed by an eye roll.  Pull it together Joanna, she told herself just before she slammed into a tiny old woman whose neck really was far too bent to see her coming. 
            When the fairy rose from the ground directly in front of her Joanna realized she may have let her thoughts spin wildly out of control.
            ‘I can grant you a wish, my dear, if you like…’ the fairy was nonchalantly examining her nails as she spoke to Joanna. 
            Joanna, however, was not even close to nonchalance.  She was ‘chalancing with a vengeance, looking from side to side.  But on finding herself alone in an abandoned alleyway, both calmness and wariness took over simultaneously.
            ‘Any wish at all, dear…’ the fairy said, then stifled a yawn with the back of her hand.
            Joanna’s mouth opened as well, but she was much too stunned to even let the air out of it.
            ‘Just a wish, dear.  Any time, now,’ egged on the fairy who had pulled a tiny nail file out of thin air and commenced buffing.
            ‘Any… any wish?’ Joanna said, as soon as her mouth was finally able to issue words.
            But the fairy eyed her warily, as if she knew what Joanna was thinking—which, to be fair, was more than Joanna knew.  ‘I cannot make anyone fall in love with you…’
            ‘Oh, yes… I mean, no… I mean, of course, even the thought… totally absurd…’ Joanna went on for some time, her cheeks flushed.  She would never have even… well… ‘Could you make me beautiful?’ she asked tentatively.
            ‘I could…’ the fairy said, her wand flicking back and forth as if gearing up for the spell.
            ‘Its just, I have this one tiny problem.  Not so much to speak of so much as its just plain well… RUDE.  And, if I’m being perfectly frank: ANNOYING.’  Joanna couldn’t help how loud the words came out of her mouth, even as she watched the fairy flinch the first time.  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll be surprised to know that people have been known to confuse me for a man.’
            ‘Oh, not at all dear, not at all.  Now if you could just turn around…’
            ‘Wait!’ cried Joanna, terrified at the speed with which the fairy’s wand was twirling. 
            Her mind began to spin as her eyes followed the fairy’s wand.  Did she really want to be changed?  To be made beautiful?  Just to fit a bit better?  Wasn’t that just… well, so not the point?
            The fairy hesitated a moment, then said, ‘I could turn you into a man…’
            Joanna looked at the fairy with a raised brow. 
            ‘Just a thought, dear.’
            It had taken her long enough to become comfortable with the bits she was born with.  In fact, not until she turned forty-two did she really feel like it was indeed a good thing to be a woman.  She was not throwing that away any time soon.  Besides, what if the fairy made her into too beautiful a man?  What then?  Perhaps a host of other problems.  She could just see the giggling women, the flushed faces, the rather elaborate curtsies she was wont to do when she came across an attractive man… No, better not.
            ‘I could change you so that you don’t hear any offensive criticism…’ offered the fairy.
            Now that’s an idea, thought Joanna about to nod.  But then something else struck her.  She did so enjoy sharpening her mind.  How would she do that if no one could tell her she was wrong?  She’d never be able to argue back again… No.  Not that.  Never that.  She shook her head definitively.
            ‘What, then?’ the fairy gestured sharply as though her tiny hand could conjure up the perfect wish, ‘Unlimited food?  A pile of gold?  Always knowing what song is playing whenever you hear the first few bars?’
            No, no, no, Joanna answered with three shakes.  When you got down to it, what was the fun in having everything handed to you on a silver platter?  There was nothing that wouldn’t make her life worse in some way.  Nothing she could…
            ‘I’d like a dog,’ Joanna said with sudden resolution.
            ‘Done,’ said the fairy with slightly offensive relief, and before Joanna could change her mind with a wave of a wand and a puff of smoke a tiny mottled dog appeared yipping at Joanna’s heels.
            There’s no point, she thought, bending down the long distance to scratch behind the dog’s ears and desperately hoping that the fairy would never ever come back to taunt Joanna with such terrifying freedoms, in wishing to be what you’re not.

Popular posts from this blog

The Woman in the Tower

Once upon a time a woman sat alone, locked at the top of a stone tower.       When the people who had come to settle near the tower first approached it, they discovered her locked inside, and set about freeing her. The question as to whether she had been put there, or whether she had voluntarily ascended was to become a moot point, for when the door was finally unlocked, she refused to descend. Indeed, so often did those who wished for her liberty come to the door of the tower and try to remove her from the top most room in which she had once been locked, that, after a time, she discovered a way in which to lock herself in—and all others out.       It is unknown how long she remained locked in the tower room, for no one could get inside to see her until a sizable knight who happened to be passing was asked to go up and use his hefty shoulder to beat down the door.       But when he did so, it was discovered that the tower had been abandoned; the woman’s whereabouts were unknown.
Read more

The Shadows

The light shown on Anya’s fingers. It curled around her palm and danced. This, she thought, was the sheer pleasure of having magic.       But in the midst of her play, a shadow grew.   It was not unexpected; it was the cost of doing magic, for it always begot shadows.   But it never ceased to offer discomfort.   If she could find a way to practice her craft and leave behind the adjacent darkness, she would.          Anya was not fond of the dark, or shadows, or of the sense of unease that grew whenever she let the flickering brightness dance.   But, too, there was a feeling of wholeness in her work.   How could that be, such fulfillment when darkness lay about her?   A constant wonder—the weight of it only born by extinguishing the light for a time until she could bear it again.       Today was such a time.          Anya took the light, and threw it at the darkness.   The next breath, and it was gone.   Elimination brought palpable relief, while at the same time she felt the loss of
Read more

The Fae Wood

There were the haunted woods. You know them. The ones you walked through that night when the mists lit up with an eerie light and you knew you’d regret it if you didn’t follow the light to its source.       The source was the moon, of course. There was no surprise in that.       But the twilit pond did surprise you.       Not because it was a pond, but because of the faerie creatures that danced about it with their tiny bodies gliding about on shining wings, all gossamer and glow.       When you stripped off your jacket and dove into the pond, that surprised you, too.       Not as much as the Fae creatures on the other side who pulled you up as you gasped your breaths and told you that you would be there for the next hundred years.      Which was fine, you decided in an instant.        You didn’t mind.        It had always been a dream of yours, a fancy of wonder. It was a grand, enticing way to spend a hundred years.       W hen you came back, the world was not much ch
Read more