Wishes

[Wixern]

Wishes

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your every desire fulfilled in the blink of an eye? No doubt you have, actually. Everyone, at some point, wishes for something. Basically, a wish is just hope given shape by words. It is a prayer to a god who isn’t there. It’s the hope that a miracle would occur. Some might say it’s the atheist’s god, and the christian’s belief. After all, do they not wish for things to happen as well in their daily prayer?

So, what if someone would tell you that all your wishes COULD come true? Would you believe them, as you would believe any random person on the streets on his word? Or would you tell him to take a hike and bother someone else with his believes?
This is a story of a man who knows what wishes entail. Because there is always a dark side to wishes, no matter how simple they may seem. This is the story of Diego Armond, a simple man who lives alone, for the benefit of everyone around him.

The location: the train station, where Armond is waiting for his train to roll in. Reading a book, his mind wanders off, leaving him with his body and the feelings of cold. He turned a page, and looked around. A man was walking towards him, carrying a strange object. Armond hated these people. The beggars, widows, priests and preachers that came to him without warning and believed him to be interested in their useless little trinkets and their silly believes. He placed a bookmark on the page he was reading and closed the book.

As the man approached, Armond noticed that he looked different that the others. Not just his clothes, but his feeling, his aura, as it were, seemed to radiate a certain awkwardness. He wore a suit, but the effect was ruined by the strange, battered top hat on his head. As he stopped in front of Armond, he spoke, his voice a mixture of cackles and polite speech. It was hard to make any sense of what he was saying, and Armond settled for nodding and saying “Indeed”, which was a standard way of ditching these people. Then, the only sentence which made any sense escaped the man’s mouth.
‘So shall all your wishes be fulfilled.’
The man entrusted the object he was carrying to Armond and walked off, looking immensely happy. Armond looked down at the thing the man had given him.

It was a ring. A simple, silver ring. No decorations, no engravings, nothing special at all. And yet, a strange warmth came from the ring, as though it had been lying in a fire for several hours before being brought here. By the looks of the man that had given it to him, that could’ve been the truth. Armond looked for anything suspicious, but found nothing. He slid the ring on his finger. It was a perfect fit, which seemed odd, because the ring seemed a lot smaller in girth than his fingers.
As Armond stared at the ring, the man’s words rang through his head. Did he not say all his wishes would be fulfilled? It was a foolish thing to believe, but it was worth trying, wasn’t it? What was the worst that could happen?

And that final question is, of course, a fatal one. Entire worlds have been blown apart because someone said “What’s the worst that could happen?” It was the question that fired missiles, made nuclear explosions, caused murders and suicides, and yet it continued to be used. It was as though people can see the warnings, but don’t want to listen to them. Certainly, any sane man would see what’s the worst that could happen. Then again, humans seem to live happily ignoring all the major warning signs, so perhaps there is some use to them.

Armond stared at his ring. He looked at the clock, noticing that his train would need another twenty minutes to arrive. He also noticed the cold wind, which was even less pleasant. He looked at his ring, and back at the clock. It couldn’t hurt, right? All he needed to do was wish...
In order to make sure it could work, Armond decided to speak aloud. Perhaps the ring needed to hear him speak in order to fulfill his wish.
‘Boy, I wished that my train would be here.’
He stared around, and looked at the rails. There was nothing there. There wasn’t anything happening around him, either. He relaxed, and settled back into his book. It was a ridiculous thought, anyway. As if a ring could make something happen like that.
As he flipped the page of his book, a sound reached his ears. He looked at the rails, and saw his train coming at him. At breakneck speed. Without stopping.

In a second, Armond took cover behind the bench he was sitting on. The train moved on, crashing straight into the station. The grinding noise as the train tried to get on without any rails screeched throughout the station. Then, the train exploded, the sheer force sending Armond flat on his back. He heard screams, and messages shouted from the intercom. He gathered himself and stood up, taking a look at the wreckage that would have been his train home. He could see bodies, and reddish stains. He gazed, unable to move his eyes. He continued to stare as the firefighters and the medics arrived. Unmoving, silent, and shocked.

It wasn’t until a policeman asked him for the third time to move before Armond started walking, his legs carrying him without knowing where to go. As he sat down on another bench, a thought struck him.
“You never wished for the train to be here in one piece. The only way the train could get here was by moving faster, and it did. I caused those deaths. I wished for people to die so that I could satisfy my own needs.”

He simply sat, and stared. He looked at his ring every now and then, and wondered if he would ever use it again. Would he risk lives for his own wellbeing?
A glint in his eye sparked a monologue in his brain.
“Well, you never liked humans anyway, did you? And have you ever done anything which WASN’T related to your personal need somehow? Why shouldn’t you continue on this path? To have everything you want… certainly, a few simple lives could not compare to such a thought…”