After centuries of existing at the bottom of a well, I can be absolutely certain of only a few things: the stars are beautiful, my sole desire is to grant people’s wishes, and no one, except me, actually knows what they want.
I know exactly what I want. To grant wishes, to fulfill dreams, and to make people happy! It’s what I was made for, probably. In truth, I am not certain what I am. But I am certain of what people are, because I can observe their lives when granting wishes.
Sometimes I catch a glimpse from the top of my well, seeing through their eyes the darkness at the bottom. Am I the darkness? Or something within it?
I am down there, waiting for a person to come to my well, toss in a coin, and make a wish. When that happens, I am consumed with an overwhelming desire to grant it. As far as I can tell, that’s all I can do. I possess tremendous power when someone makes a wish! I can shape the world to satisfy their desires with almost no limitations!
And yet, no one is ever satisfied, and I am unfulfilled.
This could’ve been such a wonderful existence -- I make their dreams come true, and in return, they make mine come true too. But how can I ever make someone’s dream come true when they can’t even put it into words?
This existence is maddening!
People come to my well and do the ritual, grant me power and inspire hope within, but inevitably, every wisher, or a surviving relative, returns to beg me to undo the wish! These people who once spoke to me with sweetness will then address me as either vermin to be stepped upon, or a devilish fiend that may step on them!
Sometimes these returned wishers tip in tears, or pay far more than required, such as jewels, silver dishes, and all sorts of other extravagances. But the standard charge is a coin per wish. Extra payments are returned to them, except for a single coin, if one was given at all -- people seem to believe pennies and rubies are interchangeable.
I do not mind granting wishes to undo wishes. A wish is a wish. But so far, even the undo wishes go thankless! They return again and again, with increasingly specific wishes. Eventually, most wish to turn back time. I must refund those wishes.
Using magic, I place their coin back into their pocket or in their home with a receipt -- their unfulfilled wish, printed in gold ink on a lavish strip of parchment. I do the same when the wisher fails to pay, and the receipts disclose as much.
Why I am unable to turn back time is not something I understand. I always try, before issuing a refund. But I wonder, if pushing the clock back to before the person made their wish were possible, would that person return to me and make the same wish again? If so, I would end up granting the same wish for an eternity!
Maybe I am unable to reverse time for my own sake?
Another incessant and impossible wish is bringing back the dead. I can make people dead. I do so often, and no one is ever satisfied! Even when people wish themselves dead, someone always comes around wishing to bring them back!
I sometimes ponder what might happen if I were to resurrect a suicidal dreamer. Would they toss another coin to me, or go on living? And if they do wish for their own demise a second time, would the person responsible for wishing them back wish it again, or let them rest?
How many times can that wheel turn? From what I’ve witnessed with undo-wishers, I believe it can keep on turning until the resurrectionist is also dead.
But what of those who wish for their loved ones to be returned? People whose deaths were not their own doing? Surely there cannot be any harm to that.
A woman in a black veil trudged through snow to reach me last winter. She threw in a gold coin from her inheritance, then wished for her mother to be brought back. I gave a refund, then imagined what might be. Would the woman’s mother also wish to bring back her own mother? And maybe her father too?
Then maybe they’d wish for their own families to be returned, and so on and on, until the coffers of death run dry! Everyone resurrecting everyone to watch them die again. Some may even wish the dead-again to be returned-again, and again, and again. I would, yet again, be granting the same wish for eternity!
But would that be an unwelcome fate? To grant a happy wish forever? Is there misery to that endless cycle I am not grasping?
Immortality, the wish I most often hear, would end that cycle, but it is also impossible. Youth, heath, and impenetrable armor are all viable wishes. But to thwart death entirely is beyond me, yet everyone seems to want it. Some people try over and over, changing their wording, asking for magical items to act as proxy, and even bargaining with ever increasing hoards of riches. Once a wisher sacrificed a newborn at my well’s opening. I returned every drop of new blood to their bed, along with a gilded receipt. When the mother came to me wishing for yet another impossible wish, all I was able to return was her silver coin.
People’s desperation for immortality creates an endless river of receipts. But I question if granting it would just postpone refunds. Almost all wishes result in someone demanding it be undone, so what if someone wanted to restore their mortality? Would it even be possible to undo the magic required for immortality? To be immortal is to never die, but undoing the wish guarantees the wisher will, someday, die.
But aside from those limitations, I can grant almost any wish imaginable. Money, love, power -- all who wish, receive. And all return, begging me to undo what was done.
There was a young man, a distant heir to the throne, who wished to be king and paid a coin sculpted from clay. A coin is a coin, so I granted the wish. It was a common wish. I have made countless rulers in my time! For him, it was even simpler. All I needed to do was remove potential heirs between him and the throne. A year later the new king returned, demanding that I raise his six older brothers and father from the grave. I immediately refunded the crown he had tossed in for payment. With a new receipt in his hand and a bejeweled crown atop his head once again, he screamed into the well, “Why so much bloodshed? Why not make me a kingdom of which I was already king?”
Why wasn’t he more specific?
He wished to be king, and so I granted it in the least disruptive manner possible. His retrospective wish to ascend to the throne of a new kingdom without bloodshed was far more demanding, but I would’ve granted it!
There have been rare occasions when dreamers were initially content with their wishes. For example, there was a pair of children who were too small to see over the stones of my well. After several unsuccessful attempts to throw in a penny, one succeeded, and then together, they wished for a kitten. I decided a single coin was sufficient for a single kitten, and ensured the children would cross paths with a stray on their way home. Both children continued visiting me over the years wishing for more simple pleasures with pocket change.
People who wish to recover from ailments never ask to be made ill again. And people who wish for lost items to be found never wish to lose them again. But alas, all pleased wishers make more wishes. And all eventually wish for something they do not want. They come back to me, wishing to undo what was done, sometimes bargaining with their gains from earlier granted wishes - once, a youth offered up his beloved cat in exchange for his twin.
Why are people so eager to give up everything I gave them to undo their one regretted wish?
Just one person never came back, and no representative had ventured to me on her behalf. She was a gentle woman with a walking stick. Just before dusk in spring, she tossed in a coin worn by age, then did not make a wish. Instead she rested against the outer stones of my well and we watched the setting sun together. Then, as the sky darkened, stars appeared -- the same stars that have shone above me for centuries.
Through her eyes, I gazed, and realized the stars were beautiful.
She then made her wish, “…to be happy.”
I grant every wish to make people happy, but she wasn’t wishing to be made happy. She was wishing to be happy.
For once in all of my existence, I could not imagine a way to grant a wish. I was about to issue a refund when she spoke again. She said, “Thank you, wishing well,” as if something had changed!
She died then and there, against my well, without me granting her wish. As her eyes closed the stars disappeared until I was back in the darkness again. I tried to return the old coin to her pocket, but I was incapable. And so, I discovered another limitation, but what was it exactly? Am I unable to give refunds to the dead? Or maybe I did somehow grant her wish without realizing it?
Or do wishes count, even if a person wishes for something they already have?
I cannot know for certain why her coin remains down here with me. And so, I remain unfulfilled, but also hopeful.
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