Short Stories

Wishes

Disclaimer: this story was totally spur of the moment, and inspired by the autofill setting on my iPhone, which came up with, among other things, the following phrase:

I have a great day for a few years

We've all dreamed of a chance to have a wish granted. We've all mulled over what wish we would ask for if we got the chance. It's where some of the greatest stories have come from. Well, here's my story, and while it may not be as good as Aladdin, it's all I've got.

I was growing up. Adulthood loomed like a great abyss, sucking away my joy, my childhood, and my soul. Okay, so maybe I was a little angst-y, but that's really what it felt like. I was in my senior year of high school, life was escalating, my motivation to continue with life was diminishing, and all around I had bad senioritis, only it applied to my entire life, and not just school. Call it adulthood-itis. Anyway, I often thought to myself that if I could just stop life, or freeze time around me, and take some time to chill, catch up on sleep, and get my emotional state under control, I could restart it and be happy again. Because everyone has to grow up eventually.

So that was my wish. The ability to freeze time. That was the magical solution to all my problems. If I could only do that, everything would be better.

As you've probably guessed by now, I got my wish. But don't go getting jealous of me, because every wish comes with a catch. It's not like some entity decided, 'hey, I bet I can get people to wish stuff and charge them for it,' like Rumpelstiltskin. No, there wasn't an entity at all. It's just that every action we make has a consequence, and superpowerful actions have superpowerful consequences.

I should start from the beginning. I was going on a hike with my friends. We'd been planning it for months, and it was going to be great. We were going to the middle of nowhere, dragging backpacks of food with us up a mountain, and starting a fire to eat and watch the sunset by. At least, that was the plan.

So we got to the foot of the mountain, and as we started packing our supplies, the wind started to pick up. It wasn't a big deal, so we started up the mountain. About an hour into the hike, it started to rain. It was just a sprinkle, so we continued a little farther, even welcoming the relief from the sun. Then it started to pour.

You've heard the expression "raining cats and dogs?" Well, it started raining giraffes and elephants. Suddenly we were in the middle of the worst storm I'd ever seen. We couldn't even see each other a few feet away. Let alone a way back down the trail. But we went anyway, desperately running from tree to tree, back the way we came. That was before it started hailing.

Even as we slipped and skidded our way down the mountain, the wind started to pick up even more, going from a good, firm gust to howling ferocity in seconds. Combine wind and rain, and hail the size of softballs was pelting out of the sky as if it was being shot out of cannons. All I had time to do was think, "we're all gonna die," and then a hailstone hit me in the head. Everything went black.

I had a weird dream. I was in school, in an assembly. My backpack bulged from all the homework I'd gotten that day. My head hurt. I was exhausted, even though I'd been getting enough sleep. I couldn't even feel anything. It was as if my emotions had faded, until only the tiniest bit of personality remained. Basically a normal day of school.

Someone got up on the stage and started speaking into the microphone. They were some sort of counselor at the school. They introduced themselves and got directly to the point.

"Hello seniors of Erin High School. You are at a critical point in your lives. The choices you're making now will affect you for years to come, either for good... or for bad. Now is the time to start planning for your future. Make goals, and start working to achieve them. Decide what you want to be, and start laying out a path to get there."

They kept talking, but I stopped listening. An emotion had decided to poke it's head out of the fog. Anxiety. I wanted to scream. Why did all these decisions have to be made now? All at once? I had to pick a career so that I could pick a college major. I had to pick a college major so I could pick a college. But heavens forbid my major and my career choice be anything unconventional, because then I would just be wasting thousands of dollars on a degree that would never help me. But also I couldn't just pick a career that pays well but that I don't care about, because then I might give up halfway through college and still waste thousands of dollars. What's more, I had four years of a c's get degrees mentality that were holding me back from potential scholarships. And I was white, which was also not helping in the scholarship department. And how was I even supposed to apply for scholarships until I had a college picked out?

All of this and more rushed through my head like a flash flood, drowning out any serenity I might have still been clinging to. It built up steam and pressure until finally...

"JUST STOP!" I screamed.

And everything did.

The speaker's voice cut off, in the middle of a word, and they just stood there, mouth hanging open, hand frozen where it had been enthusiastically waving. The whole auditorium fell into a dead silence. Pencils that had been getting tossed around stopped in midair. I had frozen time itself.

And then I woke up.

It had only been a few seconds, and the hail still posed a threat to my life, but I found a tree and took shelter, and the storm was over in a few minutes. I talked to my friends, and they all said they had weird dreams/visions during the storm too. I thought nothing of it.

Fast forward a few days. I really should have seen it coming. I mean, that same dream had been haunting me ever since the incident. The second I walked into that auditorium, I should have known. But I was gray. I was drained off energy and emotions. It had been a long, long day, full of mind-numbing equations and comprehension questions and bizarre facts about human biology that I really did not need to know. So I slumped into my seat, unaware of what was about to happen.

The speaker began speaking, and I started half-listening.

"Hello seniors of Erin High School. You are at a critical point in your lives. The choices you're making now... "

It happened just like the dream. Uncontrollable emotions welled up inside me, and I couldn't keep them down. I started breathing heavily, finally feeling the pressure that had been quietly building since freshman orientation three and a half years ago. I wanted to scream, and it wasn't long before I finally did.

"JUST STOP!"

And, just like my dream, everything did.

I had always thought that, if I ever got my wish to freeze time, everything would be good. I could regain my sanity and go back to normal life, happy as can be. But I was wrong. Because time hasn't unfrozen.

It's been three years.

I waved goodbye to my sanity about two years and three hundred and sixty days ago.

Don't get me wrong, it's great, being able to do whatever you want to do, without any real consequences (unless you count soul crushing loneliness). But I don't know how to put it back. I've tried everything I can think of. Or at least, almost everything. So I guess I'll finish my bucket list. Don't know how I'm getting to the Himalayan mountains yet, but I'll find a way. I'll keep looking for an answer, and if all else fails, well...

I'm sorry.

Author's note
So that turned darker than I originally intended, but that's okay. Next one I write will be fluffy, I promise. And I fully intend to find more writing prompts this way, since it's way more fun than what I can find in the internet. I highly recommend it, and if you ever want to use the prompts I get, you're more than welcome.

I've pretty much given up on asking for comments and votes, so do what you want and I'll just be happy if I get any feedback ever.

Stay creative!