Writer's Notebook

This Week’s Theme: 3 wishes Sometime in another age and another world three wishes met together before setting off on a long journey. Each of the three had issued forth from the goodness of the most benevolent master imaginable. Indeed, such was his disposition, that his one desire was to grant the wishes of those whom he carried in his heart. Which was why he had chosen, these specific three wishes. As the three gathered together they reflected upon the task which had been set them. This was somewhat different from the standard go-to-soandso-and-grant-him-what-he-wants approach. Instead they were to scour time and space and find some in need of the particular wish they had been commissioned with. At their final meeting talk soon turned to the wisdom of their master in setting such a task. "It's obvious, he has a lot of confidence in us," mused the first. "If not, he would never have let us choose ourselves, whom to help." "I think it's also a reflection on human society," chimed in another. "Just look at look at the standard wish lists we keep getting. Money sex and power, just to gratify macho men unable to see beyond the end of their noses." "Well, I think it points the wisdom of the master. It'll be hard to do wrong with these wishes." With that the third wish got up and set off whilst the two others followed in turn each visiting a different time and location. This third wish wasn't really sure where he was. But he didn't feel at ease. It was a dark, bleak country, one that hadn't seen much light from the master for many a year. He wondered why people so often refused his goodness trusting to their own self-deluding inventions instead. He hadn't gone very far when he saw a small, forlorn-looking dog straying about the valley. His heart melted at the sight of this half-starved lonely creature and he took it up in his arms. He had no idea what he was going to do with it, but was confident something would come up. Passing a woodcutter's hut, he heard a little girl singing to her precious little doll, but when he looked in there was nothing in her arms. Here was someone with so much love to give, yet no one to love. In a flash the dog was out of his arms barking gently, its little tail wagging. The girl scooped it up and the smile on her face sent the first wish hurtling through space back to where he had come from. Smile's mission was completed. Prosperity, in turn contemplated the scene in front of him. Never had he scene such a rich city. But, never had he seen such poor people. True, they lived in rich, luxurious houses, in which they slept from 1-5 A.M. every day, before the radios issued the inevitable order for the daily grind to begin. As people began to appear on the streets large, overdimensioned coins appeared. But instead of the people chasing after them, the opposite happened. The moment one of these coins spied someone crossing their doorstep, off it set in pursuit, and the person had to run like the devil to avoid being caught. True, each coin gave freely whatever its slave required, nevertheless the price of freedom was a high price to pay. Prosperity turned his pockets out. He hadn't been prepared for this. All he had was a few keys and an old stopwatch. Anyone watching him meditate would have seen the concentration on his brow, but the careful observer would also have seen the light slowly beginning to shine in his eyes. He entered the first house he came to, fixed up the watch and left it on the table. A man came running from somewhere in the back of the house. He suddenly stopped short, looked at the watch and exclaimed: "Strange, I've still got ten minutes left. I wonder when that last happened to me."His wife came out and they started talking. Over the next few minutes, he looked again and again at the watch, it always showed ten minutes left, although time was ticking away. But soon the watch was forgotten amidst the unlikely pleasure of talking to each other. And prosperity made his way back to the master. In the meantime, a battle royal was raging back in middle-age Europe. The battle was hard and several people lost their lives. They were the lucky ones. The other wounded were suffering terribly. No one wanted to help them for fear of getting hurt themselves, or because they were enemy soldiers who deserved everything that came to them. The third wish tried his best to persuade people to do something, but he was only laughed at. Dragging a wounded soldier back towards his lines, tears streaming down his cheeks the sun suddenly caught his face. Those waiting turned away almost blinded at the sight. When they looked again, each to his surprise saw his own face reflected back to them from the suffering solider and his helper. Somewhat sheepishly, they started to move one by one out onto the battlefield, and before long the place was transformed into the first military hospital in the history of our world. He was tired and aching but Care had also succeeded in bringing some much needed relief into our world of misery.
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