A Wish

I give to you a conversation in two times eleventy-one words...

A wish?
A wish.
This seems sketchy.
Why, because you didn’t find me in a lamp?
Yeah, for one. What are the conditions?
No conditions.
That doesn’t seem right.
Why is that?
Don’t I get three wishes?
I used to do three. It got… complicated.
What do you mean?
Never mind that. I’m offering a wish. Do you want it?
Yes. Does that mean I can wish for more wishes?
If you’d like.
Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of not giving three wishes?
Nope.
Are you trying to trick me?
Why would I try to trick you?
Why wouldn’t you?
If I had wanted to trick you, I could have interpreted any one of your questions as a wish. I haven’t.
Oh.

He pauses.

Why wouldn’t everyone wish for more wishes?
Not sure.
Has everyone wished for that?
Is that your wish?
What?
To know what everyone else has wished.
No.
I have been lax with you thus far. This is no trick. But beware your next utterance lest you live with regret.

He pauses again.

I want to think about it.

The genie sighs.

Your wish is my command. You will think about the one wish you wish to wish for all your days.

With that, the genie disappears leaving the boy to consider the one wish he could have wished.

Rooftop

I give to you a story in two times eleventy-one words...

I stare out across the rooftops at the cold, white sunset. Around the still blinding light beckon indigo hues, tempting me to take flight. I peer over the edge to see a nondescript street littered with parked vehicles and sauntering pedestrians. My eyes close. I contemplate the leap after a running start from the roof’s center and see myself hurdle over the ledge. The wind whistles as I plummet through the twilight.

Except I do not hit the ground. Instead, my body hovers. After my initial shock, I scan the area for witnesses, but everyone and everything stands chaotically still.

I see movement. There stands a cloaked figure below me moving as if through a viscous fluid. I descend, upright, toward the sidewalk until my feet find the pavement. The world reanimates. A voice or thought or some lost idea surfaces, “What the mind and heart imagine, the soul creates. The body merely follows.” The cloaked figure peers from under the hood to reveal seering emerald eyes. The disembodied words repeat. The scene fades, as if a camera zooms out to reveal an evening laced with fog and fantasy. I feel an eerie peace.

I stare back across the rooftops at myriad sparkling lights, stars fallen from heaven. The nascent night coaxes me to linger, listen, and laugh aloud, vexing passersby below.

Trunk Bites

I give to you a story in two times eleventy-one words...

‘It bit me!’

Liam’s parents exchanged a glance. ‘What bit you?’ His father eyed him with an interest he hadn’t shown since Mazeroski hit that famous walk-off homer.

‘The trunk!’ Liam cried. ‘Look.’ On the inside of his index finger, two tiny holes began to trickle red globules. ‘It hurts,’ he waved it in the air like a mad conductor aching to extract baroque themes from a Philip Glass work.

Doing her best mourning dove impression, Liam’s mother cooed at him as she gently grasped his forearm. ‘Trunks don’t bite,’ she chuckled airily.

After Liam’s mother had applied unguent and an aged bandaid to the wound, she brought him upstairs where his father sat on the offending piece of furniture. Dazed and pale, his father gave him a weak smile. ‘This trunk won’t be biting anyone else,’ he declared in mock triumph. ‘Come see.’

Liam vehemently shook my head.

His mother stepped from behind him and sat next to his father on the trunk. ‘See?’ she commented, ‘Perfectly safe.’

Liam inched toward them. ‘What did you do to it?’ he asked.

‘I fed it so it wouldn’t eat you,’ his father smirked.

Liam froze.

‘Jim, what are you doing?!’ my mother fumed. And then to her son, ‘He’s just kidding.’

But Liam had already fled to seek the safety of his room.

Long Night

I give to you a story in two times eleventy-one words...

A commotion in the kitchen preceded a disappointed exclamation. ‘Look,’ he whined in dismay as into the room I popped. I glimpsed the broken plate, then realized it wasn’t a plate from the cabinet.

‘Where did you get that?’

His grimace told me something was awry.

‘From the hutch?’ His upspoken statement trailed as he wilted beneath my stern gaze.

‘Have you lost your mind?’ I shouted before stalking off to the bedroom.

Knowing I needed time to simmer, he entered later with a plate of deviled eggs and a snifter of scotch. ‘How are you?’ he inquired sheepishly.

I half-heartedly grunted.

‘I’m sorry. I wanted our last night to be special.’

‘They specifically said not to use anything in the hutch.’

‘I know.’

I popped an egg into my mouth.

‘You’re going to fix it, right?’

A swig of scotch washed down my throat. I sighed.

‘Right?’

The mustard’s tang and the scotch’s smoke commingled deliciously. Time paused; I felt in the back of my neck the beginnings of a familiar pain.

He waited.

‘When are you ever going to take responsibility?’

‘Sorry’ he groveled.

My no longer nascent headache worsened. ‘Fine; bring me the plate.’

‘Yay!’ he exclaimed insensitively. ‘Oh, and I’ll take care of everything else’ he replied as an afterthought.

I sighed again, preparing for a long night.

Mini-fridge

I give to you a story in eleventy-one words...

The two men wheeled the mini-fridge into the coffee shop and asked where it should go.

A young Asian man, the owner, directed them to a seemingly unreachable spot behind the counter.

The two men looked at each other and chuckled. ‘You figure it out,’ one of them responded.

Displeased, the owner subtly uttered three words, ‘Do your job.’

The men immediately lifted the unit onto the counter.

The owner persisted, ‘Finish your job.’

They stomped behind the counter, lowered the box onto the ground, and maneuvered it into place.

The owner concluded, ‘You may go.’

They marched out.

The owner turned to me and smiled. ‘You will write about this.’

Magic

I give to you a story in eleventy-one words...

With his birthday celebrations ended, he chose to spend a day alone in Brooklyn.

He would visit Catland, a metaphysical shop, and Roberta’s, a pizza place.

He stepped into Catland expecting to feel magic.

There was no magic, just old comics and phallic candles.

He scurried away.

He entered Roberta’s wanting to order a slice.

There were no slices, just something pizza-like.

He took two and left.

He proceeded to a park hoping to sit and eat.

There was no park, just a baseball field under construction.

He opened the gate and sat in a dugout.

He sighed, then chuckled.

Magic exists within each of the moments that comprise a life.

Lazy Day

I give to you a story in eleventy-one words...

I wake.

It is early and there is no sun.

I pray and do twenty-two pushups in memory of a friend and stretch and write and read aloud to myself an excerpt from Satchmo.

The forty-nine square mile map gazes up at me in miniature begging me to choose some part of its peninsular tip.

I savor a lackluster sandwich and the outdoor seating at a local establishment known for its fruit.

The hill climbs ahead of me bellowing its laughter up into the wind while my bald head burns beneath cooling perspiration.

I arrive after wandering circuitous paths, all in service of the destination.

The return is uneventful.

I sleep.