Be Careful What You Wish For
Rose yawned as she checked her watch. 5 more minutes and she’d be off of work and could go home for the weekend. She idly tapped her fingers on the keyboard as the second hand on the clock seemed to go slower and slower, even stopping altogether. Finally it reached the 8. She held in a yell of excitement as she, along with her coworkers, gathered their stuff for the weekend. As she strolled down the hallway past cubicle after cubicle, she smiled. She’d made it through her another week of work at her new company. Now just the rest of my life. She thought as she dashed down the steps and out the door. She inhaled the smoggy New York air. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this. She rummaged around in her purse for her keys. Hmm? She started looking more and more frantically when she realized she had walked to work that morning. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but as the jubilation of the weekend to come faded, she was starting to rethink her decision that morning. Come on Rose, nothing to worry about. It’s hardly been dark for half an hour! Yeah. She’d be just fine. She rationalized as she drew her sweater closer and subdued a shiver. New York after dark was not somewhere she liked to be alone. She started the brisk walk back to her apartment, swiveling her head side to side as she quickened her pace. Nothing to worry about Rose, nothing to worry about. Bang! Bang! She suppressed a scream and walked even faster, almost running now as her high heels beat a quick staccato on the pavement. Finally she made it to the intersection by her apartment. She was going to make it. As she stopped to wait for the light to tell her she could cross, she glanced to her right. Funny, I’ve never noticed that street vendor before. She edged her way closer, trying to get a peek at the sign. Only… there was no sign. She gave up all pretense of not being interested in the booth, and let her curiosity get the better of her. It’s just a little old man. She told herself, as she neared the stall. “Hello, beautiful girl. Would you like to try one of my special potions?” The old man inquired in a thick Middle Eastern accent. “Erm, no thanks,” Rose replied “just looking while I wait.” “For you? It is free. I can make all of your dreams come true in just a drop of one of these fine bottles. Would you like to find true love? Go back in time? Escape for a couple weeks? I can make that all happen.” Rose shrugged, but she was beginning to think those things didn’t sound so bad. So she’d take it back to her apartment, test it to make sure it wasn’t going to kill her, then have the poison control number handy. What could it hurt? “I…I guess I could just try one. How much did you say it costs?” “For you? Free tonight.” Rose tentatively reached out to take one of the tiny crystal bottles. She looked at the label, but it was in a foreign language. Deciding she had bothered the man long enough, she thanked him, crossed the street and neared the door to her apartment. She unlocked it with unseeing eyes, still thinking about what the man had said. Her wildest dreams come true? If only...no. That was silly. It couldn’t bring people back from the dead. She thought as she pushed open the door to her tiny New York New York City
Through the window you could barely see the flashing of lights as a police cruiser carted away the old man on the corner. They’d been waiting for years to pin him to any sort of crime, but he’d managed to slip through their grasp. He’d been reported to be selling unauthorized content on the street corner without a permit. An officer smelled the liquid “cyanide” he said knowingly. But the old man had been doing something much worse: poisoning people with their deepest hopes and dreams. Encouraging them to let their desires run rampant on their mind.
When the police found her a few days later she was laying there just as she’d left this world, with the bottle in her hands a smile on her face. She’d gotten her wish. She was with her fiancé that night.
