The Wish

Perhaps I will try to convince you that this story is true. Maybe I will - but then again, you are intelligent enough to make your own mind up – I can tell that about you.

To be real honest, I could say that the person in the story is me, but that would be lying. To say that I heard it from the friend of a friend of a friend, would be nearer the truth.

So, this guy, who we will call Jack, is walking through the woods minding his own business, when he hears a call from the trees.  ‘Help’, the voice calls, ‘help me’. Jack  wanders over to the source of the noise and there is a small man, almost dwarfish, with his foot caught down a rabbit hole.

“What are you doing?”, Asks Jack.
“What do you think, I am doing?” Replies the little man. “I’m stuck, my foot is caught down a rabbit hole.”
“Why did you do that?” Asks Jack, again.
“I didn’t do it on purpose, I was chasing something, and I didn’t notice the hole.”
“Fair enough,” said Jack who then attempted to pull the dwarfish man from the hole, but nearly pulled the little man’s head off.
“Careful,” shouted the small fellow, in a very strangulated tone.

After one more pull and a pop, the little man was freed.

“Well thank you very much.” Said the dwarfish person. “It is now a matter of principle that I grant you a wish, for your kindness.”

Jack looked around for the television cameras, as he was sure that someone was up to something, somewhere.
“Are you looking for TV cameras?” Asked the now freed, dwarf.
“No,” said Jack guiltily.
“You were, you thought I was setting you up,” said the man.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Ok, I did.”
“Aha!” Exclaimed the little man with the big voice. “Even after all, that I am still going to grant you a wish – mainly because I am contracted to do so.”

Jack looked up at the sky and down at the grass but couldn’t find any inspiration in what to do with his wish.

“Tell you what,” says the dwarf, “why don’t you walk with me a while and you can decide then.”

Jack thinks, then looks around to see if the dwarf has accomplices and is planning to kidnap him.

“You’re looking to see if my friends are going to attack you, aren’t you?”
“No,” says Jack.
“You were.”
“I wasn’t………look we could do this all day. So yes, I thought you might be a robber.”
“At my height. What was I going to do? Gnaw your ankles?”

The smallish magical man and Jack decide to call a truce and walk through the woods together.

After a few minutes, small man speaks:
“Have you thought about  your wish?”
“I have,” says Jack.
“Well tell me what it is.”

Jack clears his throat and coughs.
“Well, perhaps you could hurry up as I have things to chase,” said the little man.
“And holes to fall-down,” says Jack.
“Do you want a wish, or don’t you?” Asks the midget.
“I do, I do. I would like to get rid of all my past mistakes, All the things I’ve done wrong. Reset them, so that they never happened.”

The little magical man looks at the bigger man with a sceptical look. “You sure?”
“Sure.”
“Alrighty then,” says the little one, “but I’ve got to warn you there are consequences.”
“Hang the consequences,” says Jack.
“If you’re sure, I’ll begin.”

The little man rolled and ran in circles, saying strange words and making weird noises. Then he suddenly stopped:
“What would you like me to get rid of first? I can’t do them all at once, as that’s too tiring.”

So, Jack tells the little man that he wished he had never been drunk so often and told people things he didn’t mean.
The little man did his little man magic things, then shouted, ‘done’.
“That’s it?” asks Jack.
“Sure is,” says the little one, and the two of them continue walking through the woods. Suddenly a rather strange thing occurs, Jack’s right arm falls off.

At first Jack didn’t even notice, then as he went to scratch his head he realised he didn’t have an arm.
“I told you there would be consequences.”
“Losing an arm is more than just a consequence. It’s an arm.”
“But now when you meet people, they will never see you as an angry drunk. To them you have never drank,” said the little man.

Jack thinks about this and decides that he can live without an arm.
“Anything else?” Asks the small man.
“Well I wish I had made more friends, and been less judgemental of people.”
“Done,” says the little man.

And the next thing Jack knows is that his two ears fall off.
“I didn’t say, I wanted it, I was thinking aloud,” says Jack.
“Too late,” says the small fellow, “and if you want to put down meeting me as a mistake, you can’t, it’s in the contract.”
“What contract?” Asks Jack and the little fellow pulls out reams and reams of paper.
“Wait a minute is there something you are trying to tell me, little one?”

The dwarfish man nods.
“What is it then?”
“Can’t you see, if I got rid of all your errors and faults, you would no longer exist. It is the mistakes and wrong-doings that make you who you are. No one ever learns anything from doing things correctly. We are all made up of our faults.”

Jack had to smile and wished he hadn’t been so stupid. Which is what happened. The little man disappeared as Jack’s arm and ears grew back.
“Guess, I’ll just live with my faults,” Jack thought to himself.

And that is what he did.

bobby stevenson 2017

Love Me 'Til The End

 

 

 

There are 52 594 876 minutes in one hundred years.

And no one is the same person from one minute to the next.

A brain cell dies here, a skin flakes off there,

A new nail or hair is grown.

We are only a collection of things that have been given a name.

If we live for all of one hundred times around the Sun then

We have been 52 594 876 different versions of ourselves.

And, what I am saying is –

Love me ‘til the end

And watch our selves forever change

Minute by minute.

bobby stevenson 2017

The Draft - a 100-word story

We sat nervously in the great hall of the university, staring at the little bowl in the center of the room – it innocently sat there with the potential to destroy all our student lives. Of our three buds, Jimmy went up first. His nervous hand dipped into the bowl as if it might bite it off. He looked over at us: ‘997’. Next it was Al’s turn. He rummaged to the bottom: ‘579’. Not so good. Then it was me. I picked the number, ‘102’. “All you with numbers below 300, go home and get ready to go to Vietnam”.

bobby stevenson 2017

Once Upon, A Long Ago

Once upon, a long ago,

I saw a life of hope

And so,

I dreamed myself with smile

And mirth,

A charming life to death, from birth

But living twisted all I did

The rules were changed,

My fortunes hid,

I wish my days had run just so,

Like once upon,

A long ago. 

bobby stevenson 2017

Every Breath You Take

His name was Charlie and he was a kid. Charlie was lucky enough to be living through his best years. His mother, father, brother and sisters were all well, all happy, and all in that little perfect bubble that happens from time to time in life.

When Charlie was eight, he had his first birthday party which involved all his friends coming to his house. This was Charlie’s first proper party.

Charlie’s parents were like ducks on water, everything seemed calm on top, but both of them had to paddle extremely hard to keep themselves and the family from sinking. Not that 
Charlie knew any of this, or of the double shifts that his father had worked that previous week to afford Charlie’s first grown-up party.

Charlie, his brother and his dad all blew up the balloons. Charlie inflated the red ones, his brother the green balloons and his dad the yellow ones. Both Charlie and his brother used little air pumps to inflate them all, but Charlie’s dad just blew them up with his own breath. This was his youngest son’s first real party and he wanted to give it everything he had.

That night, after the party, Charlie’s dad felt a pain in his left arm, then his chest, and with only time to quietly say ‘goodbye’ he closed his eyes for good.

The next morning, Charlie’s grandfather took down all the decorations – anything that reminded the family of happier times – and burst all the balloons. Or so he thought.

Charlie sat in his bedroom, scared to cry for his dad, since he felt that if he started again, he would never stop. That was when he noticed the yellow balloon in the corner of the room, with a little note attached ‘Happy Birthday, my boy, I am so proud of you, love dad’.

Suddenly it struck Charlie that there was still a part of his dad alive. In the balloon was his dad’s breath – a little piece of him – something that he had made while he was happy.

So Charlie, very, very carefully drew a little face on the yellow balloon and talked to it, as if it was his dad. In the corner of his room was a little bit of his father and he was still with him. When Charlie woke in the morning the balloon was still watching over him.

The next night he could hear his mother crying in her room, and so Charlie took the balloon into her room and told her the story. That night the two of them slept in her bed watched over by the balloon filled with his dad’s breath.

Charlie tried everything he could to stop the balloon getting smaller and smaller – his dad was disappearing and leaving Charlie for good. Charlie’s grandfather heard his grandson crying and came into to the room to help. Charlie told his grandfather about the balloon and how it was losing his dad’s air.

His grandfather held Charlie and told him that it was only his dad returning home. His grandfather, and Charlie, and Charlie’s dad didn’t come from here, they came from out there – far away in space. He told him that Charlie’s dad would need his breath out in the stars and that it had to return to him. Charlie’s grandfather said that Charlie could keep the balloon with him to remember his dad, but in the end it was what a person left in your heart that counted – nothing else.


bobby stevenson 2017