Changes are shifting outside the word

Medusa / Annie Lenox




The last file saved to the machine I am writing on is named: “A Wish Called Arnold.” Curious, I clicked the file. A short story opened, the first line:

Marguerite kept a wish in a brass egg and its name was Arnold.

Arnold? Arnold is the name of Charlotte’s pig. My wishes wouldn’t have names. And they wouldn’t be four legged animals. No pigs, horses or cows for beggers to ride. My wishes would be jellyfish, if they took form.

They would have color, like wisps of smoke, purples and mauves, silver and jade. I’d keep them in a yellow and orange ginger jar.


Late in the night, I would let them out, so we could dance. Dressed in cotton candy and spider webs, we could twirl in the moonlight. The ocean would sing, A Whiter Shade of Pale, while the fireflies would do synchronized dancing, a garden of light in the sky.

Dark wishes would dance slow and sinewy, staying low to slide along the hardwood. They would smell of cinnamon and cardamom. Fanciful wishes will float above my head like balloons on parade. They would smell of buttered popcorn. When the wish came true, it would flame like flash paper becoming part of the ether.

When all my wishes came true, my ginger jar will turn into a cat to purr on my lap and play in garden.