Three wishes
A true story
Today, I will tell you the story of the three wishes that came true. There were more than three, but in fairy tales, this number holds significant importance, so we’ll stick with it.
The story’s hero encountered a fate similar to the couple’s in the horror story “The Monkey’s Paw” by the Victorian writer W.W. Jacobs. There, an old couple receives a visit from an acquaintance who spent a long time in India and brought back a monkey’s paw that supposedly grants three wishes. However, the visitor warns his hosts that it only brings bad luck if the gods hear your wishes and they come true. The two won’t listen; they grab the paw and wish for two hundred pounds (a lot of money at the time).
The paw writhes as they make the wish, but nothing else happens. The visitor says goodbye, the night passes, and the following day, the boss of their only son, who works in a factory, comes to them with a rather sheepish face, engages in evasive talk, and finally admits that an accident has happened to their son. A machine had caught him, yes, and he is dead. But the company is not going to be stingy. It will cover the funeral costs and provide compensation. How much? Two hundred pounds.
You can imagine that fulfilling the rest of the wishes had similarly terrible consequences. And that is what happened to the hero of our fairy tale. He realized his secret wishes could come true by an insignificant accident. He was sitting in the office after lunch and, as usual, wanted something sweet. But nothing was left in the cupboard, nothing in his bag, and even the secret drawers in his desk were empty. He sat there for about five minutes, completely despairing, wondering what to do. Then one of the secretaries approached him from across the hall, a woman he hardly knew, and gave him a box of chocolate biscuits.
Well, that was harmless. The wish itself was simple and straightforward; it emerged from a fully conscious mind. Much worse are the unconscious desires that lie dormant deep in our souls and knock mightily at the gates of consciousness. We don’t let them in because we are afraid of them. They remain locked up forever. One day, they explode into reality, and the consequences are disastrous.
This is a tale with a moral. So that you can see what happens when the gods answer your prayers, I will describe the consequences in advance and then explain the wishes. With the first wish, his company fired him. With the second wish, his wife ran away. With the third wish, the courts took away his children. With the fourth wish, a car hit him, and with the fifth … let’s take things one at a time.
Our hero was commissioned to write a book about one of his hobbies, astrology. He set about it with enthusiasm. But he could only write in the evening, when he was tired, and he also wanted to devote time to his family. “If only I had more time!” was his deeply hidden wish. The gods heard him and ensured he had more time — much more.
Shortly after he began working on the book, he was assigned a new boss, a spiteful individual whose intelligence was inversely proportional to his desire for power. In plain English, He couldn’t do anything but wanted everything. Our hero despised him and made his feelings known. But that hurt little jughead. He went to his boss, and because he was a capricious domestic tyrant and there were enough computer experts who liked to write, the boss decided: This man had to go. So, they fabricated a few false reasons and gave him notice to leave the company.
Our hero was overjoyed. His great wish had been fulfilled; he had unlimited time. It took him almost a year to find a new job, but he managed to live quite well, complete his book, and still have enough time for his family.
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During this time, his wife had just discovered that her soul was withering away, and to address this, she threw herself into various activities. She was often away during the day, so she hired a babysitter for the two girls. The young girl, let’s call her Hertha, had a son the same age as the girls, which was quite pleasant for both sides.
Our hero felt a little neglected by the marital situation. Deep down, he knew that his marriage had gone down the drain because since his wife had stumbled into the arms of a cult, it was no longer possible to talk to her sensibly. The need for manipulation and power, which had been latent before, now broke through completely, and not a day went by without him having to listen to good advice about what he should do to save his soul. But our hero did not feel that he had to save his soul.
Hertha was utterly different. She was reserved, friendly, and refreshingly youthful. The astrological planets of love were in a favorable position between the two, and so our hero yearned deeply in his heart for something he dared not think. After all, you can’t just run away from your family.
The gods were merciful once again. Jupiter sent his gentle rays to Earth, which relaxed situations and made things possible that seemed impossible. His wife (probably for therapeutic reasons) went to bed with another cult follower to work through childhood traumas, and the marriage developed a crack that widened into a large gap until the vessel burst. I will spare you the details. Our hero, through no fault of his own, moved in with Hertha and was happy with her. At least, that was what he thought, and at first, everything looked pretty good. But that is another story.
He took the children with him, so the five of them began a challenging experiment — integrating very different and rather stubborn individuals. The experiment could have worked, but his former wife worked in the background. She continued to manipulate vigorously. She could no longer get close to him, and the older daughter had also separated from her. But the younger daughter remained under her control. She was the youngest of the family and had neither wanted nor gotten over the separation from her biological mother.
When his ex-wife met a well-off country doctor, she wanted the children back because they were one of her possessions. She had lost a piece of her collection — her husband — and the loss hurt her, but the children should return to where they belong.
Everyone waited anxiously for the court’s decision, and our hero and Hertha were confident that they would be given the children, as they had been a family for three years. But the verdict was completely different, and to this day, no one can understand why the court ripped the children out of this relationship and gave them to their biological mother, even though the judge expressly noted the good and loving care provided by Hertha in the verdict.
It was a bad day, especially since the older daughter was already enrolled in school. No one could explain the mishap, but our hero knew deep down that it was probably his fault. In his soul, he wished that the situation would ease, and promptly, his wish was granted in the only possible way.
In fairy tales, everything ends with the third wish. Not so in real life. Another great want of our hero came true strangely and dangerously. He had been tasked with writing twelve books — one for each sign of the zodiac — and translating another. He never had enough free time to do that.
Jupiter shone in the sky again and came to his aid. On his bike ride to work, he was hit by a car, and our hero was signed off sick for five weeks. Since his head and hands were undamaged, he had enough time to sit in libraries or in front of his computer and finish his books. However, he was left with one injury: a lumbar vertebra was compressed.
Since then, our hero has been afraid. A seer had prophesied to him that his deepest wish would come true next year. He would become famous, with terrible consequences.
When his first wish came true, he lost his job. When his second wish came true, he lost his wife. When his third wish came true, he lost his children. When his fourth wish came true, he lost his health. And when his next wish comes true, he will lose his soul. Can you imagine how that feels?
But our hero has learned something in the meantime. Perhaps he no longer relies on the planet Jupiter but on himself — on his self. Maybe he realizes he cannot pass on the responsibility for fulfilling his wishes but must take it himself. Perhaps he can still be saved after all.
