Jen, the owner of her own store, looks over her still empty store. Her pony tail sways as her head tilts back and forth, chin resting on her palm. Outside the front door, a blond bombshell is talking to everyone she can and pointing into the store. And therein lay the problem. There is no one in the store. Knickknacks and doohickeys galore, but no human bodies. “It's really hard to make a sale when no one comes to the grand opening,” she mumbles to herself.
A light weight stirs on her shoulder. Then the right side of Jen's jaw gets pressed upward by a force akin to a body builder doing a rep on the barbells. The tiny fist continues pushing up until the small arm is at full length and Jen's head is near horizontal. A small yawn escapes the figure on her shoulder. “Have a nice nap,” Jen asks.
“Yeah, this new body is really exhausting.” The fairy shifts to a sitting position, her wings tickling Jen's shoulder as they get stretched.
“New bodies will do that to you,” Jen agrees remembering her first day as a genie after being a human for so long. “It took me a while before I could grant my first wish.”
The two sit there watching the animated figure outside the front door for a moment. “Did Jim's arm just stretch?”
“I think so. He must still be in the cartoon field.”
After a few more minutes of nothing, Meg flutters off Jen's shoulder and in front of her, “Would you tell me another story?”
Jen wags her finger, “Nice try but only one story per day.”
Meg pleads, “Please. Humor an old lady.”
“You are neither old nor – Well, I guess you're a lady. Still, the rule is one story a day.”
The bell over the door rings. Meg slides to one side and Jen sees the next customer enter the store. This one is a tall lanky man with a button up shirt and glasses. The pocket protector would complete the image of a nerd.
So amazed at seeing a customer, Jen forgets what's next. Her mind catches up as she bounds forward hand extended, “Welcome to the Wishing Well! I'm Jen. What can I do for you today?”
The customer scratches his head as if trying find the words. “I'm. I'm." His brain skips saying his name to jump to why he's here. Pointing out the front window, he continues, "The guy, girl,” He looks to Jen for the correct pronoun.
“Jim,” she fills in.
“Jim outside,” he continues, “said that you could. Could.” His eyes drift to Jen's right as he keeps repeating the word, 'could.'
Jen prompts, “Could?”
He changes tracks, “Is she real? Or a marionette?” He looks up toward the ceiling, looking for strings.
“Meg? Meg is real. Show him, Meg.” The fairy flies over to a the man, stopping about six inches from him.
He waves his hand above her head to check for invisible wires. Confirmed, he moves onto the next question. “Can I touch her?”
“Why don't you ask her yourself,” Jen says.
His eyes drop to the fairy,surprised, “May I touch you?”
“What do you expect to find? Pervert,” she fires back with mischief in her eyes.
His eyes go wide, “No, no, not that. This is hard to wrap my mind around. There has to be gears or parts or some scientific explanation to all this.”
Meg eyes him with suspicion and offers her arm. He reaches forward and pokes her arm. She flexes her bicep moving his finger away a little. “Amazing. It works like a real muscle and I didn't feel anything mechanical underneath.”
“That's because I'm real.”
“No doubt about that now.” He blinks a few times as his gaze lifts back to Jen's face. “Where was I?”
With a smile, Jen reminds him, “You are in the Wishing Well, and you were saying something about Jim out front.”
“Oh, right. Jim was saying you could grant wishes. Is that true?”
The bell chimes again. The bombshell shuffles in as both look back. Jen sizes Jim up, "Tired?" The blond head bobs up and down. "Why don't you take a break then."
The owner flips her pony tail. No changes are noticeable at first other than the female-shaped body relaxes a little at a time. A little while later, the ankles and then legs take on a plastic-like sheen as whatever is happening climbs up the body. Jim's tired grin stretches into a full fledged, light up the room smile as his body stops responding to what he tells it to do. When the plastification reaches his waist the dress he's wearing adjusts and sits properly. In fact, the whole dress seems to fit better as he turns more and more into a mannequin. His arms lift to hold an imaginary sign in front of his torso. At last the sheen begins to cover his face. His eyes dart over in a glance of gratitude then return straight ahead as the process completes.
Meg's tiny voice breaks the moment, "You think we should let him have his own hair back?"
"Yeah, I think the blond wig was a little much," Jen agrees. The little fairy zips over, snatches up the artificial hair, and darts to the back of the store. Brown flowing locks cascade to his shoulders.
For a moment, the partners muse over this while forgetting they have a customer, "Must still be an effect of the cartoon field," says one.
"Yeah," agrees the other.
They turn back to a wide eyed man, "What? What did you do to her? Him?"
"Jim? I turned him into a mannequin," Jen says with a dismissive gesture, "He likes being a statue or statue-like things."
"Can? May I touch him?"
"Sure." Meg flies over and lands on the mannequin's shoulder. "He's not going to feel it."
The man creeps over as if the slightest vibration will wake Jim and pokes the cheek. Then he flicks. A hollow sound echos back to him. "He's really an inanimate object," the customer mulls over this new piece of information, "This is really magic that you are doing here. But magic doesn't exist."
"I thought the same thing until I was trapped in a bottle granting wishes."
"And I was an old woman until this morning," Meg joins in from Jim's shoulder.
The customer draws his hand back and looks at the store and owner again, "Then it is true. You can grant wishes."
"Yes. Yes, I can. And what can I do for you today ..." Jen leaves it hanging hoping that the customer will fill in the blank.
"George," he finishes.
"So, what would you like, George," she repeats.
His eyes look to his shoes and examine them, "Well, you see, I've. I've started to dream about." He musters up his courage, "about traveling to the future." He glances at their faces before looking down again. "I know I wouldn't be able to live there, but." George pauses. "but with the bad divorce I just went through, I wanted." He pushes back at the hurt to remember. "I wanted to take a trip to the future with my wife -- ex-wife, and maybe see in advance some of the obstacles we would have encountered and face them together," his voice breaks and he whispers, "instead of having them tear us apart. Now, I just want to see if things will get better."
Jen tilts her head to one side and then the other, "Time Travel. Time travel, I can do. But ..."
He looks up and asks, "But?"
"But just a blanket 'travel wherever you want in time' is a little dangerous. You could forget when your real now is. You need a hop. A jump forward and then back to present."
"Yeah."
"And we can't have you go back in time. Then you'd start changing the past whether you wanted to or not and that would create alternate realities. And we don't want that."
"Yeah."
"And we don't want you to fall in love and want to revisit the same future over and over, so that you miss the present."
"But I said that I wouldn't."
"You haven't seen a really good future, yet."
"Okay."
"So, let's put this final restriction on it. You must take someone else to the future and back." George begins to interrupt, but she charges on, "That way you can see if you and that person are together in the future." His objection dies. "And if the two of you DO get together, you can see the future of you guys as a couple. Sound good?"
"Yes."
"Great!" Jen snaps her fingers. "There you go."
"Did it work? I didn't feel anything happen to me."
"Absolutely. Try it out."
"Concentrate and pick a time in the future."
George closes his eyes and clenches his fists and nothing happens. After a moment, he opens his eyes. "I don't think it worked."
Meg interjects, "That's because you have to take someone to the future. You can't go alone, remember?"
Both Jen and George say, "Oh yeah."
Meg just shakes her head.
"So, for my trial run, should I take one of you?"
Meg points to Jen, "I'm fine not knowing." Then she gets a sparkle in her eye, "Take Jen here and I'll watch the store."
The owner looks startled and then fires an "I'll get you later." look. George watches the back and forth, and then asks, "Are you okay with this?"
"Yes, it's fine."
George offers his hand and Jen takes it. He closes his eyes and then to Meg, they disappear.
To Jen and George, they are at the same place, sorta. The biggest difference is that there are two Jens, one holding George's hand and another bustling around the store helping several customers. Past Jen watches Future Jen hustle around giving the customers what they want and then watching them leave happy. On the counter next to the register, there is a genie bottle with a necklace that Past Jen recognizes as a lamp like the one she was trapped in with a fixed amount of wishes to grant before being released. She recoils at the thought of doing that to someone else. "Why would I torture someone else the way I was burdened?"
Future Meg buzzes by almost hitting them. It's as if she can't see the travelers from the past. In fact, no one seems to be able to see them. Past Jen watches where her friend goes. She flutters around some mannequins at the front windows and then lands on one of their shoulders. From her perch, she watches the store.
Past Jen sees the door open and the door bell swing, but no sound is made. It's then that she realizes that she hasn't heard a sound this entire time. Entering through the door is a rich woman as far as Past Jen can tell. Her wealth is draped all over her body. Future Jen bounds to her and clasps hands. Then they hug and kiss at each other's cheeks. After the greeting, the rich one gestures behind herself. The door opens again and a man enters. Something is wrong with him. Past Jen isn't sure how she knows that. Future Jen zips around the rich woman to wrap up the man in a bear hug. After releasing him and some silent pleasantries, he takes off his suit jacket and vest and lifts his shirt. Future Jen looks to the fairy who darts to her side. Then she pokes the exposed belly button. The man's torso pops out and lifts up revealing mechanical parts. Meg summons some tools and darts in.
Past Jen turns to George, "No sound?"
He shrugs, "I guess not."
"I guess I'll have to fix that." Jen snaps and their ears are filled with sound.
The door bell chimes. Future Jen looks up as does Past Jen. Coming in through the door is a suspicious character. Future Jen heads over to him with a bounce in her step. "Welcome to the Wishing Well. What can I do for you today?"
"Well, it's not so much as what can you do for me, but rather, what can the two of us do to help clean up this city." He pauses here and both Jens wait for him to continue. This is certainly an odd request so far. Past Jen thinks back and she's not sure she has heard anyone begin like this. Something's not right.
He continues, "I have a bit of a selfish wish that could also deal with crime. I wish for the nearest gang to be turned into sexy, buxom, loving, submissive, good-hearted harem girls that love me as their master."
Future Jen grabs her chin as she thinks about it. Past Jen is outraged, "What? That is the most selfish, mean wish that I've --" she cuts herself off, "No, I've heard worse wishes than that. But I wouldn't give him that wish, too selfish."
"Really? My wish was pretty selfish and you gave it to me."
Past Jen stutters and stumbles, "Well, you are different. You aren't like my other masters."
"But if you are giving out free wishes, shouldn't you give them out to everybody regardless of how selfish they are?"
Images and words fill Past Jen's mind including all the lessons she has been learning from her small group with Martha. "You're right."
The door bell chimes and George and Past Jen look up to see the back of the suspicious man walking away. "I wonder what I did for him." She doesn't have long to wonder because someone strong-arms the door causing it to fling open and bump one of the mannequins. Looking back, Past Jen sees someone she hoped she would never see again. Behind him is two police officers. "No. No. Take me back."
The three enter the store. The man demands, "Jennifer, you are under arrest."
George looks at the scene, "What? Why? Now?"
"Yes. Now."
"Okay." And the scene disappears as they return to the mostly empty store in the present.
Meg rushes over to the shaking Jen and gives her the biggest hug around the neck she can give. "What's wrong," Don't say dear. Don't say dear. "Friend?"
"'He' was there."
"He? Oh..."
George looks around at the two of them, "Who was that guy?"
"My Ex."
"I'm so sorry." Meg alights on Jen's shoulder.
"I take it, it was a bad divorce?"
"It was a bad bunch of things," Jen wipes a tear from her eye and tries to put on a smiling face, "but that's not important now." She turns and looks into George's face, "Do you like your wish?"
"Yes, it's exactly what I want."
"I agree. It's a very useful power. Would you consider using it more than for yourself?"
"For you? Of course."
And they exchange contact information. After George leaves, Jen slumps against the counter. "That really wiped me out. I just want to go home and relax."
"That bad, huh?"
"Yes. No. Well, there were strange things there. Things I never thought I'd do, people I've never met, and those were cool. But Richard -- you should have seen his face, Margaret," she says forgetting her friend is a fairy, "It was scarier than I have ever seen it before, even when he trapped me in that bottle. And he had a paper in his hand and police officers behind him..." Jen shivers as she relives the memory.
"It'll be okay."
"Will it?"
"You should know better than me. You endured all those bad wishes and turned out into the wonderful, generous woman that you are. So, chin up and let's finish this day."
"Okay," Jen says but her heart's not in it.
The hours pass slowly. No one enters the store. It's not surprising since it is the first day. Jen sets the alarm and locks up. With a snap of her fingers she protects the place with magic. Turning, she spots two cars in the lot. "Shoot. You drove here, too."