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Recently I saw an ad for a movie based upon the old tale of Aladdin’s Lamp. It looks of course like a modern retelling of the story but what got me to thinking was the wishes’ part. What would I wish for now?

Think about it. What would you wish for now unlike what you would wish for as a young reader? I first read the Arabian Nights somewhere around twelve years old. Like so many books which have become ones I return to again and again, the stories change as I get older. Well, my perspective changes so I see the story from a different viewpoint. Something I enjoy. I don’t know if others do but I find it interesting to see how a story changes for me as I get older.

Which leads me back to my original question. What would you wish for now that you wouldn’t have even considered the first time you were introduced to the idea of wishes coming true? When I first read the story, my mind filled with the possibilities. What could I have if there were no limits?

Money of course since I was a poor boy. Who doesn’t wish for money when they don’t have it? That is one wish I haven’t changed. But it has though. When I was a kid, I wanted the type of cash that filled my pockets and could buy me all the things I wanted to be cool. Now? Now I want an unending payday that pays all my bills and funds a lifetime of trips for my Wifesty and I to go on. Of course, it means I never have to wake up to an alarm clock ever again.

Money will always be on my wish list. But what comes next since money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can damn near buy everything else? So, what would I wish for now that I wouldn’t wish for as a kid? For me I would turn back the time on my body. I have abused my body over the years. My work alone has been hard enough to make my nearly sixty-year-old body feel ninety.

I would love to wake up to find I had my body back when I was twenty. When I was a kid, I wanted superpowers. Invisibility was high on my list as was the ability to fly. So was super strength.

Superheroes can keep all those superpowers. I would be happy to be able to sleep the night through. See how age can change the way we would make our wishes. My wishes would have been different in each decade of my life. When I was in my thirties I would have wished to drop off and drop out. To move into the wilderness of the Appalachians and disappear. The only person I would have had contact with was my son once a year around Thanksgiving.

Of course, that wouldn’t work now. Now I love my bed and air conditioning and heat and the ability to take a short drive to get food almost anytime I want it. I am a spoiled man compared to my early upbringing. I didn’t enjoy full time air condition until I got married the first time.

Now I would wish for money and for my body to be returned to what it was at twenty. This leaves me with a third wish. Of course, the ability to wish for more wishes is off the table. The limit is three. Would I wish for the Genie to be free?

In my twenties and thirties, I would have done so without a moment’s thought. Now I am spoiled and greedy. I want that last wish for myself. See how age can change a person? I wouldn’t even offer it to my Wifesty. Or would I? As I sit here and write I realize there is not much past the first two I would wish for.

Sure, I want to publish a best seller. I want to write the great American novel. I want to take my Wifesty around the world. I want. But I don’t want it badly enough to use a wish up on. Those things I can get for myself.

Would I ask to be immortal? As I get older the more, I understand how death can be a welcome friend at the end of a long life. So no, I don’t want to live forever. It is nothing I would wish for.

No, the more I think about it as I write I would pass my wish onto my Wifesty to enjoy. If the Genie tells me I can’t do that, then he can go free. Why not do something good with a last wish. Even a selfish greedy man can change his mind and make a wish that means something to another person.

What would you wish for?

I am Ross, the Editor-in-Chief at The Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.