New Story: The Third Wish

[tekuno]

I still have two stories in the works (one is finished, one is not, and I will post them both at the same time), and I have started on a continuation of an old story by Musclegod300 (I have a poll up in the "New Story Ideas" section, if you missed it, but since I've already decided to go with the currently-winning option it's too late to cast a meaningful vote), and I have another idea. But this one came to me fully-formed and I liked it so much that I had to get it down. It's a traditional idea; if you know what the title refers to you won't be surprised.

Oh, and this contains nothing particularly objectionable. Some gay sex, but no incest or macro or anything.

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The Third Wish

My name is Gregory Matthews. I am a junior majoring in computer science at Nemor Sands University. I am five feet eight inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 153 pounds. I live on campus in a single in the South Central Men's Dormitory. My brother Phil is a graduate student in the physics department -- Phil the physics geek -- which is why I came here. My parents live downstate, and they don't know I'm gay. My favorite kind of music is techno. My favorite meal is olive and pepperoni pizza and Bolt cola, with pistachio-flavored ice cream for dessert. I have a major crush on the guy two doors down from me, Andy Pacifico.

Today I am visiting my brother at the physics department. My parents sent me a care package which had a couple of things for him in it. Usually, at this time of day he's in a cubicle in the department offices sitting in front of a computer with three screens next to a whiteboard covered with scribbles. Today, though, he's not there. When I follow the instructions the overworked department secretary gives me, I end up at a lab in the special, high-security building the college uses for dangerous and expensive materials.

As soon as Phil sees me, he goes into lecture mode. This lab contains the thing about which he is writing his dissertation. (Soon he'll be Phil the Physics PhD. He thinks that's funny. I might have thought so, too, but he's been saying it for two years now, so I can't even tell if I thought it was funny when he started any more.)

Ten years ago, by an extremely unlikely coincidence, a cosmic ray with more energy than even cosmic rays usually have passed through an exotic blend of supercooled material which the physics department here had concocted for other purposes. This created a special crystal which was discovered just as Phil was entering the graduate program. It's apparently completely unique, or at least super-incredibly rare or something. Apparently there's no way we could even construct a particle accelerator powerful enough to make a particle as energetic as that cosmic ray, so there's effectively no chance of making another crystal artificially. Phil's dissertation is based on his part of the project which is trying to exploit the properties of the crystal.

I've heard his canned explanation about a thousand times by now. It runs something like this: the equations governing the emission of particles in quantum interactions actually have multiple solutions, not just the ones describing the particles which are actually observed. Quantum physics being what it is, this means that there must be extra particles emitted. The extra solutions, however, describe particles which are released backwards in time. When this was discovered, decades ago, many physicists thought it was a flaw in the theory, or at least in the interpretation, but it was eventually discovered that the extra particles are automatically cancelled out by an immensely complex set of interactions which pop up when you work out all the mathematics. You could think of it as the entire universe ganging up to make sure time flows in only one direction.

This crystal, however, is bizarrely shaped in such a way that, under the proper electromagnetic stimulation, it can emit these backwards particles without interference. I don't pretend to understand how they know this, or how it can work. But Phil and all the other physics wonks get all excited about it, and they swear up and down that it's true. So they're trying to build a machine which will let them do this. So far, they've spent four years. Meanwhile, the crystal sits in a pool of liquid nitrogen to keep it from warming up and turning back into liquid.

Phil is explaining to me his particular contribution: a physics simulation which will permit them to tell the crystal what to do.

"So you're saying you can travel in time with this thing?"

"No, you aren't paying attention. When you use this device, YOU don't travel in time at all -- besides the usual one-second-per-second motion you're always doing, of course. What the crystal can do is make changes to the past without actually going there itself. It's like, oh, being able to change the contents of a book without actually going back to read the section you're changing."

"So what would that do?"

"We really aren't sure yet. We know it can be done, and we know how to make it happen, but we have to work out how to frame the commands properly, so to speak."

"And you're ready for this?"

"Yes, I just finished last night. My program lets the computer extrapolate backwards from the present into the past. It doesn't try to figure out the whole universe, just the absolute minimum number of parts necessary for what you talk about. So for example if you told it to move my coffee cup two inches to the right, it would just start calculating the last point in time when the coffee cup could have been made to be two inches to the right by the action of a sudden influx of particles from the future. And that might not be as simple as you would expect, since the most recent time when the cup could be moved might not be a time when beaming particles in from the future could do it. We really have no idea how far back it would have to go to make even a simple change."

"And after you tell it to issue the command?"

"We're not really certain what would happen. Logically, if the coffee cup was two inches to the right in the past, then it should be two inches to the right in the present as well. But we really don't know how it will work in practice. So the plan is to start with some small tests which won't hurt anything if they go wrong, and see how the results manifest. The magic is all on this CD."

"You guys are nuts, you know that?"

"Yeah, sure. You say that now, but in thirty years when we're all using crystal-enabled phones or whatever everyone will this was all totally obvious. That's how it always goes."

"Watch where you're going, Phil! You're going to trip over that--" CRASH "--cable! Oh, man!"

Phil is unconscious. He's always been a klutz. I run for help, and Phil is taken away in an ambulance. As his closest relative, I get to spend the rest of the day at the hospital waiting for the doctors to condescend to tell me how he's doing.

The news, when it comes, is bad. Phil has some pretty severe trauma. The doctors say he's going to be on muscle relaxers and painkillers to the point of being basically unconscious for the next two weeks. I get to tell his lab partners the news, which makes them just as happy as you might expect. It's late when I get back to the dormitory. As I walk down the hall to my room, Andy Pacifico comes out of his room and heads for the bathroom to take a shower.

Andy's body is incredible. He's a senior, he has amazing genetics, and he weighs at least 220 pounds, at an estimate. He's tall and blond and handsome, with broad shoulders and skin which is both flawless and tanned, and since he is a competing bodybuilder he has shaved off all his body hair. Everything about his torso is incredible; if given the chance, I would like to run my fingers over every inch. Or maybe my tongue. His pecs alone are enough to make him jack-off material for me, but his abs and shoulders and biceps are just as good. I've managed to get a couple of glimpses of him in the shower, just casually, and he's pretty well-hung, too. The one weak point he has is his calves, which aren't up to the standard of his upper body. But who cares?

He walks past, giving me a nod. I'm pretty sure he knows I have a crush on him -- it's not like I've been subtle. But since he's not even bi, let alone gay, and he could probably beat me into a fine paste if I made myself a nuisance, I haven't actually said anything.

Now I'm lying on my bed, jacking off to my memories of Andy's body in the hall. Dammit, I want to see more. But I can't. He's in his single, I'm in mine.

You know, if we had been put in a double together, then I would see more of Andy's body, on a constant basis. And it wouldn't require anything of Andy -- I wouldn't be any more frustrated, just extra gratified. No harm to him or his girlfriend, just some extra eye candy for me.

All it would have taken would have been some slight differences in the random lottery the school uses to determine housing. Of course, it's far too late to change that now...

But if you could reach back into the past and change things around a little...

Just a tiny, harmless change...

Now it's 2 A.M., and I have broken into the lab. It's not all that difficult; I have Phil's security cards to get me through the automatic locks, and a handy toolkit I use for coping with computer hardware, which isn't really all that different from lock hardware.

I'm at Phil's computer. I take his CD and head for the other end of the lab, where a computer sits with bright red labels and warnings all over it. Now I'm running his program. It's asking me what I want it to do.

"Make Andy Pacifico and Gregory Matthews at this school roommates for the current school year."

*****

My name is Gregory Matthews. I am a junior majoring in computer science at Nemor Sands University. I am five feet eight inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 152 pounds. I live on campus in a double in the South Central Men's Dormitory. My brother Phil is a graduate student in the physics department -- Phil the physics geek -- which is why I came here. My parents live downstate, and they don't know I'm gay. My favorite kind of music is techno. My favorite meal is olive and pepperoni pizza and Bolt cola, with pistachio-flavored ice cream for dessert. I have a major crush on my roommate, Andy Pacifico, which is slowly driving me insane because he isn't gay.

It's funny -- I woke up and I had two sets of memories. In one set, which I can't help thinking of as the "real" memories, I live in a single dorm room, and I told the computer to put me in a double with Andy, and then everything just stops. In the other set, the "new" set, I live in a double, and I've been here all along since the beginning of the year, in deeper and deeper frustration over Andy.

Andy is awesome. I do everything I can to help him out with his bodybuilding, and if anything he's bigger than in my "real" memories because I'm here to make sure he does everything right. I think I masturbate twice as often as I "used" to do. And because I've been going to the gym with Andy sometimes, I not only lost the "freshman fifteen" -- only ten in my case -- but I put on nearly as much in muscle.

But I was completely wrong about this being better than being in a single and seeing Andy sometimes. It's worse -- much worse. Andy has girls hanging off of him all the time, and flirts like crazy even though he has a girlfriend. It's unbelievably sexy, and it never fails to get me hard, but then I remember that he's never going to flirt like that with me -- even as a joke -- and it hurts. At least he used to nod to me in the halls; now he's actually avoiding me.

It's been three days now since I made that change. I don't think I can stand this any longer. So now I'm breaking into the lab again. Phil still hasn't regained consciousness -- they say it'll be at least another week before he'll be fully conscious -- so I still have his ID. I head for the computer and run the magic program.

"Make Andy Pacifico at this school homosexual."

*****

My name is Gregory Matthews. I am a junior majoring in computer science at Nemor Sands University. I am five feet eight inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 158 pounds. I live on campus in a double in the South Central Men's Dormitory. My brother Phil is a graduate student in the physics department -- Phil the physics geek -- which is why I came here. My parents live downstate, and they don't know I'm gay. My favorite kind of music is techno. My favorite meal is olive and pepperoni pizza and Bolt cola, with pistachio-flavored ice cream for dessert. I have a major crush on my roommate, Andy Pacifico, which is slowly driving me insane because he's out of my league.

When I woke up this time, I practically screamed with frustration. The "new" Andy is, if anything, even more of a major stud -- he got into bodybuilding earlier and hit the weights harder because he wanted to attract a lot of gay men, so what with his genetics he's possibly the biggest guy his age in the country -- but the "new" me, even though in vastly better shape than the "real" me, is still just a CS geek. The "new" me has been struggling away at the gym, trying to bulk up and attract Andy's attention, but he's practically never around any more to notice the changes, if he would notice them at all. When he isn't at the gym or at class or doing bodybuilding-related stuff -- and he's so damn perfect now that he's getting interviews and media attention -- he's out having sex, or kicks me out of the room so he can have sex here. And every single time it's with a guy who outweighs me by at least 20 pounds minimum -- and that's the guys who are much shorter than me. Damn.

I want to hit Andy, or maybe his many, many partners, and tell them it's not fair. I'm the one who got Andy where he is, not them! Only that's not true. Maybe the "real" me made it so Andy is this way, but according to everyone else in the entire universe, Andy has always been this way. If I said that, it would make no sense.

So now I'm breaking into the lab again. I'm going to get Andy's attention no matter what. When the prompt comes up, I enter:

"Make me the biggest bodybuilder in the world."

*****

My name is Gregory Matthews. I am a junior majoring in photography at Nemor Sands University. I am five feet ten inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 382 pounds. I live on campus in a double in the South Central Men's Dormitory. My brother Phil is a graduate student in the physics department -- Phil the physics geek -- which is why I came here. My parents live downstate, and they don't know I'm gay. My favorite kind of music is hip hop. My favorite meal is grilled chicken breast and salad with lots of cheese and Italian vinaigrette dressing. My roommate, Andy Pacifico, has a major crush on me, which is gratifying.

When I woke up this time, everything seemed perfect. Andy isn't as big as the "real" me insists he should be -- it seems that two years ago the "new" me became his lover, and since then he's kind of been slacking off on workouts. Why should he try so hard? He's got a great body, terrific prospects after graduation, and a relationship with the hottest man ever.

Seriously, the "new" me looks like a god, only bigger. I'm a freak. When I walk into a classroom, everyone turns to look at me. If I wanted to, I could go compete in Mr. Olympia and take the prize without even trying. My chest is incredibly thick, my arms are like trees -- and my legs are like nothing you've ever seen before. My voice is so deep and masculine I can actually make people cum just by talking to them. The school was embarrassed because the weights at the gym don't go high enough to challenge me; I had to join a commercial gym in the city. The "new" me has had more sex in the last week than the "real" me had for the last year. Andy spends more time touching me with one part of his body or another than he used to spend in the gym!

Which all sounds great, except that the "new" me is on about seven different illegal growth-promoting drugs, and at least ten drugs which are only not illegal because they're too new for the law to have specifically addressed them. That's the only way, now that I think of it, that a college student could be "the biggest bodybuilder in the world". When I'm mid-cycle, I could probably pull my own arm off and not feel any pain, I get so driven and focussed and oblivious. That's pretty scary.

Today I am going in to see my doctor -- as befits the greatest bodybuilder in the world, I have a private medico, who knows how to exercise some discretion. He's telling me to sit down, which means bad news. He's saying that the tests from last week have come back, and I'm in seriously dangerous condition. My blood pressure was already bad, but now I have some kind of growth on my testicles, and it looks like my liver is failing. Shit.

So now I'm back in the lab, booting up the computer. With my huge, calloused, weightlifter's hands I type in:

"Make me have perfectly good health and no drug problems."

*****

My name is William Matthews. I am a junior majoring in journalism at Nemor Sands State College. I am five feet nine inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 232 pounds. I live on campus in a double in the South Central Men's Dormitory. My brother Phil is overseas serving in the army. My parents live downstate, and they don't know I'm gay. My favorite kind of music is hip hop. My favorite meal is grilled chicken breast and salad with lots of cheese and ranch dressing. My roommate, Andy Pacifico, has a major crush on me, which is gratifying.

Well, looks like I had better luck this time. I may no longer be the biggest bodybuilder in the world, but I'm still big enough that Andy and I are fucking each other senseless on a regular basis. But the "real" me was shocked; it turns out that the Soviet Union never broke up, now, and we're having a conflict with them over Thailand. You'd think we would have learned from Vietnam -- except that nobody here learned anything about Vietnam. Kids don't learn about it because the government doesn't want people to lose hope in the current front in the war -- and there has been a "current front" for the last three decades. That's frightening, although the "real" me remembers a Poli Sci major mentioning, back before all these changes, that the U.S. has sent troops abroad every single year since World War II, so this isn't really anything new.

A few weeks pass; life is pretty good, considering everything. "Real" me is astonished at how big "new" me is, even if I'm not a giant any more, and Andy's body tastes exactly as good as I thought it would, even if it's a little smaller thanks to all the strictures on nutrition because of the war. But, hey, I'd rather be licking Andy's slightly smaller "new" pecs than not be able to lick his larger "real" ones.

But now I'm receiving a phone call, and it's Mom. She's crying; I can hardly tell what she's saying.

Phil died. He was hit in the head by "friendly fire" last night, and died.

Shit.

So now I'm breaking into the lab -- it's a lot harder without Phil's ID, but I know the building so well now that I have an edge -- and when the familiar login comes up, I type:

"Prevent my brother from having been killed."

*****

My name is Billy Matthews. I am a junior majoring in photography at Lemon Sands State College. I am five feet seven inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 182 pounds. I live in the army reserve dormitory on campus because my unit is due to be called up soon. My brother Paul is a minor scientist for the government's research laboratory here. My parents live downstate, and they don't know I'm gay. My favorite kind of music is pop. My favorite meal is steak, medium rare, although I haven't had it for years now. My lover, Andy Pacifico, is already overseas, having been called up last month.

Shit! This version of the world is just too fucked up! The "new" me insists that the Cold War started heating up ten years ago and there has been a limited exchange of nukes between pawns of the U.S. and the Soviet Union already, with millions of people dead. And there's a draft now, and half the eligible men are already called up and fighting. All the resources are sucked up by the army, and the "real" me insists that the conditions we live in are like something out of a bad propaganda film about the Soviet Union from the 1950s.

On the other hand, though, at least we're all still alive -- for now.

Shit! The air raid sirens just went off! They're fucking going to drop bombs on us! And if they're bombing HERE, that means it's the Big One -- these will be nukes!

Now I'm running into the requisitioned lab building. Now I'm dodging the lone remaining guard, and knocking him the fuck out so he won't come after me. Now I'm booting up the computer. I can hear the sonic boom of planes approaching as I enter:

"Stop this war from having happened."

*****

My name is Mark Matteus no it isn't. I live in the ruins what do I mean ruins of Lemon Sands why are they ruins. I am five feet four inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 138 pounds why the fuck am I so small two weeks ago I was the biggest man in the world what the fuck happened. I live in what used to be a college dormitory along with the other surviving refugees why are there fucking refugees here. My brother Paul is one of the scientists still working in the laboratory trying to find a cure for the plague what the hell. My parents died in the first epidemic of the plague what the hell and I never got to tell them I'm gay. I listen to any music I can hear, because it's so rare these days what kind of fucking wasteland did I drop myself into this time. My favorite meal -- I don't want to think about it because everyone is eating canned food dropped here by airlift from outside the quarantine zone what the hell is going on. Other than my brother, everyone I used to know is dead.

This world is even worse than the last one, if such a thing is possible. "New" me tells me that there was an accident about 13 years ago at one of the biological weapons labs -- the ones the U.S. isn't supposed to have by international treaty, but does anyway. And something horrible escaped, and it wiped out roughly three fifths of humanity in one go because it was designed to be difficult to stop. "New" me was malnourished as a kid, because Mom and Dad died and until I made it here I wasn't getting regular meals. If Andy is still alive, he isn't here.

Now I'm sneaking into the laboratory. It's late at night, and nobody bothers to guard the lab any more -- the refugees would probably steal from it, but nobody has the energy to break locks when they don't even know what's inside. And besides, they've made it clear there's no food in here. Thankfully, this building was build before the plague, or I might not be able to make it.

Thank goodness -- it looks like the whole crystal setup still exists here, somehow. Now I'm booting the computer. And now I'm entering one last command:

"Stop me from ever having used the crystal to change the past."

*****

My name is Gregory Matthews. I am a junior majoring in computer science at Nemor Sands University. I am five feet eight inches tall, with sandy brown hair, and I weigh 178 pounds. I live on campus in a single in the South Central Men's Dormitory. My brother Phil is a graduate student in the physics department -- Phil the physics geek -- which is why I came here. My parents live downstate, and two weeks ago I came out to them. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. My favorite kind of music is techno. My favorite meal is olive and pepperoni pizza and Bolt cola, with pistachio-flavored ice cream for dessert. Earlier this year I had a major crush on the guy two doors down from me, Andy Pacifico, but I'm getting over it.

Six weeks ago, I broke into my brother's lab in the middle of the night and deliberately blew the circuit breakers and redundant power supplies which controlled the refrigeration on the containment for the amazing unique crystal. The once-in-a-million-years opportunity to change the world was long gone by the time Phil recovered from his concussion. He is having to start his dissertation over again, which sucks for him. At least they didn't kick him out now that the project collapsed. I'm trying to help him out as much as I can, since it's my fault (even if he doesn't know that).

Today I am sitting in the lounge at the student fitness center, sucking down a protein shake. I've been moping a lot lately because Andy got engaged to some girl. I don't know what he can possibly see in her. But maybe if I bulk up, I can attract someone I'll like just as much. It beats the alternatives -- as I know a little too well.

A tall guy with red hair and freckles is walking up to me. He's blushing, which makes him extra cute.

"Um, excuse me. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I've seen you around here for the last month or so, and it's really inspiring the way you're trying to bulk up. I, um... would you like to go for coffee with me?"

He's really cute. And maybe he isn't as big as Andy. So what? We're just college kids. We have years to get big.

"You know, that sounds like exactly what I want."

[cutlerfan]

Great Story! Good thing he could hit the 'reset' button so to speak! Lots of other possible story/timelines. Gives me an idea for a story. Thanks for the inspiration. Peace!

[Rarity]

Oh me, oh my, talk about a good bedtime story.

[tekuno]

Originally Posted by cutlerfan

Great Story! Good thing he could hit the 'reset' button so to speak! Lots of other possible story/timelines. Gives me an idea for a story. Thanks for the inspiration. Peace!

And -- minus the entire crystal thing, of course -- reasonably accurate. (Sorry, but nobody is going to design a computer program which treats the real world like Scribblenauts.)

Maxwell's equations as such do predict that photons should be released into the past and the 'solution' to this potential hole in the theory was the discovery that the field produced by, yes, the entire universe cancels out the ones moving backwards.

The U.S. really does send troops all over the world with impunity on a regular basis, and has the nerve to claim it's not "war", to say nothing of spending huge sums to keep a vast number of overseas bases running. Not that this is news to anyone outside the U.S., but a surprising number of Americans don't really realize just how much of this nonsense goes on, and how much of the budget is taken up by the military. (As of 2012, 60% of the actual U.S. discretionary budget -- the thing Congress approves each year -- now goes to the military or "security" agencies. This does not count spending authorized by bills passed after the budget, which are also overwhelmingly military.) The freewheeling approach to troop dispatching is a result of the fact that Congress didn't go after Johnson for sending off troops after the -- as was later revealed, fraudulent (that link suddenly stopped working when I added the other one -- it's formatted correctly in the post source) -- second incident of the Gulf of Tonkin, basically. Ever since then, presidents have known that if they send troops without declaring war Congress will just nod and smile. (It's fun to read about U.S. history; you don't need conspiracy theories because every time they declassify documents it turns out that things are weirder and nastier than any conspiracy theorist could make up. It really makes you wonder what they're still hiding.)

The U.S. also really does have biological (and chemical) weapons which, by treaty, it is not supposed to have. Conspiracy theorists have even claimed that Lyme Disease is actually an escaped weapon from the disturbingly poorly-run Plum Island facility, which the government lied about not using for biological weapons testing. (Really! The Russians were permitted to come out and inspect because of it. Conspiracy theorists couldn't make this shit up.) A good number of the aforementioned non-"wars" have also been in violation of treaties, including our explicit war in Iraq, which violates the treaty set up so that if another Hitler ever arose and started invading he could be prosecuted under the laws of his own country. I will draw no explicit conclusion.

Now then, who was it who said this was a good bedtime story?

[tekuno]

Originally Posted by cutlerfan

Great Story! Good thing he could hit the 'reset' button so to speak! Lots of other possible story/timelines. Gives me an idea for a story. Thanks for the inspiration. Peace!

Oh, I should mention: the "reset" part was the whole point of the story.

I just did a check with Google, and discovered that someone actually made a movie with the same title, and a similar concept. I didn't take the idea from the movie, I took it from Terry Pratchett's book (and the rest of this message is a vast spoiler, so don't read it if you want to read the book someday) A Hat Full of Sky, which slightly predates the novel on which the movie you get from IMDB or Google is based. Specifically:

"Quick, Annagramma! What's the third wish!"

Annagramma's face screwed up into the affronted frown she wore when something had the nerve not to be understandable. "But why do--?"

"Don't think about it, please! Just answer!"

"Well, er... it could be anything... being invisible or... or blond, or anything--" Annagramma burbled, her mind coming apart at the seams.

Tiffany shook her head and let her go. She ran to an old witch who was staring at the commotion.

"Please, mistress, this is important! In stories, what's the third wish? Don't ask me why, please! Just remember!"

"Er... happiness. It's happiness, isn't it?" said the old lady. "Yes, definitely. Health, wealth, and happiness. Now if I was you, I'd--"

"Happiness? Happiness... thank you," said Tiffany, and looked around desperately for someone else. It wasn't happiness, she knew that in her boots. You couldn't get happiness by magic, and that was another clue right there.

There was Miss Tick, hurrying between the tents. There was no time for half measures. Tiffany pulled her around and shouted: "HelloMissTickYesI'mFineIHopeYouAreWellTooWhatIsTh eThirdWishQuicklyThisIsImportantPleaseDon'tArgueOr AskQuestionThereIsn'tTime!"

Miss Tick, to her credit, hesitated only for a moment or two. "To have a hundred more wishes, isn't it?" she said.

Tiffany stared at her and then said, "Thank you. It isn't, but that's a clue, too."

"Tiffany, there's a--" Miss Tick began.

But Tiffany had seen Granny Weatherwax.

She was standing in the middle of the field, in a big square that had been roped off for some reason. No one seemed to notice her. She was watching the frantic witches around the hiver, where there was an occasional flash and sparkle of magic. She had a calm, faraway look.

Tiffany brushed Miss Tick's arm away, ducked under the rope, and ran up to her.

"Granny!"

The blue eyes turned to her.

"Yes?"

"In stories, where the genie or the magic frog or the fairy godmother gives you three wishes... what's the third wish?"

"Ah, stories," said Granny. "That's easy. In any story worth the tellin', that knows about the way of the world, the third wish is the one that undoes the harm the first two wishes caused."

[randmperson2]

Great story! And judging by the past few comments, you really did your homework. I only wished that Gregory didn't retain his memories from the past change, but that's just my preference (and I guess it would have made it hard to continue to change things, huh?). But like I said, I really enjoyed it.

[arpeejay]

Excellent! Many thanks!

xoxo

Richard

[Tundy]

this was a fun and interesting story

[chocomus]

damn.... I liked this story a lot!!!!!
wishing stuff g wrong always interested me, but better that he could fix it in the end. I liked the moral of the story too. Great job!

[MonsterMash62]

Great story. Great writing! It was smart and hot. Nice!

[rododoro3]

I was meaning to ask if you got your inspiration from the third wish.
Good job, I loved the story.