Anything You Want

I can do it.  Just ask.  Anything you want.

That was the flyer posted on our campus and the small town that surrounded it. I had no idea what it meant, but I was curious enough to get in line to find out.

"What do you think it's about?" I asked the woman in front of me.

"He's probably a magician," she replied, but sounding very unsure.

"You're wrong," said the man behind me.  "I think it's God.  Who else can answer your prayers?"

A woman behind him scoffed.  "Well, you're both wrong on one thing.  It's not a him.  It's a her.  I was here early, across the street at the coffee shop.  And I definitely saw a woman go into the building before anyone else had come."  The building was a closed storefront, which used to be a sports card and memorabilia store.

"Why aren't you in front of the line, then, if you were here that early?" derided the man behind me.

"I went home.  But as I sat in front of the TV, the Foxy Friends bleating nonsense, I thought about it, and couldn't let it go.  So I came back out here and got in line."

The glass front door opened up.  There were maybe two dozen people ahead of me, but finally, the first one went inside, a nondescript bald guy, no one I could ever remember seeing before. He came out a minute later.  He was no longer bald.  He had a full head of hair, even a flowing ponytail tied with a bright yellow bow.

"Hey, look!  That guy's not bald anymore!" I said.

"Yeah, you're right," said the woman in front of me.  "Maybe it's wig."

"Like a parlor trick?" I asked.  "Maybe it's the Wizard of Oz, giving us the illusion of what we want."

"Well, let's see what the next person comes out with," said the woman behind me.

A fat, nervous-looking man went in, and when he came out, he had the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, holding onto his arm, looking at him as if he was the sexiest, most desirable man on Earth.

A woman in a wheelchair went in, and came out walking.

"So if it is the Wizard of Oz,  he's a pretty damn clever one," considered the woman in front of me.

"He truly is the lamb of God amongst us, causing the lame to walk!" raptured the man behind me.

"Or this could be one lame-ass prank," I said.

"It's not a Wizard.  It's a woman, I tell ya," exclaimed the woman behind me.  "So, she couldn't be a Wizard.  A witch, maybe, but not a Wizard."

The next person that went in, emerged the same.  At least as far as we could tell.

No!  Look!"  The woman ahead of me turned her cell phone to a CNN broadcast.  They were announcing that all conflicts around the world had ceased.  The world was at peace.

Then the next person went in and came out in a Nazi uniform.  In fact, there was a whole parade of Nazis and Klansman coming down the street.

The next person wiped that all away.  I guess.  Because the parade was gone, and there was a poster on the wall celebrating our African American mayor, who looked exactly like the person who was walking out of the storefront.

The others around me seemed to be unaware of these dramatic changes.  "Did any of you see the Nazis that were here a few minutes ago?"

They all shook their heads and looked at me like I was crazy.  I pointed to the poster.  "Isn't our mayor a white guy named Sherman, and not a black guy named Jackson?"

"What are you talking about?" the woman ahead of me said.  Andy Jackson's been our mayor going on three years now!"

The man ahead of the woman ahead of me asked us all, "If it's for real, and you can get anything you want, what are you gonna ask for?"

"I'm gonna ask for Ralph," the woman ahead of me answered.

"Who's Ralph?" I asked.

"My dead husband. What about you?"

"I don't know.  I'd have to think about it," I answered.  I really hadn't thought it through.  I was more curious than anything else.

"I know what I would do," intoned the man behind me.  "I would begin the rapture and end times, and Jesus would come and judge the righteous and the wicked, sending the evil ones into the fiery pits of hell."

The woman behind him, would she change that, or would she be in the fiery pits?  "I just wanna know who she is, where she came from, and why she's doing this."

Yeah.  If she was still there to ask it.  What should I do?  Talk the man behind me of his insane wish?  Use my wish to make him disappear?  And by the time the line ended, who knew where this would end up?

The next person who came out received oohs and ahhs from everyone around me.  "It's Dylan James, the King of Rock!"

As my turn got closer, I saw the woman in front of me go in, and come out clutching her precious Ralph.

Then I entered.  It was a robed figure, man or woman I couldn't tell.  In a weak, croaking voice, the robed one spoke.  "Anything you want."

Visions of my first love passed through my mind.  Vast riches were within my grasp.  I could become the most famous novelist in the world, instead of someone who couldn't sell a grocery list to a supermarket chain.

Ultimately, I realized what I had to do.

"Anything I want?"

Yessss," the robed entity hissed.  "Anything you want."

"I want you to go away, as if you never came."

"You want it, you got it."  And then vanished.

I walked out of the storefront, and there was no one there.  The poster was once again of Mayor Sherman.

Maybe I had done it wrong.  I thought of the poor woman ahead of me, reunited with her dead husband.  The person that had been cured.  Was I right to take it all away?

Anything you want.  Maybe that's not always a good thing.