Chapter 4: Wishing Well

I had a lot to consider, wish wise and otherwise. I'd thought carefully over years of reading about what I would do with wishes. Some were banal, such as wishing for riches, invincibility, and such. The typical kinds that most people would throw out without thinking. I suppose that included me, to some extent.

I had our eyes done. I thought about things that I have enjoyed doing and how I could use wishes to make them better. We both had some health issues, so I decided that my next wish would be to give us 'perfect' health, which included taking care of allergies, damaged structures of the body repaired and strengthened, our genetics cleaned up to prevent any diseases from that direction. This was my second wish.

The next few weeks went by pretty normally, other than having Nekita in our lives. The wishes covered a spectrum involving health, safety, and some things that might be considered a bit silly. Highlights of which follow: ability to breath underwater, proof against insect attacks/bites of any kind, a modification to our sight abilities that allowed us to turn night and infrared on and off with a thought, restoration and immunity from gingivitis for our teeth and gums, the ability to understand, recall, and teach every subject we ever took in school, college, and in the military, and many more. The most unusual was the wish to be able to climb on any surface like a gecko. I have to tell you, that was the coolest thing ever. I did have to spend a wish to take care of vertigo to go with it. Climbing a fifty story building and looking down can be a bit scary when you get hit with vertigo. Meri and I discussed this before she agreed to accepting the ability to climb; she did not hesitate to accept the anti-vertigo wish to go with it after what I experienced.

We tested the effects of all of these. Going diving reminded me that the Bends could be deadly, and thus I expended a wish to prevent this and decompression, each. I had no reason to believe I would ever be in a situation where decompression would be a danger to us, but I decided to play it safe.

The three of us went out fairly often. Our outings were always fun excursions and learning experiences. We always went somewhere that we could test out yet another wish's effectiveness and to think of others we could use. The week we went to Yellowstone, we climbed El Capitan, sans any gear. Our fellow climbers thought we were nuts. They were utterly shocked when they saw how fast and easily we climbed. We decided that we'd avoid such shows of our abilities in the future. In reality, all that meant was that we climbed at night. That lead to my wish for us to be able to blend into our surroundings when desired.

Remember what I said about shooting and our new sight? Well, once I got used to it, I could shoot with a modified iron sight on my Winchester .300 and hit targets out to the limit of the gun. It made me want to go test out a Model 82A Barrett. I found a place where I could test fire one that had a range out to a full mile. It seems they had plenty of snipers and wannabes that wanted to try their hands. It cost me $500 for the experience. The cost was for the ammo; it's not inexpensive. Dialing in was fast and easy. The scope did present some problems that I managed to overcome. When you can see as well as Mari and I can, scopes actually hinder you. Shooting on that range with the M82A was a gas. I wanted one, and considered expending a wish for it. What I ended up wishing for that day was the ability to know exactly how to adjust my aim, with any weapon in real time so that wind, movement of the target, distance, and other factors were automatically calculated in my head and my hands adjusted appropriately to ensure I got the hit every time. The range master was blown away with my groupings and hits at long ranges. As I said before, it was a gas!

I later tested the ability to adjust for all factors with bow, crossbow, and even a pellet gun. I always hit the target within a three inch area of where I intended, with shot groups of no more than a quarter of an inch. That's really amazing when using any kind of bow. It also works with thrown weapons, too.

I started researching things like rocket stoves, gasification, metallurgy, the chemistry of explosives from simple black powder and Nitrogen Triiodide, and much more to Mercury Fulminate, Nitroglycerin, Dynamite, TNT, RDX and C-4. I knew that C-4 could be used to weld steel, and that would be handy in some interesting ways. Wishes were expended to gain the knowledge for RDX and to ensure safety anytime I was working with explosive substances. Yes, I can be a bit paranoid when it comes to safety. You work with aviation ordnance in the military for a full enlistment and tell me it doesn't make you a bit cautious. If not, then best you stay clear of me when I work. Thank you very much.

I took courses on welding, carpentry, pottery, and survival craft. I built a small forge and learned to smelt copper, tin, and iron from ore I dug up, with the help of my ladies. I learned to recognize different types of silicate sands, to make heat resistant ceramics, firebricks, and glass. This went on for over a year. Many more wishes were expended over that time. Among them the ability to dowse for water, crude oil, and any mineral in sufficient quantities to be worth excavating. Another was to protect me when working with hot materials. The things I learned and could make now were many, but my artistry was still lacking, to put it kindly. For me, if it worked that was good enough.

I became a sponge for knowledge. To pay for the classes and workshops I used a good number of wishes to allow me to make bets on big games in sports and the big horse races. I only did enough to pay for the things I needed, not enough to get rich. I did not need attention from unwanted quarters. I slowly became a modern renaissance man.

I don't know what it was that drove me, but driven I was. I constantly felt that I would come to need and rely on these skills, and more. I went so far as to learn how the mechanical tools used by the Amish worked. I learned how their hay bailers, reapers, saw mills and more worked. I would be able, if I had the materials, to recreate any of it by the time I was done. Thankfully, I had always been mechanically inclined.

More and more my wishes went to helping others. I'd go to nursing homes and make the overall environment better for everyone. At children's hospitals I'd give those in the cancer wards a boost to their systems to give them a real fighting chance to get through it, if they had the fight in them to do so. It made me feel good to do that for them. I knew I couldn't save them all; that distressed me. But, when I thought about it, it made my heart happy to know that I did ensure some would survive and live long healthy lives; ones who were expected to die. You have to have pain to experience and savor joy.

That all lead to another wish for myself, Mari stopped being interested in the wishes past a certain point. I wished for the ability to create illusions that affected people and cameras of any kind. I did not want my face associated with all these sudden cases of children getting better. It was enough to know the good I did. Besides, the parents of those who did not make it would not forgive me for not saving their children. I really did not want to deal with that.