Corrupt a wish

[deer of the dawn]

*sound of sleigh bells* HO HO HO!!! MEEERRRY CHRISSSMOSSSSS!!! It is Christmas endlessly, day after day, and it never gets old. People are surviving on Christmas cookies and candy canes. Young and old become toothless, jolly, obese diabetics swilling their egg nog laced with peppermint schnapps to numb the sore gums and cover the rotten breath. The grocery store shelves bear only fruitcake, cranberry everything, and even the water is pumpkin spice-tainted. It never gets old because no one ever gets any older, reenacting day after day the birth of the Savior who never grows up to die his atoning death and be resurrected--always Christmas and never Easter. The snow obliterates every crop, wildlife die out, even the reindeer are eating fruitcake. Santa passes out from exhaustion and crashes his sleigh into Big Ben. No more presents, and no one has socks because they are all hung up by the chimney, full of hope but nothing else. The pine needles have long since dropped into a fire-hazardous mess. Ho ho ho, merry christmassss.......

I wish for a fairytale cottage.

[aTOMiC]

*sound of sleigh bells* HO HO HO!!! MEEERRRY CHRISSSMOSSSSS!!! It is Christmas endlessly, day after day, and it never gets old. People are surviving on Christmas cookies and candy canes. Young and old become toothless, jolly, obese diabetics swilling their egg nog laced with peppermint schnapps to numb the sore gums and cover the rotten breath. The grocery store shelves bear only fruitcake, cranberry everything, and even the water is pumpkin spice-tainted. It never gets old because no one ever gets any older, reenacting day after day the birth of the Savior who never grows up to die his atoning death and be resurrected--always Christmas and never Easter. The snow obliterates every crop, wildlife die out, even the reindeer are eating fruitcake. Santa passes out from exhaustion and crashes his sleigh into Big Ben. No more presents, and no one has socks because they are all hung up by the chimney, full of hope but nothing else. The pine needles have long since dropped into a fire-hazardous mess. Ho ho ho, merry christmassss.......

I wish for a fairytale cottage.

So Bwamo! You have a fairytale cottage. Unfortunately its made of cottage cheese and has been standing out in the sun for far too long. The stench is overpowering. All your fairytale guests escape in all directions, covered in rotting, stinky, dripping, spoiling cottage cheese. Then the stank simply becomes too much to bear and the vomiting begins in earnest. Endless vomiting of the sort that entertains adolescent boys who enjoy gross things the very best.


I wish I had purchased thousands of dollars of stock in Microsoft back in 1985 and sold it all in 2005.

[deer of the dawn]

ZZZZZZZZOOOTTTTT!!!!!!!!! You did so and are fabulously, incomprehensibly wealthy. You live large and change supermodel girlfriends like you're changing socks. You build big tall shiny buildings with your name in lights on the front. You star in reality TV shows where you act out your fantasy of actually knowing what you are doing in business and marketing. You decide to run for president, and people actually support you...


I wish I could have been alive to see the Post-Pleistocene megafauna.

[aTOMiC]

ZZZZZZZZOOOTTTTT!!!!!!!!! You did so and are fabulously, incomprehensibly wealthy. You live large and change supermodel girlfriends like you're changing socks. You build big tall shiny buildings with your name in lights on the front. You star in reality TV shows where you act out your fantasy of actually knowing what you are doing in business and marketing. You decide to run for president, and people actually support you...

AAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGGGG!!!! Take it back. Please I beg you take it baaaaaaaaaack!!!!!


Kazam. You are in the midst of herds of Megaloceros, Mammoth, Sabre Tooth Tigers and giant Sloths and are thrilled beyond measure but you have been transported to a place and time that sets you and all of your animal friends mere moments before the beginning of the Quaternary extinction event and your joy is replaced by piles upon piles of death.

I wish I was 20 feet tall and made of indestructible matter.

[deer of the dawn]

[

AAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGGGG!!!! Take it back. Please I beg you take it baaaaaaaaaack!!!!!

NEVER!!!!!

BAMMM!!! You are 20 feet tall and made of indestructible matter. The problem is, you cannot move. But you can think, and live forever, going, what was I thinking?


I wish I had a beach.

[aTOMiC]

Bam! You have a beach. Unfortunately your beach is a beach on the shore of a methane lake on Jupiter's Moon Europa. Not only is it totally inaccessible it stinks...badly.

(I considered a beach on the shore of the Salton Sea but it wasn't unpleasant enough. )

I wish all differences of opinion, throughout the world, on all levels, were instantly and forever decided by the roll of a single 8 sided die with no "do overs" and everyone involved completely agrees to the terms without reservations or repercussions instead of current method utilizing bloodshed and violence.

[deer of the dawn]

POOF, you get your wish and all differences of opinion, throughout the world, on all levels, were instantly and forever decided by the roll of a single 8 sided die with no "do overs" and everyone involved completely agrees to the terms without reservations or repercussions instead of current method utilizing bloodshed and violence. However, the result is that everyone on earth must now commit suicide. Hey, I'm not the one who brought up the issue.

I want chocolate.

[aTOMiC]

Poof chocolate you get. But the quantity was not specified and like a vindictive Genie you are granted wave after wave of millions of gallons of sweet, dark chocolate. At first it is a joy to behold but then as the tidal wave begins to destroy homes, cities, counties and countries it becomes all too clear that a chocolate covered Earth isn't the wonderful think I sounds like it would be. But there is still more chocolate. Soon the chocolate Earth expands in size until it rivals Neptune, then Uranus, then Saturn, then Jupiter and then finally the solar system falls into darkness as the massive chocolate Earth consumes the Sun itself. But still the chocolate torrent does not cease. In less than a millennia the entire Milky Way galaxy is engulfed by rich, creamy chocolate. And finally when all matter in the universe had been devoured by an unstoppable chocolate flood time finally comes to an end.


I wish I owned M&M / Mars company.

[Sorus]

You own M&M / Mars company. Not sure why you would want to own Mining & Minerals / Mars, but there ya go. Oh, the Martian government is really unhappy with your company. They're sending a saucer to pick you up tomorrow. Hope your lawyer is fluent in Martian law.

I wish I could fast-forward through the rest of this year and have it be January 2017 starting tomorrow.

[aTOMiC]

Ka-Bam you are now in January 1st 2017 however no one else is as you suddenly appear in open space where the Earth will be in two months. You have only seconds to realize your error before your body is frozen in absolute zero temperatures. However all is not lost as in two months the Earth will hurdle through your fixed position in space traveling with enough speed that your frozen body will be vaporized instantly.

I wish I were a successful film director working on films that I think are terrific stories and endlessly entertaining and everyone else on Earth does too.

[Linna Heartbooger]

BAM! You are a successful film director of that description.
You think the stories in each film is terrific.
So does everyone else on earth!

Unfortunately, while their content is imaginative, and understands certain aspects of the human condition with absolute incisive brilliance, (!) the stories import a whole host of bad assumptions, which everyone quickly integrates as truth.
They contribute tremendously to the a rapid peak in the rate of moral decay of the human race.

Nobody understands why.
But nobody cares.
They just want to watch the next film you have to create.
That is, in fact, mostly all everyone in industrialized nations talk about.

All this causes you to be under immense pressure.
You feel like people have called you to be their god, and you are insufficient, and it looks like there is no way out of the trap.

The thing that finally breaks you is when, after one of your intense 23-hour workdays, you flip open a book you used to read, and browse to a familiar page.
You read:
"Startled, Lena answered, 'No song. I was only trying to make a melody. Is it wrong?' "

And you wonder, "all these works that I have made... are they wrong?"
Yes, yes they are, you conclude.
You forsake your work, tender your resignation, also resign from membership on every board that your reknown has entitled you to - or at least every one you remembered you were on.

A fresh, cool feeling comes over you - like the river Mithil's washing away the vomit of Thomas Covenant that one time.
You loudly proclaim to everyone that it is an erasure as clean and new as baptism. (was that last bit of imagery somewhere in the 2nd Chrons?)
Proverbially, you feel like a new man.

Unfortunately, by then all of humanity has begun work on a giant statue in your honor, and even more unfortunately...
well, let's not go there...



I wish I could just zap people into realizing what they're doing whenever they think their group is doing the *best* and most important things, and that everyone should join.

[aTOMiC]

Okay K-blamo you have the desired ability. However it comes with a few side effects. For one thing when you zap people it burns the hair off of the sides of their heads and people generally find that annoying. The second thing is that you become 5 inches shorter each time you zap and since you meet a lot of people that need and attitude adjustment you find yourself at a height of 26 inches after only the first day. You decide that rather than risk going sub atomic and then blinking out of existence you give up the effort.


I wish I could safely fly in an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere and in open space, able to defy gravity at will.

[Linna Heartbooger]

From my kid:
Bzzzt. You wake up, and suddenly notice you can do nothing but fly in this atmosphere. Also, your flight is apparently at the speed of Mach 5, so everyone's eardrums are bursting at the sonic booms (including yours.) However, it is totally safe - if you manage to make enough noise to fall unconscious, then you stop making the sonic booms. You will definitely not be able to make enough noise to kill yourself, so you are safe... until you are arrested for the disruption. You are brought to a prison in space because no matter where you are on earth you will still make masses of noise and annoy (and possibly kill) your guards. Suddenly, you find a opening to space! You sneak out. You attempt to defy gravity. You shoot away from earth. Suddenly, you notice the moon is in the way. It is too late to stop, and after about a quarter second.... splat.

The next wish: (mine)
I wish I had more time to read, and that I'd read a lot more good books by now.

[aTOMiC]

Hah! That produced an audible laugh.

Poof you have more time to read as you had been down in a bank vault just as a world war erupted overhead. The war was fought with a new generation of nuclear weapons that caused untold mass destruction but produced no lingering radiation. You emerge from the ruins of the bank to find that you are the last living person on earth. However over at the local library there are books. Thousands of books.

And now there is time. All the time in the world to read. No interruptions no needs or wants except reading your beloved books. Oh yes. Its quite a wonderful picture indeed. Reading one book after another until time itself stands still. Reading and sleeping. Sleeping, reading and then reading again. Until one day you realize, quite suddenly, that you actually hate reading books and had simply forgotten. Damn. Now what? The only entertainment left in the whole world is books and the worst part is that you can't eat them. (Thought I was going to say you broke your glasses didn't you?)

I wish I could travel to the other side of the galaxy anytime I wanted...and not die of course.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Glad you laughed!

My kid again, unedited:
Poof. You travel to the other side of the galaxy. However, since the earth is not on the edge of the galaxy and you can only go to the edges, you can never get back. Your only hope is to find some aliens on the edge of the galaxy that can help you get back to earth in a spaceship. However, since it is physically impossible to travel at the speed of light or faster, and the aliens are not necessarily on the closest edge of the galaxy to earth, you will probably be a 300-year-old skeleton by the time you get back.


I wish I was better at planning.

[aTOMiC]

LH your kid is awesome!

Ka-Blamo! You are now terrific at planning. Every aspect of your life is meticulously planned out to the nth degree. No detail is too small. Order out of chaos is now your full time mantra. However now that you've micro managed your own life you begin to feel an overwhelming desire to do the same for your friends and family. You begin to meddle in their personal lives to the point that they begin to shun you until you have no contact with anyone outside of your perfect orderly life. Then things take a turn for the worse. You begin to neglect the disciplines you learned at the Leprosarium and stop taking your medication or give yourself VSEs. And of course one day while walking through your living room you trip on a phone cable and crack your forehead on the coffee table. Things actually get worse from there but I don't have the heart to describe it.


I wish I had become a registered Land Surveyor when I had the chance back in 1999.

[Sorus]

You have been a registered Land Surveyor since 1999. Unfortunately, being registered to survey fictional realms does not qualify you for many jobs in the real world.


I wish I could get this annoying song out of my head.

[aTOMiC]

Boom! That annoying song is now out of your head. Unfortunately removing it required a lobotomy.


I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self to watch out for the many pitfalls that he is in for.

[dANdeLION]

I wish my wishes never got corrupted by rank amateurs like youse guys.

[Sorus]

None of your wishes have been corrupted. The undoing of all that corruption causes a rift in the space/time continuum, sending aTOMiC back to meet his younger self and inadvertently causing the very pitfalls he was trying to avoid.


I wish I could take a vacation.