WISHFUL THINKING — DAY 21 WRITING PROMPT
To Dream the Impossible Dream
What would you wish for?
My seventh grade class on “Basic Rescue and Water Safety” hadn’t prepared me for long hours spent bobbing up and down on twenty-foot swells, trying to breathe and stay awake while keeping salt water out of my nose and mouth. Trying not to panic. Because one lesson ingrained in us above all others: Panic kills.
Don’t panic. That’s easier said than done while imagining yourself trying to curl your ice-cold, waterlogged claw of a hand into a fist, wondering if you could punch a shark in the nose or if you’d just be spoon-feeding him your arm. Fortunately, I never saw a shark.
Eventually, I let the cold and dark embrace me, lull me into acceptance of imminent death. I’d stopped shivering. Just drifted, dreamlessly, bonelessly, on the waves like sargassum.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on a rocky beach, sand in my hair, eyes, ears, and unmentionable, uncomfortable places. I coughed. My teeth felt gritty, and my lips were salty. Cracked, too, from hours in the sun and seawater. I tasted blood. But I wasn’t dead.
Might as well be. You know that question people ask, sometimes — “If you were marooned on a deserted island, what one thing would you want to have with you?” Oh, God, what makes you think one thing would help? Invariably, some fool names a favorite book. Or another person, to keep them from being lonely. How selfish! A Snickers Bar, or something, to stave off hunger for a minute.
I’d want a cruise ship, you idiot. Maybe a satellite phone would do; how would I know? I’d never used one. Would it work? Would the battery last? Does it have one of those hand-crank battery chargers built in?
Do I look like someone who’s trained to survive on a deserted island? Interesting choice of words, that. Implies there were ever people on it, to desert it in the first place. Why did they leave? How did they leave? Might be nice to have the know-how to build a boat.
I don’t.
I start to hyperventilate. Don’t panic. What difference does it make if I do? I scream out at the horizon. I panic. You know what I want, while we’re fantasizing about things that will never happen and trying not to think about having washed ashore, only to die in a few more days?
I want a fucking teleporter.
And no sooner has the thought occurred to me than one shimmers into existence. Out steps a djinn, unimaginably handsome — major six-pack abs — to give me an impossible choice: Spend the rest of my life on this stupid little island with him, wishing as many wishes as I like — provided I don’t wish myself off the island — or step into the teleporter and be sent off to who-knows-where.
I should’ve made my wish more specific, like “a fucking teleporter to my home back in Texas.” But no, I just said, “a fucking teleporter.” I began to laugh maniacally. “There’s an orgy going on in there, isn’t there, you literalist asshole?”
The djinn just smirked.
“Can I at least take a peek at what’s behind Door #2?”
He shook his head.
Well, which would you pick? The Tardis, over there, or an eternity with a manipulative djinn? I could just start walking…back into the sea. Maybe I should’ve wished to be a mermaid.
This is Day #21 of the 30-Day Writing Challenge by Nancy Blackman for Refresh the Soul. Previous days’ posts:
- A Tiny Note from the Universe
- These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
- A Most Meaningful Year
- When It Rains, It Pours
- One Deadline that Doesn’t Drive Me
- This is Beauty
- There Are Worse Things I Could Do
- Life’s Little Soundtrack
- What’s in a Name?
- If Money Were No Object
- Tears of a Mother
- Prey for the Predator
- Family by Birth and Choice
- Fear, Loss, and Detachment
- Citizen of the World
- South Dakota Haiku
- Ranked Choice Appreciation?
- Read These Writers
- Give as Good as You Get, Get as Good as You Give
Holly Jahangiri is the author of Trockle ; A Puppy, Not a Guppy; and A New Leaf for Lyle. She draws inspiration from her family, from her own childhood adventures (some of which only happened in her overactive imagination), and from readers both young and young at heart. Visit her website at jahangiri.us and subscribe to her newsletter at https://hollyjahangiri.substack.com/
