Unlimited Wishes

I bet you have never met someone like Alex Anderson who lived in a small house with his uncle. Alex was one of those lazy boys who waited for things to be done to them or doing things with minimum effort. 

His uncle was a carpenter. He crafted most of his furniture in a room which he transformed into a workshop. Even he did most of his work with little to no enthusiasm because he was an alcoholic, as a result he rarely sold his furniture with maximum profit because they were of poor quality. 

Alex was an art lover but he did not put much effort into his practice sessions as a result he was slowly losing his talent. He would repeatedly say to himself, "This I can't do," or "It's too difficult for me." He regarded himself as the most unsuccessful human on planet earth.

One time as the sun was long gone and the moon in the sky, his uncle instructed him to clean the workshop before he retired to bed. He dragged himself to the workshop, he swept the dirt on the floor and picked up the tools. 

It took him nearly 3 hours of cleaning because the workshop was so messy that you could hardly navigate through the room without hitting into something or tripping and falling. But again the task could have taken about 30 minutes if he was serious about it and not taken too many breaks. 

After 3 hours of cleaning he finally completed his task and was about to retire to bed when he saw a pocket watch dangling from a cupboard. It was quite old and small in size. He decided to view it up close. 

He pulled it out from it's initial position and held it in his dirty hands. He began to admire it's unique features. At the back of the pocket he found a small piece of white paper seal tapped to the cover. Making sure that his uncle is not aware of his actions he scanned his surrounding before gently removing the piece of paper avoiding tearing it. 

Unfolding the paper, he was surprised to find that the length of the paper was tripled but only two words were written on it. He whispered: "UNLIMITED WISHES? What's that suppose to mean?"

He shoved both the paper and the pocket-watch in his pocket and navigated to his room where he threw himself on the bed because he was drowsy. However, his mind was puzzled by the pocket-watch he picked up earlier. 

He had a dream that he was in a park. He saw different kinds of people as they walked from one place to the other. The sun was out and It was too hot, he decided to take shelter under a huge tree which had huge branches. As he sat down to take shelter, a man appeared in front of him. Alex was almost running away but the man insisted: "Do not be afraid for I mean no harm..." 

Alex did not trust the mysterious man, he hid himself behind the tree as he screamed on top of his voice, "Help! Someone help me please! A ghost!"

The people who were close ran to Alex, "What is wrong young man?" asked one nice lady in surprise. "Why are you screaming on top of your voice?"

"There is a ghost beside you!" exclaimed Alex pointing at the mysterious man. 

The woman looked around her but saw no one who matched the description Alex gave her; that the man wore a brown rob which covered his feet. A brown rope ran around his waist. He was a handsome man. 

"What do you mean he's not there?" argued Alex. "He just appeared to me and you all can't see him? He's right there!"

"Son," said the nice lady, "It's seems like you are hallucinating. I don't blame you, it's the scorching of the sun that is causing you to hallucinate. It's totally normal." 

Then Alex woke from his sleep and began to pant loudly, "It was only a dream," he said to himself.

"Yes, that was a dream," assured a voice. 

Alex jumped out of his bed about to run out of his room but a hand reached out to him and pulled him backwards and covered his mouth. Alex could only kick his legs separately as he attempted to escape what seemed to be a choking attack. 

"I told you that I meant no harm. Can you please behave yourself as I will let you go the instant you stop resisting me," said the voice. 

Alex turned his head to discover that the person who was talking to him was the same mysterious man who appeared to him in his dream. He felt as if his heart dropped in his stomach. He felt numb in the knees and immediately fell to the ground with a thud and fainted. 

To be continued...