A LITTLE TALE I WROTE FOR A COMP AND DIDN'T WIN...
I can't tell you how often things get returned to me as I deliver them. Pure greed orders more than it needs. Instant regret equals instant reject, at the door. It's work for me, but I'm pragmatic, it's the job.
I am just the delivery driver. I deliver, I process, I return.
But you see folks, I am not just anything.
I have a gift.
Sometimes, with your order, you get a little extra.
I choose 4 lucky souls a day a day and 1, well, not so much. It's completely arbitrary. Though the rejectors almost always fall candidate for "the one."
"The four," get a wish. Admittedly its not perfect as, unknowing, they get the very next thing they wish for. So if someone thinks:
"I wish I had scissors handy." they have scissors, to hand, for life.
"Oh I wish you'd shut the fuck up." that's a bad one.
Sometimes you get a lucky soul that waits to for what they actually want; time-travel, a suitcase of money. But we're very literal here, it's dicey.
Sometimes all five die. It's not ideal, just the bargain you strike with consumerism. Wants and wishes.
"The one," never a grey area.
Last one told me to go back to where I'd come from after I politely refused his return at the door. Bosses orders.
Go back I did. To hell in a handcart and I returned with my hell hound. When that dog got caught under the ladders and Brian decapitated himself with the electric shears we all knew someday, the guy his wife was fucking would wish a replacement with the ones in my van. But I can wait.
Brian's blood spurt means a hose is more the order of the day anyway.
Listen, that's my beeper going. Gotta dash. These deliveries don't make themselves.