It was a quarter past midnight, and flocks of drunk students could be heard outside Jack’s dorm room window. With less than eight hours until the semester’s start, everyone was getting one last night of debauchery in before they would need to buckle down. It had been a couple hours since Jack’s last drink, and he was now sober enough to wish that he could get to sleep.
But any chance of sleep was killed when the room was filled with a golden light and an angel appeared before him. It was a man with wings and flowing robes, with sharp eyes and curled lips. Every part of the angel eminated light bright enough to make him hard to look at. Just the angel’s presence filled Jack with a manic sort of happiness, which was intense enough to make him feel a little sick.
“It’s your lucky day. God has chosen you for a special purpose.”
Jack tried to examine the being closer, but the light filled his eyes with spots. What could that purpose possibly be? If God hand picked him for something, it must be big, with consequences for all of mankind.
“What purpose is that?” he finally asked, not sure how to ask it without sounding ungrateful.
The angel appeared to smirk, but it might have been a trick of the light. “Nothing as big as you’re probably imagining right now. The big man’s got some plans for the world. You wouldn’t believe the social and economic reforms that are coming. But what God wants from you is just a tiny part of that. There’s a girl on campus, about to start her sophomore year. Her name is Marie Spencer. Your job is to make her as happy as possible.”
“Make her happy?”
“Oh, I don’t mean romance. I’m going to give you the ability to grant her wishes. All I want from you is to use it, until she has everything she ever wants.”
The angel was leaning forward now, with a forced smile on its face. It gestured like a car salesman, and gave the impression it was trying to convince Jack of something. It was so far from how he would imagine an angel that he almost wondered if it were a demon instead. But a demon would never ask him to do something good. And he would probably feel fear instead of happiness if he were in a room with one.
A million possibilities flowed through Jack’s head. What if he went crazy, and this was a hallucination? Maybe this was a demon after all, and any wish that he granted would be a monkey’s paw situation. Or it could really be an angel, but this was some sort of test from God. It was hard to imagine, but maybe this was somehow a prank someone was pulling.
There was no limit to the possible explanations, each of which painted the situation in a completely different light. In the end he had two options. He could either shut down for fear that this was not what it seemed, or he could step up and see where this led him.
“I’ll do it.” he said, after an eternity of thinking. “But I have one question first. Why was I chosen for this?”
The angel smiled in a genuine way, and laughed. “Because you’re the right person for the job! You have the right attitude for this role, and there’s more to you than even you might realize.”
The angel suddenly shifted tone to a quieter and more serious voice “But it’s time to get into some logistics. I’m on a bit of a schedule here. I said that you’ll be given the ability to grant her wishes, but there’s a couple details about that ability. First of all, you can only grant at most one wish a day. Second, with some wishes you might need to ‘charge up’ so to speak for multiple days without granting anything before you can do it. Third, to grant a wish she must honestly want it, and say out loud that she wants it. Lastly, you can’t tell her that you have this ability.”
The list of rules rushed past Jack’s half-sober mind. He paused for a second after the angel finished speaking and realized that he retained none of it. He scrambled for a notebook and a pencil, and asked the angel to repeat it. After a bit of huffing about his schedule, the angel went through the list again, this time pausing for Jack to write them down.
“So, I get the rules now, but I’m a not really sure about the goal. ‘Make this girl happy’ is a little vague. Is there anything more specific?”
“Nope. Like I said earlier, you have the right attitude for the job. Just by naturally trying to make her happy you’ll eventually realize what you need to do.”
“I guess what I should be doing, then, is-”
The angel abruptly looked at his wrist, which Jack realized had a watch on it, apologized, and disappeared. Jack was left there with his list of rules. He apparently had to make some girl happy.
What was her name again? Jack began to panic, realizing that he never wrote the name down. He remembered the last name was Spencer, so he scribbled that. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the first name was ‘Mary’ or ‘Maria’ or something similar. He wrote those down with question marks, just so he at least knew where to look.
Too tired to continue worrying about it, he fell back down on his bed and passed out.
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The next morning he awoke with a mild hangover. He stumbled over to his desk and saw the notebook sitting on top of it. He knew that he should probably be thinking ‘I guess it wasn’t a dream after all’ or something interesting like that, but instead he just wished that he could grant his own desires so that he could get rid of his headache.
Unable to do that, he drank a couple glasses of water, gathered his things, and stumbled out the door to head to class. This would be syllabus week, so there was no need to pay attention. When he arrived, he sat in the back of the room so that no one would see over his shoulder and think he’s stalking someone, pulled out his laptop, and started trying to find out who this girl was.
He got as far as learning that no one at the school was named ‘Mary Spencer’ or ‘Maria Spencer’ when he saw his friend Jared walk into the classroom. Crap, I forgot that he has this class too. Jared was a physics major, so Jack rarely shared a class with him. They both happened to be taking this as an elective. He closed the tabs, and Jared saw him, walked up, and sat next to him.
They made a bit of small talk before class. Then, with Jared sitting next to him, he had no chance to research the girl, so he listened to the psychology professor explain the syllabus instead.
After class he headed to the library. That was his only class on Monday, so he had plenty of time to research.
Only a few students were there. After all, it was the first day, so not many people needed to study. He found a secluded corner and sat down. Since Spencer was reasonably common as a first name, digging through all the people with that name was annoying, and the last hints of a headache mixed with the couple of students talking loudly in the library were not helping. But through brute forcing it, he did eventually find the name “Marie Spencer.”
He half expected her to not exist, but sure enough, she was a sophomore in the literature department. He glanced at her picture and couldn’t believe what he saw. He zoomed in on the picture to be sure. It was her, one of the loud students a few desks down. He watched her for a moment. She was in an animated conversation with some other student, a tired looking guy with unkempt hair and bags under his eyes.
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Jack needed a way to insert himself into the conversation. This was too good of an opportunity to pass up. But what could he say? Asking them to quiet down would be believable, but it would leave no opportunity to continue the conversation. He decided to wing it, he would start with something simple and try to keep the conversation going from there.
Jack walked up to the other students. The man was wearing a t-shirt for a popular metal band. He could make use of that.
“Hey, nice shirt! I love that band.” Complimenting a shirt was innocuous enough, and the ‘I love that band’ gives the invitation for the man to respond with his own thoughts, so the conversation can continue.
The man responded in a deep, somewhat deadpan voice, giving the impression of a quiet but intelligent person, while looking at Jack in an analytical way. “Oh, thanks.”
That’s it? ‘Thanks’? You gotta give me something to work with, man. Jack thought. He could not let the conversation end here, he had to take the initiative. “What’s your favorite album?”
The man considered for a second, before responding “Did you see anything weird last night?”
“What?” Jack blurted out, before he had time to hide his surprise. Did he know about the angel? Was it a prank after all? Actually, why was this guy talking to Marie in the first place? Maybe he was given the same visit, and had been trying to do the same thing.
“Well, you see, I’ve been trying to solve a mystery on campus,” the student explained, “This morning a watermelon was found stuck on the spike at the top of the bell tower. We’ve been trying to figure out who did it and how.”
Marie added, “So did you see anything that could help explain it?”
Jack was about to say ‘no’ but thought better of it. If he knew nothing, they would just leave and continue on their investigation. He needed to somehow become a part of the process.
“Actually, I did see something weird, but to be honest I drank a little too much last night, so I don’t know how reliable it is.”
“That’s alright, just tell us what you saw.” Marie said. She seemed excited about this whole thing.
“Well, I saw someone carrying something green, and placing it into a wheelbarrow, which had some sort of contraption in it.”
“And that green thing was a watermelon?” The man asked, monotone as always.
“I’m not sure, but it seemed to be the right color and shape, so it could be.” This was perfect, it was vague and unsure enough that it would seem reasonable when it turned out to be a dead end, but it was compelling enough that the conversation would keep going.
“Did you see what the man looked like?” Marie asked.
The description should be clear enough that they’re convinced I really saw someone, but vague enough that they can’t identify him without me. That way I might get to join their investigation. He decided to describe Jared, since he looked pretty standard. “He was a tallish white student with short brown hair.”
“That could describe a lot of people.” The man said.
“I guess his eyes were a bit small?” Jack added.
“Hmm…” Jack could practically see the gears turning in Marie’s head. “Would you recognize him if you saw him?”
“Yeah, I think I would.” Jack said.
“Okay, can we have your number so we can call you if we find someone that fits?”
Oh, right, Jack thought, It doesn’t make sense to ask me to follow them around. At the very least they would think they’re being rude by assuming I have the time. How can I get myself to join their group?
“Actually” Marie’s friend said, “If you have the time, maybe you could just investigate with us?”
“I don’t have any more classes today, so all I was going to do is find an excuse to study.” Jack tried to hide his relief.
“Awesome.” Marie said, “Time to get you caught up on the details of the case.”
“Wait,” Jack said, “first, what are your names?”
“Oh, right, I’m Marie, and this is Simon.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Jack.”
Simon nodded politely.
Marie jumped into an excited, but scatterbrained, explanation of events so far. Apparently she had only met Simon earlier that day. He was investigating a watermelon that had appeared on the clock tower that morning, and she thought it was interesting, so decided to help him. So far they had gone to visit the clock tower, but the watermelon had been taken down before they arrived. In terms of clues, they had found some tire tracks in the dirt nearby, but were unsure if they were related or not.
“So, we decided to go back to the start and think about how they might have gotten it up there. Right now catapult and drone are in the lead.”
Jack thought for a moment. Even if they never solved the mystery, he should try to make it an adventure. If they actually go out and do things they are more likely to meet up again than if they just talk about possibilities for a while and all go home.
“Could the tire tracks have been made by a wheelbarrow?”
“Possibly” Simon said. “I would need to see them again to be sure. I can’t believe I didn’t take a picture.”
“Well, let’s just go back and take another look.” Marie said.
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They arrived at the clock tower. There was no sign of a watermelon at the top, since it had been taken down hours ago. Jack followed Simon and Marie over to the grass near the tower. Sure enough, there was a single tire mark and with two indents a little further back.
“It really does look like a wheelbarrow was set down here.” Marie said.
“Yeah, I guess maybe what I saw was the culprit, after all.” Jack added. What a weird coincidence. I wonder who actually parked a wheelbarrow here. He looked around and noticed the gardener’s truck a ways off with a wheelbarrow in the bed. He decided not to say anything. It would be better if Simon and Marie kept thinking that he was helping them solve the case instead of derailing it.
“If a wheelbarrow was used, I’m going to guess that they carried a catapult in it.” Simon said, “A drone could just be brought in a backpack, and something like a ladder wouldn’t be the right shape for a wheelbarrow.”
“But didn’t you say before that it would be hard to aim and keep the watermelon from splitting using a catapult?” Marie seemed deep in thought.
“Yeah, but that helps narrow things down a bit more. Whoever did it must be well versed in the math needed to pull that off. So we just need to find a white tallish physics major with brown hair and small eyes.”
Marie started looking around, “I hope we find him and solve this case soon. I have another class later and I don’t want you to solve it without me.”
That’s it. She said she wants something and she genuinely desires it. How do I use the power I was given? If Marie really exists, then the power should be real too, right?
Jack tried thinking about the power, and then he felt it, like an extra sense or muscle that he somehow never noticed before. He could feel that all the rules were met for this wish. He tried flexing the imaginary muscle. Something changed about reality, and he heard a voice behind him.
“Hey, Jack! I just got out of differential equations.” Jared was walking up.
“Oh, hey Jared.”
“Your eyes are kind of small.” Marie cut in.
“Oh, uh… Okay?” Jared was taken aback.
“Did you put the watermelon on the tower?” Simon asked.
“I… How do you know that?” Jared clearly did not expect an interrogation.
“Wait, it was really you?” Jack asked.
Jared walked over and leaned toward the group conspiratorially. “Don’t tell anyone. I borrowed the gardener’s wheelbarrow last night, and used it to wheel over a catapult. Hilarious, right?”
Simon laughed loudly, startling Jack. The power had worked, but why had it been Jared, and why in the exact way Jack had predicted? Wait, Marie said she hopes we find ‘him.’ The power needed Jared to be the culprit for the wish to even make any sense. This leaves too many questions. If I hadn’t used my power, would we have found the wheelbarrow tracks? Or would they have been there anyways, and who left the tracks would depend on whether Marie made the wish? Or did Jared just happen to be the culprit and I didn’t make that happen? Before I can even worry about ‘making Marie happy’ whatever that means, I might need to do some tests on this power of mine.