Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction
Wish Fairy: Tell me again.
You: It’s the lecture I’ll give when I’m forty-three. My wife will give me a blow job that morning. Then I’ll catch that early cab. I’ll notice my suit fits me exceptionally well. Mingling will feel better than it ever has in the lobby at the conference — we used a two point charm increase for that. I’ll really just be feeling it, you know? Like that CEO who’s there, he’ll love me. And when I walk onstage, the mic will be raised to my exact height. And my first joke will go really well. Big laugh. That’s important.
Wish Fairy: Okay, got it.
You: This conference will be the pinnacle of my career. Of my life, really.
Wish Fairy: Yes, it looks like this is a big career life for you.
You: So you got all that?
Wish Fairy: Yes, I’ve got it all. It’s giving you a minus thirteen-point-eight total — so we need to allocate for those points now.
You: Right.
Wish Fairy: I can make up ten with a three event puberty combination, if you’re interested.
You: What would that be?
Wish Fairy: It’s sort of my signature.
You: What is it?
Wish Fairy: The first is you throw up on the freshman year bus. You’ll have eaten some bad chicken salad at school lunch that day and it’ll go everywhere. That’s minus four right there. If you want I can make it so you have a brown bag handy to throw up into, but then it’s only minus three point two. I can also remove the high school mean girl from the bus that day — arrange for her mom to pick her up — but then it’s only two point nine.
You: Wow. What do you recommend?
Wish Fairy: Tell you what, go for no bag, no absent mean girl, but we can take away a chunk of the chicken salad vomit landing on the mean girl’s shoe. If it does, she’ll shriek and very loudly yell “ew ew EW” until her bus stop. And then she’ll call you Chunks for the rest of high school. So let’s go no Chunks and it’ll be a three point eight.
You: Wow, you’re good.
Wish Fairy: Thank you.
You: What’s next?
Wish Fairy: You’ll get a three for tripping in the school play. And then another three point five for getting your period on the back of your pants in sophomore English class. Oh wait — let me make sure you can get a period. Rifles through files.
You: Patiently waits.
Wish Fairy: Yep, that’s great. You can make up a lot of your negative wish points that way.
You: Excellent. So have I accrued enough for the conference, then?
Wish Fairy: Yes, you just need a few decimal points…let me just…off the top of your head, would you rather have a piece of black pepper stuck in your teeth during an important business dinner or a slightly less skilled tattoo artist?
You: Uh.
Wish Fairy: I’ll just pick for you.
You: Oh wait — If I’m a woman, then my wife can’t very well give me a blow job, can she?
Wish Fairy: Oh! You’re right. We’ll make it going down on you then. Which turns it from a one point six to a one point two.
You: It’s not as pleasurable?
Wish Fairy: No, it’s not as pleasurable.
You: Let’s revisit that school play trip. Can I trip somewhere else and still get the points?
Wish Fairy: Sure. In your thirties, you can trip and fall in an important meeting with your boss and your boss’s boss for the same three points. You will land with your face on the scratchy office carpet and when you get up your shirt will be accidentally lifted a little and they will see the roll of your belly and a mole you have there. Or, in your twenties, you can trip during a first date in a trendy restaurant and knock down a waiter’s tray of wine glasses. Then it’s three-point-three points.
You: Hmmmm.
Wish Fairy: Waits patiently.
You: What school play is it?
Wish Fairy: Fiddler on the Roof.
You: Let’s do the meeting with my boss.
Wish Fairy: Done.
You: So the conference is accounted for, then?
Wish Fairy: Absolutely.
You: And that will set me up in my field? Give me the confidence I need to get those connections, that professorship, a shot at that prize one day?
Wish Fairy: I don’t really deal with psychological outcomes. And like I said, if you want to use your points directly on the prize, it’s three times as many. But you have a very good chance, really a choice set up here.
You: Okay great.
Wish Fairy: Let’s move on to love.
You: Yes, love! Have I spent all my points and I’ll have a shitty love life, then?
Wish Fairy: Not necessarily. I have a second marriage plan that works quite well for many people. Basically, you accrue so many negative points in the first marriage that you can actually afford a lovely second partnership later in life.
You: What’s the first marriage like?
Wish Fairy: Infidelity, doubt, loneliness, crippling indecision.
You: Interesting.
Wish Fairy: Or if you’d rather accrue all your negative points at once, I can have you left at the altar.
You: Ooh! Let’s do that one.
Wish Fairy: Okay.
You: Who leaves me? Will I love them very much?
Wish Fairy: I can’t tell you who, but yes, in order for the points to work, you must love them very much. It will break your heart.
You: I thought you didn’t deal with psychological outcomes.
Wish Fairy: I don’t.
You: But you just said it will break my heart.
Wish Fairy: It will. Broken hearts are not psychological.They’re energetic events. Like getting hit by a bus or getting your finger stuck in a mouse trap. And that’s how you get the points.
You: How much are broken hearts worth?
Wish Fairy: They are baseline eight and then it depends on the circumstances around them.
You: Do people ever choose more than one broken heart?
Wish Fairy: They can, certainly. That’s one way to go.
You: You say that like you wouldn’t advise it.
Wish Fairy: I’m saying it in no such way. Let’s go back to your being left at the altar.
You: Right. Will I see signs that it’s coming? That they want to leave me?
Wish Fairy: Yes, there will be signs.
You: But I ignore them?
Wish Fairy: Yes, you ignore them.
You: And how many points do I get?
Wish Fairy: You’ll get minus eighteen points. Want to see how you can spend them?
You: Please.
Wish Fairy: With eighteen points, I can get you a twenty year marriage with someone who’s a good cook, conventionally attractive, and 85% your soulmate. Or you can have a sixteen year marriage with someone who’s 91% your soulmate and has a minor amount of celebrity.
You: That’s interesting.
Wish Fairy: Or you can have a twenty-five year marriage with someone who’s 76% your soulmate and has a small alcohol dependency.
You: It’s very hard to visualize, isn’t it? What about children?
Wish Fairy: Right now, you are having one daughter. She will be an easy baby and an exceptionally lovely young woman.
You: Wow! I can afford that?
Wish Fairy: Yes. I’ve balanced that with your sibling being an absolute asshole.
You: Right.
Wish Fairy: Let me know if you want to change anything. Remember, it’s all up to you.
You: No, let’s keep it.
Wish Fairy: So which do you pick for love, then?
You: What do I have to do to get someone who’s 100% my soul mate?
Wish Fairy: For someone with a Personal Balance Score of five who’s having a big career life? You don’t want to know.
You: Will I enjoy someone who’s only 85, 90% my soul mate?
Wish Fairy: Like I said, I don’t really deal with —
You: Psychological outcomes.
Wish Fairy: Yes.
You: Okay, how long was the one that was the 91% soul mate?
Wish Fairy: Sixteen years.
You: Why is it only sixteen years?
Wish Fairy: To balance the points.
You: No, I mean what happens after sixteen years? Why does it cut off then?
Wish Fairy: Oh. Because of your gruesome death.
You: My gruesome death?!
Wish Fairy: Yes. Your gruesome death is cementing a lot of your everyday, common happenings right now. Meeting people you actually like and want to spend time with. Having nice hair. Being on the same color war team as your friends at summer camp. People laughing at your jokes. Fairly resilient cash flow. I would not recommend moving it. But of course, it’s up to you.
You: How do I die?
Wish Fairy: I am required to ask you twice if you really want to know that information before I tell you. Here is the first time. Do you really want to know?
You: Yes.
Wish Fairy: Are you sure that you really want to know?
You: Yes.
Wish Fairy: It’s daybreak. You are sixty-six. You are scuba diving in the Caribbean. You have scuba dived many times before. It’s one of your favorite hobbies. You are in a group of eight, plus one instructor, but they are all strangers to you. You fail to notice they are all a good twenty years younger than you. You don’t feel sixty-six. You feel thirty-three. And yet, you have become forgetful. You do a long dive with the group. You see beautiful things in the ocean — fish, coral. A stingray. That brings you joy. On your way up, you forget you are supposed to breathe during ascent. You hold your breath. You forget to take your time. There is little explanation for this — you are an experienced diver, why would you hold your breath ascending? But it’s too late. Air has burst through the lining of your lungs and formed bubbles in your blood vessels. Back on the boat, you feel fine, for the first ten minutes anyway. Maybe you are breathing a little heavy. Suddenly, your heart starts to hurt. Your vision blurs. You try to say something to the group, but you slur your words. You fall to the ground. Your lips turn blue. You start to foam blood at the mouth. Your body convulses. People on the boat are screaming. You hear them, but you cannot focus on that, because you are in agony. The air bubbles have blocked a blood vessel to your lungs, an artery to your brain. Half of you becomes paralyzed. You forget to think of your loved ones. You forget the stingray in the water. You live each agonizing moment in real time, fighting against horror. Eventually, despite the frantic and ineffective efforts of the scuba guide to save you, you enter cardiac arrest, and you die.
You:
Wish Fairy:
You: I’m not quite sure what to say.
Wish Fairy: Sure.
You: And in exchange for this I have nice hair and friends?
Wish Fairy: Essentially.
You: Seems like a bad deal.
Wish Fairy: My recommendation is to stick with the gruesome death.
You: I’m assuming this all works because of balance in the universe, or something? Like, for every good action there must be an equal and opposite reaction?
Wish Fairy: Oh, no.
You: No?
Wish Fairy: No. You decide what your Personal Balance Score is.
You: What do you mean? I decided I’m a five? When? How?
Wish Fairy: Yes, you decided to be a five.
You: Is everyone a five?
Wish Fairy: No, not everyone is a five.
You: Is five good?
Wish Fairy: Most people are fives. I’ve seen some fours, some sixes. Nine and tens. One time I had a twenty. Oh! And one time I had a fifty-three. I’ll never forget that number. We had to find a different world for her — couldn’t make the accounting work on Earth.
You: Why the hell is she a fifty-three and I’m a five?
Wish Fairy: Because she chose to be a fifty-three and you are choosing to be a five.
You: Is it too late to change my number?
Wish Fairy: No.
You: It’s not too late?
Wish Fairy: No.
You: Okay, I’d like to be a fifty-three please.
Wish Fairy: You can’t just say it. You can’t just say, I’d like to be a fifty-three. You have to decide it.
You: How do I do that?
Wish Fairy: You have to decide it.
You: That doesn’t mean anything to me.
Wish Fairy: Close your eyes.
You: Closes eyes.
Wish Fairy: Think about the future life you have ahead. Your mission there. How you’re changing from your past lives. Think about being just one little life on an Earth full of billions of lives. Think about the creative power you’re exercising, being here with me right now, shaping your life. Now think about the worst part of yourself. The part that you don’t want to look at. The part that you can feel even now. One day, this part will expose you on Earth. It will leave you feeling like a dampish, smelly mouse watching the real humans from your hidey hole in the kitchen. Think about a person who loves you watching you as you feel like this. They are looking right at you. They see everything. They reach out to you in love. They are offering you their hand. All you have to do is touch it. Extend your hand to touch their hand.
You: Straining.
Wish Fairy: Now, what number are you?
You: Straining.
Wish Fairy: Sometimes visualizing a gold color helps.
You: Bah! Pants heavily. I can’t do it.
Wish Fairy: It was worth a shot.
You: I hate this. I hate being a five.
Wish Fairy: And yet you are a five.
You: Who are you, even?
Wish Fairy: Don’t worry about it.
You: Are you God?
Wish Fairy: No. That’s mostly a human concept.
You: Are you my mother?
Wish Fairy: No.
You: Why am I listening to you, anyway?
Wish Fairy: You don’t have to.
You: Just like I don’t have to be a five. Except I do. So the real answer is I have to listen to you. I don’t have a choice.
Wish Fairy: No, you have a choice. We can return you to the purple room if you so desire. Then you won’t have to do another Earth life at all.
You: What’s in the purple room?
Wish Fairy: I think you already know.
You: No.
Wish Fairy: I think you do.
You: Quietly. You’re right.
Wish Fairy: So you know there’s nothing to be scared of then.
You: Who said I was scared?!
Wish Fairy: No one.
You: Exactly.
Wish Fairy: Remember, all you have to do is extend your hand.
You: Why does anybody do all this, huh? This terrible Personal Balance Score shit? You said I have a mission there?
Wish Fairy: The Earth lives are supposed to be fun.
You: This is supposed to be FUN?! You’re giving me the nickname Chunks!
Wish Fairy: Actually, I’m helping you avoid the nickname Chunks, remember?
You: You’re killing me on a scuba diving expedition!
Wish Fairy: That’s only with your approval.
You: Sputters indignantly.
Wish Fairy: So will you be proceeding with the life, then?
You: I hate this.
Wish Fairy:
You: I hate you.
Wish Fairy:
You: Quietly. I’m too scared to go to the purple room.
Sarah Leonhardt received her MFA from The New School in 2021. She lives in Philadelphia with her fiancé, Jake, and is currently writing her first novel.