Star Light, Star Bright

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New Prompt:
Write about what happens when someone's wish comes true.
(The wish can be anything, and the effects can also be anything: related or not!)
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Little 10-year-old Mary looked out her window up at the evening sky and made her usual wish, the one she’d made for the last two weeks. “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight!” Please, she said to herself, let there be no more dying to leave children without a parent. Squeezing her eyes tight, she wished as hard as she could. With that, she returned to bed, knowing her wish would never come true, but at least she had tried.

The next morning, she sat on the stool in the kitchen to eat her cereal. She glanced at the small television set her mother had on to watch the local morning news. The usual boring weather and traffic ended, and on came the familiar blonde anchor, Heather Shadberry. “The news from the war is good news for a change,” Heather said with her usually brilliant toothy smile. ”The President received word overnight that a truce has been called, and hostilities ended early this morning. The troops will be coming home soon.”

Mary looked over at her mother and saw tears streaming down the woman’s face. She heard, “Too late for us. My sweet Timothy died two weeks too soon for this to mean anything for us.” The woman wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and returned to cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

During the next year, Heather Shadberry reported cease fires of wars and deadly disputes between nations all over the world. Men and women no longer died. Instead, they were making love, not war. The world’s population started increasing with all the births brought about by this.

It didn’t become apparent as quickly as the end of wars, but deaths slowly declined and finally stopped. Those with deadly diseases suddenly and inexplicably went into remission, mystifying their doctors and spreading joy among their family members. Around the world, governments urged farmers to increase their food production for the rapidly increasing population.

The following year, exactly on Mary’s next birthday, Heather Shadberry reported an interesting tidbit on the morning television show. Morticians were starting to go out of business, due to the fact people were living longer. Only those who died in the rare accident now needed their services. That evening, CNN had on various “talking heads” who discussed how people were living longer because of better diets, healthy exercise, and new medical breakthroughs. Within a few days, the public forgot all about people living longer and simply went about their daily business. Only the farmers felt the ongoing pressure from government officials to keep increasing food production.

By the time Mary was 13, the world’s population had doubled. Famine ran rampant, not only in third world countries, but across heavily populated places in Europe and Asia. Death was a rare occurrence and made headline news whenever a young person died. Governments ordered homes especially built for the elderly and infirmed, shuffling them out of sight with the hope that starvation would end their lives. This didn’t happen, and the staff simply walked away, forcing family members to care for the residents. Still, the people in the homes lived on, half starved and often in pain. They prayed for a death that refused to come.

One rainy Monday morning, Mary’s mother wearily looked into the nearly empty kitchen cabinet. Her salary as a sales clerk was still what it was a few years ago. Back then, the President had frozen all wages to help employers afford to hire some of the burgeoning population needing jobs. However, the cost of the dwindling food in stores kept rising to offset the costs to the farmers. “Mary,” her mother said, trying to put a cheerful note in her tired voice, “I’m afraid breakfast is only a slice of bread and half a cup of milk.” She passed the items to her child. She then said, so quietly Mary could hardly hear her, “Maybe I can get more credit at the store today. I also have to visit Timothy’s mother at the home. Alzheimer has ravaged her mind so she doesn’t know me any more, but she also needs some bread and milk. If only I could do something to stop her suffering.” This last sentence contained such sadness that Mary left her meager breakfast to go and silently hugged her mother.

Mary was an intelligent child, but still only a child. It had taken quite some time for her to think that maybe, perhaps, just possibly her wishing on the first evening star years ago had been selfish. Tonight, I’m going to make another wish. Maybe if the star takes back that other one from years ago, Grandma will die soon and not suffer any more.

That evening, just after dark, Mary once again leaned out her bedroom window. Searching the sky, she spotted the first star to appear. Quickly, she whispered, “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might have the wish I wish tonight!” Please, she thought, squeezing her eyes tight to force the wish up to the star, I wish you’d take back the wish I made when I was only ten. I made a mistake, so please forget I made the wish. After repeating her wish a couple more times for good measure, she went to bed, hoping the wishing star had heard her.

The next morning, Heather Shadberry started the news with an elated expression on her face. “They are dying. Reports are coming in that the people in the government homes are dying one after another.” A smiling news intern handed her a paper right on camera. After silently reading it, she looked up and reported with a big grin, “The wire services are overloading with the news that people are dying all over the world.”

The star had heard Mary and once again granted her wish.

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Microsoft Word count = 1,000

Entry in the 12/07/07 "The Writer's Cramp - Poetry Week"  daily contest.
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