[ WP ] A genie will grant you one wish . You wish to be the adult your younger self imagined you would be .

The first question everyone asks is why are you in here. To everyone else you may lie but not to anybody here. You always tell the truth. When they ask me I tell them it ’ s complicated and somebody else will reply that it ’ s not. The truth is that we ’ re both right, but I ’ ll never tell them the whole truth. I can ’ t. 
 
 Eight years ago I was on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There is a network of individuals who will help pilgrims like me, and I was low on supplies so I decided to seek one out. Leaving the main roads, I followed what I thought was a dirt road that would lead me to this Samaritan ’ s house. The road became narrower and rougher as I went and before long darkness was setting in. I was faced with a difficult decision, press on through the dark and follow the rough path to the house that must be nearby or sleep in the open on the side of the road and try again in the morning. It wouldn ’ t have been the first time that I had slept outside on my trip, but rarely so deep in the wilderness and Turkey ’ s nights were becoming ever colder. I chose to push on, the temptation of a warm house in which to sleep beat out a night on the cold, hard ground. 
 
 The moon was bright overhead and the stars plentiful and seemed to make navigation easy, but I never did find the house I was looking for. If I had ever been on the right path I must have lost it without knowing in the dark. For what must have been several hours I stumbled on fruitlessly, before I decided to give up and hunker down for the night. The path had been following the edge a ravine and I recalled that there had been a cave maybe a couple hundred yards back so, in another stunning display of genius that night, I decided to double back to it and sleep there for a while. 
 
 It must have been midday when I finally woke up. I got up and gathered my things and tried to determine whether I should continue to follow the trail in hope of finding that house, or retrace it and move on. That is when I realized that there was no path. I was utterly baffled, there had certainly been some path last night perhaps not the right path but a path nonetheless, yet now there was nothing not even my own footprints to show the way. I looked at the cave thinking maybe I had come out on the wrong end of some small tunnel but it was most assuredly a cave. A deep, dark, long cavern. 
 
 A metal pile gleamed in the corner and upon closer examination I found that they were golden coins that looked hundreds of years old. I noticed several more piles each one a little deeper than the last. I took out my cellphone and checked it, not a lot of battery left but I could explore a little way. With the flash on I pressed further into the abyss following the trail of bread crumbs. It wasn ’ t long before the narrow passage expanded into a large, rock chamber. In the middle was a huge pile of golden urns, vases, coins, bars, jewels and more, stacked twice as high as me, and topped with a large chest. Curiosity, understandably, got the better of me and I tried to climb up to the chest to peek inside. My first attempt saw me get halfway there before the treasures under my feet shifted and I slid back down. On my second effort I nearly reached the top when I grabbed hold of a lamp. The thing shook and rumbled back and forth beneath my grasp before it leapt free of my hand of its own accord. I lost my balance and went tumbling back down the incline painfully. When I finally got up there was a semi-transparent man standing over me. 
 
 “ Mortal, you have freed me from my prison within which I have been trapped for a thousand years. In return I will grant you a single wish, ” it spoke. 
 
 Caught slightly off guard I exclaimed the first thought I had. “ Bullshit. ” 
 
 In an instant a pile of crap appeared next to me surpassing the pile of treasure that had already filled the room. The smell was overwhelming and my eyes watered. “ That wasn ’ t what I meant, ” I coughed. 
 “ I am familiar with your common expletive. People have often desired displays of my power so I chose to provide you with one. Now you know. Choose wisely. ” 
 
 The pile disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived blessedly taking the smell with it. My senses cleared I took a few moments to think. I had never wanted much from life. I didn ’ t want a billion dollars or fancy things, world peace or equality, and I didn ’ t want every beautiful woman to fall in love with me. I always wanted a simple life, a nice but modest house, a beautiful and caring wife, a good career that I enjoyed, the sort of things that I had dreamed of as a kid. All the other kids dreamed of going to space or being firefighters, but me, I only ever wanted the sort of life that you saw on old sitcoms. That ’ s what I asked the genie for, the life that I wanted when I was a kid. 
 
 And that ’ s precisely what I got. I got what I wanted when I was young. The future I had envisioned. See, the problem is that I had forgotten exactly what I wanted as a kid. I saw the dream of escaping the hell that my life was, but he saw the dream of breaking free of the hell my life was. 
 
 My father was a drunk and a deadbeat. He had a dead end job that he hated and to escape that he would go drinking. Then he would come home and beat me or my sister, whichever he saw first. When she got a little older I think he started to abuse her in other ways but I never asked. And mom? She let him beat us because she blamed us for taking away the good man he was and ruining their lives. Hell, sometimes she beat us too. She ’ s the one who stabbed us with lit cigarettes and poured boiling water on us. Of course that ’ s when she wasn ’ t so high on one drug or another that she couldn ’ t stand. 
 
 The genie went back into my childhood and found a dream that had burned much brighter than the one I had thought of. Where instead of growing old and escaping my family and making a better life for myself, I took matters into my own hands and built a better life on the bones of the old one. In this I took the shotgun that my father kept for hunting, threatening us, and occasionally contemplating suicide and turned it on my parents. I killed them both. 
 
 I remember both lives. The one in which my parents lived and abused us until me and my sister ran away, and the one where I killed my parents and I was arrested. With every day my old life fades and becomes harder to remember. My sister still comes to visit me from time to time. Ironically she ended up with the life I thought I was getting but I don ’ t mind. At least she ’ s happy. She says that if I get parole in two years I can stay with her until I get on my feet, but I think I might finish that pilgrimage first. 

