Aladdin's Cave

The opening lyrics from If I Could Turn Back Time, start to echo in my head the moment I’m told to make my wish. My inner musician cringes for a moment when I realize I’m quoting a Cher song. Sure, Sonny and Cher were cute back in the day, I loved that variety show they had. I just can’t help but think how their lives verged madly away from each other after they got divorced. If I could turn back time with a single wish, maybe I would reset them to their earlier days.

That isn’t what I’d wish for though. Given a single wish, what would anyone hope for? Money? Power? Health? All of the above, in some well worded phrase? Not me.

Every year, on a person’s birthday, each of us gets that chance to make a wish and blow out the candles. I’m fairly confident I wasted mine all these years. As a kid you usually hope for stuff… things that are the latest gizmo. I remember when I was a kid, I wished for a BB gun once. My parents never would have bought me one. They had parallel beliefs to that famous Christmas movie… what was the name of that movie? Anyway, “You’ll shoot your eye out kid”, was a popular phrase echoed whenever I brought it up. I eventually bought my own BB gun, I never did shoot out my eye, or anyone else’s, I still have it sitting in storage somewhere.

In my teenager years wishes started to delve a different direction. As a teenage boy, I remember the idea that magically, through a wish, I might suddenly gain the powers to talk to Deedra; the most popular girl in school. Though I doubt she had those same hopes of me. However, all that didn’t matter. She wasn’t the girl for me.

Entering adulthood was an interesting time, wishes held promise, hope, and were directed now toward drive and fame. Hoping to score perfectly on the SAT’s, studying for them may have helped. Hoping to get into the best colleges, and again studying may have helped there too. Finally, the wishes were geared toward life, a career, a great job that held promise and, if you’re lucky, paid really well too.

In a blink, your life takes another turn, you have a good job, money in the bank, and a good sense of self. For me, my next wishes went back to my teenage years. Simply asking, hoping, for the ability to talk to someone that interested me. To have the perfect pick-up line. Not a sleezy one-liner for an equally sleezy one night stand. An actual line, one that opens up a conversation with someone that interests me. I was lucky, I found that line once, and it worked, better than I thought. It was like magic.

Life has a way of continually changing, continually finding ways to make you desire something new. Not that the old wishes necessarily came true, though I’d like to think some did. It more happens out of a need for new things, and I don’t mean a BB gun, or a sports car. The things I mean are less tangible; a good marriage, a healthy child, a happy life, or maybe just a good dinner with an old friend. There’s something to be said about good food.

Throughout my life there were times my wishes were wasted for sure. There were also times I made the perfect wish.

We all have only so many wishes in life, so many tries to make amends, to fix things, to change our surroundings. Sometimes those wishes are made while blowing out those candles. Sometimes they are just a plea to God. And sometimes…

If I was younger, I might travel to the Arabian desert, dig in the sand, and search for a hidden cave. If I looked hard enough, dug deep enough, I might just find Aladdin’s cave. I might just find the Djinni’s lamp. Then I would have the ultimate power to make my wishes come true, a djinni doing my bidding. However, If I was younger, I would have likely wasted them on the wrong things. Through most of my life I would have made all the wrong wishes.

I’m not younger, and there’s not a magical lamp.

Where I am now, my place in life, I could still wish for money, power, or good health. Many people would if given the chance. There are three wishes right there. For me, I’m at a good place, I’ve seen all that I want to see, though there are places I would have liked to visit. I’ve done most of what I wanted to do, although skydiving always seemed interesting, I never tried it, and I’m too old now. As far as money goes, I’m comfortable, not rich, but who needs that much money later on in life. Health is an interesting choice, I’ve always been fairly healthy, a broken bone here or there, but I don’t want to live forever, life can get lonely in the later years. Too much free time on one’s hands, and too much busyness in the people’s lives you’d care to see. They have no time for visits, they’re making their own wishes come true.

Which leads me back to here and now. A small cupcake pushed in front of me, a lone candle flickering away, shining its magical power, begging for me to make up my mind and blow it out. And those lyrics from that old pop song running through my head. At one time I would wish to turn back time, and maybe I have a time or two.

The idea of this wish was posed to me by the people surrounding me. The people that brought me the cupcake. They aren’t my loved ones, though some of them are dear to me for sure. I’ve seen most of them for the last few years. New people come and sadly people go, but some of the faces stay the same.

Taking in a deep breath, and choosing my words carefully, secretly, I give an energetic blow for an old man. I know my wish is wasted, I know my wish is lost, but I couldn’t help it. I did what I’ve always done, wished for the one thing I want right now. Each year that seems to change.

Lifting the tiny cake from the small plate I remember all the treats from years past. Peeling back the oily paper from the treat, I take a bite. It’s not one of the cupcakes my wife might have made, she was a great baker. It’s not one from that little place on the corner my dear wife and I used to walk to when she was still alive; what was the name of that place? It doesn’t matter. It’s none of those. It’s just a cupcake.

Gazing up from my partially eaten treat, I see those that gathered around me have gone back to their puzzles, their old TV shows, and their own meals. The sweet nurses who brought the treat have all returned to their daily duties. What could I wish for? There was only one thing. The thing I wish for every day in here.

“Mr. Robertson, you have visitors,” a voice says behind me, “It’s your son and grandchildren.”

I guess, some wishes can come true.