Changing Planes

I thought again. I said, “When I was twelve or thirteen, I used to plan what I’d wish for if they gave me three wishes. I thought I’d wish, ( wish that having lived well to the age of eighty-five and having written some very good books, I may die quietly, knowing that all the people I love are happy and in good health, I knew that this was a stupid, disgusting wish. Pragmatic. Selfish. A coward’s wish. I knew it wasn’t fair. They would never allow it to be one of my three wishes. Besides, having wished it, what would I do with the other two wishes? So then I’d think, with the other two I could wish that everybody in the world was happier, or that they’d stop fighting wars, or that they’d wake up tomorrow morning feeling really good and be kind to everybody else all day, no, all year, no, forever, but then I’d realise I didn’t really believe in any of these wishes as anything but wishes. So long as they were wishes they were fine, even useful, but they couldn’t go any further than being wishes. By nothing I do can I attain a goal beyond my reach, as King Yudhishthira said when he found heaven wasn’t all he’d hoped for. There are gates the bravest horse can’t jump. If wishes were horses, I’d have a whole herd of them, roan and buckskin, lovely wild horses, never bridled, never broken, galloping over the plains past red mesas and blue mountains. But cowards ride rocking horses made of wood with painted eyes, and back and forth they go, back and forth in one place on the playroom floor, back and forth, and all the plains and mesas and mountains are only in the rider’s eyes. So never mind about the wishes. Give me a sausage, please.”

We ate together, the old man and I. The sausages were excellent, so were the mashed potatoes and fried onions. I could not have wished for a better supper. After it we sat in companionable silence for a bit, looking at the fire, and then I thanked him for his hospitality and asked him for directions to the In-terplanary Hotel.

“It’s a wild night,” he said, rocking in his rocking chair.

“I have to be in Memphis tomorrow morning,” I said.

“Memphis,” he said thoughtfully, or perhaps he said “Mem-fish.” He rocked a bit and said, “Ah, well, then. Better go east.”

And as at that moment a whole group of people erupted from an inner room I had not previously noticed, bluish-skinned silver-haired people dressed in tuxedos, off-the-shoulder ball gowns, and tiny pointy shoes, arguing shrilly, laughing loudly, making exaggerated gestures, batting their eyes, each holding a cocktail glass containing an oily liquid and one embalmed green olive, I did not feel like staying any longer, but plunged out into the night, which evidently was going to be wild only in the old man’s cottage, because out here on the seashore it was quite still, a half moon shining over the placid black water that sighed and rustled softly on the broad, curving beach.