"I didn't want any of this..." I thought to myself, as I gazed out over my pool and yard. The sun beat down on my bare back as I lay with my chin propped up on the back of my hands. I listened to the girls laughing and playing in and around the pool. Two of my girls were down the hill a ways, trying to fly their kite in the soft summer breeze. The warm air was too tranquil for them to succeed, but they enjoyed the effort, running back and forth through the grass. And I enjoyed watching them as their long tanned legs propelled them along, flipping their light skirts upwards.
"If you don't want it, then make it go away!" That last thought came from Anna. No, Anna isn't a person, she is my conscience, the little angel on my shoulder that tries to get me to do the right thing. All men have a conscience which speaks in the voices of past authority figures or victims of a man's misdeeds. My inner voice is unique in all the world, because Anna is unique.
At least she was before I fell completely and totally in love with her.
* * *
I had a fairly normal childhood until my tenth birthday. There was no magic gift from a crazy uncle, or trip to a voodoo priestess, just a birthday cake with ten candles and a wish. Reflecting back, it could have started long before that, since I had always been a lucky kid. While playing in little league, the other team would always be a little clumsier when I was batting, and in school the teacher never seemed to call on me when I didn't know the answer. It was an accumulation of little things that in hindsight pointed to my special abilities. My tenth birthday, however, was the day I realized that something might be different about me.
My mother had made me invite the entire class to the party, even though I only wanted about half of them there. It wasn't so terrible really, since I was able to invite Mary Beth, the girl I had a secret crush on. She was my wish, I wished that Mary Beth would kiss me.
She arrived at the party with two other girls from my class. She wore a light blue jumper and a white blouse. Her blonde hair was held back by a blue ribbon with a big bow on top of her hair. She was the cliché of an innocent ten year old girl. Cliché or not, she made my ten year old heart flutter. For the entire party the girls stayed on one side of the room and the boys on the other. Occasionally one of the guys would get caught staring which would cause the girls to start giggling and whispering.
The boy who got caught would flush and turn away hastily and say, "I wonder what they are saying." After the scenario played out a few times I seemed to be able to hear what the girls were whispering, things like, "Did you see Billy? He's so gross!" or "David's kind of cute, but he only looks at Betty." I started relaying these bits to the boys and they would laugh, thinking I was making it all up. I even started to believe I was making it all up, since I really couldn't hear their voices.
The two groups finally got together for the cake and opening the presents. I don't remember which was done first, or even what presents I got. All I remember is my wish. As I leaned forward to blow out the candles, I gazed longingly right into Mary Beth's eyes. In my mind, I knew she was wondering why I was staring at her.
I blew and wished as hard as I could. As the last candle guttered out, I thought she said, "He deserves a birthday kiss! That'll show those other girls I'm not a goody two-shoes." I gasped and inhaled some of the smoke from the candles. The ensuing coughs seemed to cover my gasp and made everyone laugh.
There were a couple of games after that, but eventually the party started running down and the parent's arrived to pick up my guests. When Mary Beth's father arrived to pick her and the other two girls up I was crestfallen. She was almost all the way to the car and I hadn't gotten my kiss. Then I heard her say, "I can't believe I am doing this." She suddenly turned around and ran back to where I was standing. She then planted the softest sweetest kiss on me that I have ever experienced. Our lips touched for the smallest part of a second, but the feeling lingered for hours. "Happy Birthday!" she said before running back to her giggling friends and her dad's car.
* * *
For months afterwards I was wishing people would do things, but they never did. I started to be convinced that I had imagined the whole thing. Maybe Mary Beth really liked me and wanted to give me a birthday kiss anyway? Or maybe she had done it on a dare. I even started doubting that I had wished for her to kiss me. Maybe I had wished for a bike, or a model airplane, but changed my wish when she kissed me.
Yeah, it sounds kind of odd to think that I had changed my own memories, but my parent's were both psychologists, and occasionally I would hear them talking shop. Of course, I didn't understand most of what they were talking about, and things would be taken out of context. Anyway, it meant that growing up I was convinced my mind would play tricks on me.
We moved at the end of the school year, my father had gotten an offer from a research company in another state, and my mother was excited about a change of scenery. I was miserable, and kept wishing that Mary Beth would kiss me again. When she never materialized at my house for a goodbye smooch, I knew I had no powers.
