Birthday Girl

No matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves.

It’s as though something happened to make me think that things happened that never really happened at all.

That’s because you’ve already made your wish.

Of course I’d like to be prettier or smarter or rich. But I really can’t imagine what would happen to me if any of those things came true. They might be more than I could handle. I still don’t really know what life is all about. I don’t know how it works

Los deseos no deben contarse a nadie

She rested her elbow on the bar and looked at me. “Tell me,” she said. “What would you have wished for if you had been in my position?”“On the night of my twentieth birthday, you mean?”“Uh-huh.”I took some time to think about that, but I couldn’t come up with a single wish.“I can’t think of anything,” I confessed. “I’m too far away now from my twentieth birthday.”“You really can’t think of anything?”I nodded.“Not one thing?”“Not one thing.”She looked into my eyes again—straight in—and said, “That’s because you’ve already made your wish.

The old man raised both hands, palms toward her. “No, miss, don’t you give it a second thought. The kind of ‘present’ I have in mind is not something tangible, not something with a price tag. To put it simply”—he placed his hands on the desk and took one long, slow breath—”what I would like to do for a lovely young fairy such as you is to grant a wish you might have, to make your wish come true. Anything. Anything at all that you wish for—assuming that you do have such a wish.

Of course I'd like to be prettier or smarter or rich. But I really can't imagine what would happen if any of those things came true. They might be more than I could handle. I still don't really know what life is all about. I don't know how it works.