❛ if i could have just one wish, i would probably screw it up. ❜
“me too,” florence says immediately.
it’s an instinct more than anything. it’s not a great response, to just go oh yeah, haha, i too would immediately fuck up a wish, no holds barred, but it’s probably honest. she wouldn’t even know what to wish for, or what would be best for herself. she wouldn’t know whether to wish for something big and cliche like world peace or the end of climate change, or if she should try to make her life, however long or short it’s going to be, a modicum better for herself. that’s really a good question to ask yourself, probably. just in case you ever happen to run into a wish-related situation.
she laughs a little to herself, rubbing at the back of her head. when she was a kid, her and her sister used to play a game to practice wishes. some kids wish because they want to get out of bad situations, because all they’ve got is wishes. her life wasn’t that bad when she was a kid. but they both liked to practice at things to get better. her sister was the sports kid, and florence was the one who sat there looking at photos and moving pictures and thought that she could do that. so they’d tell each other wishes, more and more extraordinary and overblown, until one of them broke and started laughing.
things were simple then. the act of wishing was simple and harmless and didn’t feel like it was invoking something bad to happen, or like it was somehow a mistake. it feels like that now. like anyone in their twenties, florence spends a lot of her spare time on her couch thinking about how things could be rather than how they are. and maybe that’s a kind of wishing too. a hypothetical built up so big that it consumes the brain.
“most people would fuck up one wish, though,” she says. maybe that’s true. maybe it’s her just trying to reassure herself. it must be normal, to make that kind of mistake, because if it’s abnormal then she really is a failure in that too. “like, come on? one wish? to try to fix everything wrong in your life or in the world? that’s crazy. no one could pull that off, not even the smartest people on earth.”
it’s reassuring. to think that everyone is wallowing around in the same way. that no one really knows what they’re doing. that no one has purpose, and everyone who does, like silicon valley guys or famous artists or even the guy who works at the gas station and fully believes that his destiny, are just pretending because it’s easier that way. and maybe that’s it. maybe things are that similar.
or maybe she’s just especially aimless. “i think it’ll be okay anyway, though,” florence finally says, her thumb rubbing at the inside of her wrist. “like - it has to be, eventually.”