Wishing For a Better Future

Alfie seemed to always stare out the window instead of paying attention to his teacher. At ten years old, it was a habit he’d yet to grow out of despite his father’s insistence. To Alfie, it just seemed like there was so much more out there; big birds, small birds, yellow birds, and red ones too. They sang and danced around the vibrant leaves of evergreen trees, while flowers of the most spectacular colors blossomed and dazzled underneath the bright, spring sun. Insead of notes, Alfie’s notebook was filled entirely with his attempts to capture the beauty of the outside world on paper. He couldn’t help himself. To recreate something so beautiful, in his own image, how could math, literature, or anything compete with that?

The teacher marked the chalkboard with his ruler to get Alfie’s attention. The class chuckled in unison and Alfie’s face grew red with embarrassment. At the corner of his eye though, he noticed Hannah’s wide, gap-toothed grin staring at him. Noticing that he noticed, she giggled, her own face growing red, and quickly looked down and back towards the front of the room. Alfie didn’t really enjoy drawing people, but Hannah was an exception. He thought she was the prettiest girl in the world and had made the effort to draw her. After six tries he finally drew a picture of her that he felt was good enough to give for her birthday. He’d never forget the look of pure joy when she saw the picture. That silly, lovely, gap-tooth grin. If there was anything in the world that could draw his attention away from the vast, glory and wonder of the outside, it was her. He promised himself, one day he’d marry her, so that everyday he could paint her and see her smile.

Suddenly, a disheveled man burst into the classroom.

“Is there a Hitler here?” He asked, in an odd accent. “An Adolf Hilter?”

Adolf(Alfie) Hitler looked around confused and raised his hand.

His head immediately exploded as the man blasted him with a Ray-Gun. Bits and pieces of Hitler brain splattered across all the students sitting next to him. Parts of Alfie’s head that wasn’t stuck on the ceiling rained down on the terrified students, reaching all the way across to Hannah who was now painted with what used to be little Adolf’s hopes and dreams.

The teacher tried to protest, but the man punched him across the jaw and the teacher folded, unconscious on the ground. Most of the students ran out the door screaming, leaving many of their no longer future nazi classmates frozen in shock and disbelief. The shotgun man took one more appraising look at the headless corpse of child Hitler and gave a smug, satisfied grin as his corpse bust into blue flame: a feature of being hit by the Ray-Gun. He walked out of the school and into the lovely scenic setting that Alfie so admired while he still had a head. Children could still be heard screaming in the background.

After walking away from any potentially prying eyes, the Ray-Gun man checked the holographic display of his watch. First he scrolled to a large alphabetized list of names and tapped Hitler’s. A new list appeared containing years between 1889 and 1945. More than half of these were crossed out. The Ray-Gun man proceeded to cross out 1899 as well. He then turned his watch off and sighed as he leaned against a tree.

“Genie!” He called out.

A copyright-friendly colored genie appeared next to him. “Yes máster”, he said, completely devoid of sarcasm.

“I need a rule clarification.” Said the man.

“You’re right máster, there is no rule prohibiting you from freeing me from my eternal servitude”. The genie answered.

“What?” Said the man. “No, why do you keep bringing that up? No, I want to know if my wish to time travel lets me travel to more than one place on the same timeline.”

“Thanks to your first wish of “not to be fucked by your wishes”, I don’t see why that would be a problem.”

“Ok, good, cause this is like my-“ the man pauses to check the crossed out dates on his Watch, “15th time killing Hitler and the future has only gotten worse each time. I figure if I can also knock out guys on the same timeline I can keep that from happening.”

The man checked his watch.

“Weather looks like it should be good in Britain right now. I could take out little Oswald and keep him from creating fascist England.” He charged his Ray-GUn. “Then Stalin next”.

“You know you can just use your last wish to see what you’d have to do to make your optimal timeline” the genie said.

“Nah, can't have you going around granting other people wishes that can undo all my progress. And apparently I can’t wish for more wishes.”

“Then why didn’t you just wish your perfect timeline was a thing?”

“Because I want to bang Cleopatra too.”

The genie stayed silent and expressionless.

The man shifted awkwardly, “I mean least I deserve for stopping WW2.”

“I told you I can’t force love” The genie said.

“Cleopatra is known for liking strong men and I’m a time-traveler with a mind-blowing gun. Doesn’t get stronger than that.”

The genie continued, “ And how long will you go around shooting children in order to find out what will make a war free timeline?”

“Wish I could tell you.”

The genie sighed, “You can’t”.

“What?”

“There’s no amount of children or people you can kill to make a peaceful future. There’s always going to be angry, scared people who feel violence is the best solution. You kill one, they’ll just be another to take their place. You might be better off talking to these potential mass murderers, and show them a more peaceful way. Show them love. ”

“I don’t know,” replied the man. “Seems easier to just shoot them. Less languages and philosophy to learn.

The genie sighed, “Ok well, good luck with that, I guess. I’m done here.”

“Wait, what?”

“You made your last wish.”

“What wish?”

“To be able to tell me how many children you have to murder”.

“Oh for fucks sake!”

“Should’ve wished to not be fucked by yourself.”

“Suck my ass”

“Wish me to?”

The man glared at the genie, seething.

“Because you can’t. You're out of wishes.”

“Ambiguously colored prick”, the man mumbled to himself.

“You’ve still got child Hitler stuck in your hair by the way”. And with that the genie vanished.

The man sighed and hung his head for a moment. He then checked his watch.

“Fuck it” he said, before traveling to 35 B.C. Egypt.