You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?

As a retired educator, this particular writing challenge brings to mind many stories I have read and shared with children.

The one that most sticks in my mind and when I used to tell children with as much theatrical flare and drama as possible had to do with “Woodcutter and the Three Wishes. “

The story follows that a woodcutter about to cut down the tree was stopped by the spirit of the tree, who said that if the woodcutter left the tree stand, he could wish for three things, and they would all come to pass. The woodcutter went home to his wife with The joyous news.

He was as hungry as hungry could be and didn’t respond favourably to his wife suggesting that he was a lazy, good-for-nothing hang about who didn’t want to work. She nagged and nagged him, implying that he’d been drinking and that this whole thing was just a falsehood.

The woodcutter became so agitated with his stomach gnawing with hunger that he said, “I wish I had a foot-long steaming hot red sausage covered with tomato sauce sitting on a plate in front of me right now “.

When his wife observed that the wish was genuine, she went absolutely ballistic. She called him for everything she could because he wasted a wish.

In absolute desperation, the woodcutter said, “I cannot stand your nagging and humbugging a moment longer! I wish the sausage would upend itself from my plate and attach itself to your nose. “

No sooner said than done, the sausage was there like a small elephant trunk swinging back and forth and unable to be detached.

Taking on a new life as an appendage attached to the woodcutter’s wife’s physicality, it couldn’t be cut and removed because of desperate bleeding. The woodcutter tugged and tugged and tugged, but to no avail.

In the end, there was only one thing that he could do. He wished that the sauce-covered sausage, whose sour covered what detached self from his wife’s countenance, disappeared immediately and forever.

That’s what happened, but that was the story. If I had three wishes, I would wish for the following:

That the world’s people would be one in peace, unity and harmony.

That all unrest, war, and the thirst for power would disappear from the environment and the thinking of humankind.

That my family of myself, my wife, our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and those to be born hereafter would be blessed and fulfilled each and every day of their lives.