Second Draft

            Second Draft

          Once upon a time an Adventurer told the Genie of the Lamp, “But I know how this works! The third wish is always to unwish the first two wishes!”

          The Genie said, “Indeed that is generally the case.”

          The Adventurer said, “The first two wishes always go wrong! What’s the use of that?” The Adventurer frowned. Then he smiled, and he proposed two wishes. The astonished Genie granted them, and vanished.

          Twenty years later the Adventurer, battered, bleeding and exhausted, returned to the Genie’s cave, as empty-handed as he left it. There the Genie awaited him. The Genie said, “Per your first wish, you and I meet again, here, after you adventured twenty years through every land on Earth, and every class and condition of society, in search of love, luck, fame, fortune, health and wealth.”

          The Adventurer smiled and said, “Yes.”

          The Genie said, “And per your second wish, your search has failed in every way! Every plan you laid, every choice you made, proved catastrophically wrong!”

          The Adventurer smiled and said, “Yes. And now my third wish is to unwish the first two wishes. I wish the last twenty years had never happened.”

          The Genie said, “Granted,” and vanished.

          The Adventurer, twenty years younger again, set forth from the Genie’s cave again, this time bearing a battered tin lamp, with genie tale attached, to sell for a pretty penny at the nearest bazaar.

          For the next twenty years he went to the same places as before, but made the opposite choices; and so in twenty years had wealth, health, fortune, fame, luck and love.

          Moral: Fail early and often.