chapter 1

“I just wish I was bigger,” the young man confessed as he sat across the table from the mysterious old fortune teller. “I feel like I could finally find the woman of my dreams if only I wasn't so skinny and scrawny.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” said the old woman as she stared down into her magic crystal ball. “You know it is possible to have too much of a good thing in this world, and too much of anything can kill you.”

“I don't care,” said the young man, “I just want to be happy. I've been so lonely all of my life. Everyone just looks right past me, as if I'm not even there. Women think I'm a joke. If I was larger, then maybe I'd be able to find love.”

He had been strolling along by himself after work one evening when he came upon this mysterious looking shop that he'd never seen before. In the window there was a neon sign which said, “fortunes told, wishes granted.” As the young man had been feeling quite desperate and sorry for himself, he decided that he had little to lose and would take a chance at realizing his desires through this strange and mystical looking place.

The old woman with long grey curls wrapped at the top in a silk kerchief stared intently into her crystal, as though she were trying hard to decipher the visions that were coming to her. “You said your name is Jonson, yes?” she asked in a heavy foreign accent. “Samuel Jonson?”

“Well, I didn't say my name at all,” the young man said, sounding impressed with what seemed to him to be the genuine article before him, “but yes, that is my name.”

“Hmm,” the old woman said, rubbing her chin as she continued to gaze into the crystal in the center of the table, “yes, I can see that you have been very lonely. You live alone, you have no one in your life — but there is someone out there for you.”

“There is?”

“Of course. There is someone out there for everyone. We only need to open ourselves up to the world around us, and all that we seek will find us.”

“Well, how do I do that?”

The woman was silent for a moment, still staring at the crystal. After what seemed like a very long time, she finally broke her gaze and glared up at young Samuel with a very intense look in her eye. “You say you wish you were bigger?”

“I really do,” the young man repeated. “Iʼm so tired of being so scrawny and puny. No woman will ever want me the way that I am.”

“Are you sure this is what you want?” the old woman asked, looking Samuel dead in his eye.

Samuel thought silently to himself for a moment, contemplating what it was he was asking for. All of his life, he'd been told that he was too small and not strong enough to do anything. He could never go out and play with the other kids in his neighborhood when he was growing up, because his mother was afraid that he might get hurt. In school he wasn't allowed to play on any of the sports teams because he just wasn't big enough. Heʼd even tried out for marching band, but he was too weak to hold his clarinet and march at the same time.

Every girl he'd ever tried to talk to would shut him down and turn away. It seemed to him that he would never be able to get anything he wanted for himself in life as long as he was the way that he was.

“Yes,” he answered finally. “This is what I want. I want to be bigger!”

The old fortune teller reached under the table and without looking she grabbed for a box that seemed as if it had been waiting there for Samuel to come along. She instructed him to open the box, and inside there were two tablets that looked like they were chocolate candies. She told him to eat one of them now, and then to keep the other tablet in the box and place it under his pillow that night.

“When you wake up tomorrow,” she told him, “your wish will be granted and your life will be transformed, but it will not be permanent.”

“It won't?” Samuel asked.

“No,” she said, “the change you go through will not be permanent until you eat the second tablet. You must wait three days before you eat the second one. If you decide after three days that you don't want this change, and you like yourself as you are now, then you take this box and you burn it with the second tablet inside of it. This will make you go back to your old self. However, if you decide that you like the new you and you want to stay that way, then on third day you will eat this second tablet and you will be changed forever. You can never go back, you will always be the new you.”

Samuel didn't hesitate; he grabbed the first tablet and quickly swallowed it. “Mmm, it does taste like chocolate,” he said.

“Whatever you do,” said the old woman, “do not eat the second tablet before the third day. The consequences could be dire! Do you understand?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, right. Donʼt eat the second tablet before the third day. Got it!”

“Make sure you don't!” the old fortune teller said.

He gave the woman her money and thanked her for her time. As he exited the shop, the old woman shouted out and reminded him once more not to eat the second tablet before the three days were up. Samuel just nodded his head and walked out onto the sidewalk outside. He'd gotten no more than ten steps from the doorway when a thought occurred to him.

“I wonder what would happen to me if I did eat the second tablet before the three days were up,” he said to himself. “Maybe Iʼd better ask the old woman about it.”

Samuel then turned and walked back toward the shop, but as he did he was surprised to see that its appearance had changed completely. There was no longer a neon sign in the window, and peering through the weathered glass he saw no signs of the old woman. He reached for the door handle to let himself back in, but was shocked to see that there was no door handle — in fact, there was no longer a door.

Confused and slightly disturbed, Samuel ran back to his apartment as fast as he could. Once inside, he put his back to the door and leaned his head back against it as he struggled to catch his breath.

“What have I done?”