Everyone Has A Number - Short Story Sample

I’m sitting at a bar drinking a delicious pint and working on a crossword that is now starting to supply me with higher levels of frustration than it is a relief from boredom.  Into the bar stumbles an old, already quite drunken man with shaggy hair and worn clothing.  He is holding something.  He stumbles across the bar and sits down on one of the bar stools beside me. 

“Everyone has a number! Everyone! You just don’t know what yours is!” The shaggy old lunatic said to me. 

“Look I’m just trying to watch the game you old coot.  If I wanted a pint of crazy I would have stayed home with the wife.” I quickly snapped back at him. 

The shaggy maniac stares at me for a second then asks, “Do you love your wife? What if something happened to her? What if she was dying? Would you risk it all to save her??”

“I don’t like the cut of your jib you old..” I pause and notice what he was holding in his hand was a tatty looking gold ring with a red gem on top.  It looks like something straight off old Queen Vic’s boney haggard finger. 

The old man sees that I have noticed the ring and let out a sly smile.  “I remember the first time I saw the ring like it was yesterday.  I looked a lot like you look right now, and thinking about it I probably look a lot like the old b*stard I stole it from all those years ago.”

I scrunch up my eyes confused and getting increasingly annoyed by this man.  

He asks. “What is your name?”

I sarcastically mutter, “You could literally own 10,000 shares in my name.  You could write a business plan for my name and make little pens with a logo and my name on it and it would just still not be any of your business.”

He stares at me inanely. 

I contemplate lying or plainly just not answering but against my better judgment I reply, “My name is Conor.”

Eagerly he probes, “What if I told you this ring could give you everything you ever wanted?”

Without even looking to him I snap, “Is this the part where you ask me to put my finger in your ring because if it is. . “

The old man laughs and splurts out “Haha no my boy! This is the part where I change your life forever.  If you wear this ring you can make as many wishes as you want and they will always come true!”

I tighten my grip around my glass and through gritted teeth I humour the progressively aggravating coffin dodger.  “So you have a magic ring? Brilliant. So why on earth would you give it to me? Is this one of those dickey pyramid schemes or something?”

The timeworn fellow laughs annoyingly again.  “I am not trying to sell you anything! My problem is simply that everyone has a certain number of wishes they can make before they turn bad, and start affecting their previous wishes in terrible ways!”

I stare at the deep-rooted chap blankly.  When he first walked in the bar he looked miserable and now I can’t help but notice the look of excitement in his eyes. 

He continues. “These wishes are a lot like alcohol tolerance! Some people can only manage 1 or 2 drinks before they have had enough.  Others can drink until the bar is dry without having so much as a sore head the next day.  Alcohol can be a wonderful thing when used in moderation.  When used excessively you can end up in a truly awful state! Just like these wishes.”

I notice people from around the bar starting to look over to us.  I try to act as though I don’t know this drunken fool and as I turn my head from him I ask, “So why are you telling me this?”

He suddenly looks deadly serious. “You my boy could just be the answer to all my problems. The man I stole this ring from had made 4 wishes before they went bad and the one before that only 3.  I have already made 6 wishes and not a single bad thing has happened to me! Except. . .”

Puzzled, angry and slightly curious I ask, “So what’s the problem? Except what?”

He is so close to me now I can smell the nauseating stench of his whiskey coated breath on my nose. He continues, “The last time I made a wish was over 2 years ago.  I promised my wife I would never make another one for fear our previous wishes went bad. However now she is very sick.  So sick in fact I don’t believe she will make it through the week.  I fear it was my last wish that may have been the cause.”

I quickly snap, “Well Aladdin why don’t you make lucky number seven be for your wife to get better?”

He sighs and explains, “My last wish was for my wife to get pregnant with our beautiful baby girl. We were told we could not have children, yet she is very much alive and well today! I could not live with myself if anything happened to my daughter due to me making one wish too many.  On my baby girl’s 2^nd birthday my wife fell ill.  I am certain the ring must be the reason.  I have played one card too many.”

I look at this man and keep his gaze for a while.  I can tell this man, beneath the mangy beard and dirty designer suit was once an attractive possibly wealthy man.  Has he really been pushed to this because of his ill wife? Has he just been going from bar to bar telling his story hoping someone will have some sort of magic wand to solve his problems? No, this man has to be insane.  

As I look away from his stare he reaches out to my hand and exclaims, “Surely there is something you want? You need or desire?”

My mind casts over my life like a like an old movie projector in my brain.  A loveless marriage, a dead end job and a car that sounds like a bag of spanners in a washing machine. If I could change it all, would I? 

He cries, “You must take the ring. You can keep it forever and make a thousand wishes for all I care, but you must promise me for your first wish you must request my wife’s full and healthy recovery!”

He pushes the ring into my hand and closes my fingers over it tight.  I can’t help but be fascinated by this whole thing, convinced maybe.  Against my better judgement I ask, “What is your wife’s name?”

He shouts, “Edna Francine McPrice.  Please! I beg you!”

I quickly slip on the ring and pedantically murmur “I wish for the full and frank recovery of Mrs Edna Francine McPrice. May she continue to have the pleasure of this nut cases company for many years to come.”

He stands up and exclaims, “Oh thank you! Thank you so mu..”

I interrupt and having just slipped the ring down on my middle finger I slowly raise it to the eccentric man’s face and say, “I wish this stupid undiagnosed menace to society would p*ss off and leave me in peace.”

Shocked and baffled the man without saying a word, turns his back to me and walks across the room to the exit.  He doesn’t even acknowledge me as he speedily skips through the door he sulked through several minutes ago.  

I gawp down at the golden band on my middle finger and chuckle like a hyena on marijuana.  I think to myself, “The only thing I will be granted from wearing this old piece of junk is hepatitis.” The gold glints off my now empty pint glass.  “I wish I had a full pint.”

Seconds later the barman approaches and apologetically says, “Sorry about that old geezer buddy, here’s one on the house for the hassle.”

A coincidence.  Definitely a coincidence.  I gratefully nod and accept my prize, my wish.  As I glug down the liquid gold I can’t help but let my mind wander to what I have been trying not to think about ever since he left.  Why didn’t I ask him what his other wishes were?

It is four days before I think of that golden, circular temptress again.  I work for a car showroom that sells ridiculously expensive cars to ridiculously wealthy people.  My resentment for the filthy rich customers I serve is only trumped by my envy for them.  I’m in my office when I look down on my desk and see the headline that turned my world upside down:

“Edna Francine McPrice, miracle recovery”

To be continued. . .