Tree of Wishes

A Shocking Invitation: A James Perspective

I'm a simple man. The kind of guy you see at bars playing pool with his buds or drinking beer while watching a sports game. I went to school, picked up a decent office job, married a lovely lady I met at college, and moved into a nice home with a white picket fence like any other average joe. People like to call me Jim too, which is pretty close to Joe anyway. Yep, James 'Jim' Torben. Normal, normal Jim Torben.

At least I should have been normal, but then everything changed one day when I found myself sitting in my car and diving on the road for absolutely no reason. When I looked at my GPS, I saw I was heading on home, but I didn't know where I had come from. Since the roads were mostly empty with miles of barren plains to go, I pulled over and checked the history on the GPS to try and solve the mystery. It said I had gone to Gradmid. But why? Today was my day off. Was there an emergency at the office? I couldn't remember.

Then I spotted it. On my right wrist was a tattoo that read 'Electricity'. I suddenly remembered my dad. Bless his soul, he was a hard-working electrician who left us all too soon. Wait... the generator. Did I put it in the trunk this morning?

To check if I was right, I popped open the trunk and hopped out of the car, making my way over to the back. The trunk didn't have it, just my suitcase and spare tire, but I couldn't help but shake the feeling that I did put it in there. Oh well, I decided to put it aside for now and got back in my car to drive home. Normally I'd be upset if it was missing, yet for some reason it felt like it hadn't disappeared at all. Maybe I left it in the garage after all and dreamt the whole thing.

When I returned home and parked in the driveway, I pushed the remote button inside my car to open the garage door, and got out to inspect everything inside. After searching for about ten minutes, I still couldn't find it. The lawnmower was here, my dad's toolkit was here, the lawn chairs hadn't unmoved, and even the fridge was left untouched, but no generator. Did I leave it inside the house?

I walked inside to see my beautiful wife Paula busy at the kitchen, moseying around in an apron with her blonde hair tied up in cute, little bun.

"Hey, honey," I said while scratching my shaved head. "Did you see me with the generator this morning?"

She glanced over at me with those pretty hazel eyes and an innocently confused face. "Oh, yes. I was going to ask you about that. You said you were taking it with you to work. Did something happen?"

This jogged my memory a little. It wasn't easy to remember the details, like trying to piece together a vague dream, but I did take it with me. I didn't go to work though. There was... a tree? And a guy. Also, I think there was a dog? Yeah, there was a dog. Maybe two dogs? I'm not sure.

"I uh... sold it to one of my coworkers," I lied. "It was busted and he said he could scrap it into something useful. I'm probably better off buying a new one anyway."

She smiled and moved around the kitchen counter to stand in front of me, casually draping her arms over my broad shoulders. "I'm glad to hear it. I know it meant a lot to you since your father gave it to us as a wedding gift, but it was quite the eye sore."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," I replied, holding back the urge to roll my eyes as I wrapped my arms around her waist. "You wanna come with me to make sure the new one matches the drapes?"

"I'll let you figure it out," she said before planting a quick peck on the cheek and breaking from my hold to resume cooking.

That should have been the end of it. Even if I lost the generator, it was at least in good hands if I was willing to give it away to someone. What I didn't know was how much weirder my life was going to get because of it.

---

On the day I went back to work, I finally remembered everything. Two days earlier, I noticed a coworker carrying ten times his weight in boxes and asked him how he gained so much muscle in so little time. He told me all about this magical tree, and I figured I'd give it a shot. As soon as I sat down at my desk, I wrote this all down as a memo to myself on my phone in case I forgot again.