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“Okay,” said Phoenix, rocking backwards in his chair so that the front two legs lifted off the ground, “here’s my question: if a genie gave you three wishes, what would you wish for?”
“Genies aren’t real,” Miles said. “Could you pass the burnt sienna?”
Phoenix thunked his chair back down and grabbed a crayon. “Come oooon. I know that. But it’s a…thingy. Hypocritical?”
“Hypothetical,” Miles corrected him, taking the crayon from his outstretched hand. “Thank you.”
“Hypothetical,” Phoenix repeated. “Imagine if genies were real.”
“But they aren’t. So it’s a useless exercise.”
“This whole stupid game was your idea anyway, Miles,” Larry pointed out, tongue sticking out of his mouth a little bit as he concentrated on the sun he was drawing. “You’re the one who wanted to ‘elevate the conversational tone’ or whatever.”
Miles sighed. Larry was correct, of course; Miles was very fond of Phoenix and Larry, but their topics of discussion tended towards the juvenile. So he’d suggested that they each take turns coming up with a question for the other two. Previous queries had included “how many ants do you think there are in the whole world?” (Phoenix), “you bet I can fit three crayons in my nose?” (Larry), and “if you could speak any language, what would it be?” (Miles, after his initial suggestion of “what were the five most important Supreme Court decisions of the twentieth century?” had been summarily rejected). And today it was Phoenix’s turn again, and so here they were in art class, chatting about genies.
“Very well,” Miles said, and was promptly rewarded for his magnanimity with a bright grin from Phoenix. “We can discuss…wishes.”
“Mine’re easy,” Larry said, nearly ripping the paper with a particularly vigorous stroke of crayon. “I’d wish for one million dollars, and a PS2, and for every girl to like me.”
“Couldn’t you just use some of the one million dollars to buy the PS2?” Phoenix asked. “Isn’t that kind of a waste of two wishes?”
“I guess,” Larry said, apparently unbothered by this glaring inefficiency.
“And surely you don’t want every girl to like you,” Miles added. “Every girl in the whole world? Wouldn’t that be overwhelming?”
Larry folded his arms. “Okay, if you guys are so smart, then what would you wish for, huh? What’s your great idea?”
“I’m not sure,” Phoenix said thoughtfully. “Because genies are, they’re like, supposed to be all tricky, right? They try and twist your wishes back on you so that they end up going bad. Especially if you try anything too big. Like if you wish for no one ever to be hungry again, the genie could just kill everyone in the world, you know?”
“Well, then you just have to be careful,” Miles said. “Figure out how to word your wishes so that they can’t be misinterpreted or turned against you. My father says that’s what companies do when they get lawyers to write contracts, because the other party will always argue in their own interest. But if your language is precise enough and your logic is sound, you can close off any loopholes.”
“Huh,” said Phoenix. “So then what would it be? Your precise wish?”
I wish for a guarantee that, with no immediate changes in the status of the current global population, no one— no, that wasn’t right, that wasn’t good enough. Miles frowned. “I need time to think about it,” he said. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“All right,” Phoenix said easily. “Can I have cerulean?”
“Still doing homework this late?” Miles’ father asked, knocking lightly on the open door of his bedroom.
Miles looked up from his desk, where he’d started and discarded about ten different attempts at wish-writing. “No. This is…for fun.”
“Looks fun,” said Father, amusement tugging at his mouth. “Can I see?”
Miles nodded and held out the sheet he’d been working on.
“I wish for no one (henceforth understood to mean ‘all current and future living human beings’) to ever experience starvation, and that this goal should be accomplished in a way which neither results in any loss of life nor destabilizes the global economy…” Father read aloud. “This is very detailed. I like the use of ‘henceforth.’ Very professional.”
Miles folded his hands proudly. “Thank you. I looked it up.”
“Is there any particular reason you’re puzzling out airtight wording for an end to world hunger?” Father asked, handing the piece of paper back.
“Remember the question game you suggested I could play with Larry and Phoenix? Phoenix’s question today was about what we’d wish for if we had three wishes. But he thought that any big wishes would probably backfire, so I said I’d try to come up with wishes that were clear enough that they couldn’t go wrong.”
“Well, you seem to be doing an excellent job all on your own,” Father said, “but if you’d like a little constructive criticism—”
“Of course!”
“Your sentences are getting a little convoluted,” Father said. “Unavoidable to a certain extent, of course, under the circumstances, but I think you can achieve your goal of preventing malicious interpretation without entirely sacrificing comprehensibility. Particularly if you’re intending to present this to Phoenix.”
“How?” Miles asked eagerly.
“You have three wishes, yes?” Father asked, waiting for Miles’ answering nod. “Right. Then what if you added numbered clauses to each one? Something like I wish for the following changes to be made to the state of the world: Item 1: That henceforth no current or future living human should suffer from starvation. Item 2: That no human shall die as a result of the preceding stipulation… and then so on until you get everything down how you want it. Might help avoid run-ons.”
“Oh, thank you, Father,” Miles said. “Do you think—could I do sub-items? Item 1(a) and so forth?”
“If you feel they’re necessary, I don’t see why not,” Father agreed. “But I’d recommend against introducing complications for complication’s sake. The itemized clauses are supposed to enhance understanding, not occlude it.”
“All right,” Miles said, crossing out a half-written note.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Father said. “But my wish is that you not stay up too late puzzling over this.”
Miles nodded. “Granted.”
“I’m certain he’ll be very impressed,” Father said softly, and smiled once more before heading back out to the hallway.
“I did it!” Miles said triumphantly, placing a neatly written and stapled bundle of notebook pages on Phoenix’s desk.
“Huh?” Phoenix asked, picking up the document and scanning it.
“What we talked about yesterday,” Miles said impatiently. “The wishes. I figured them out. End hunger, establish world peace, and ensure they never stop making Signal Samurai. With no room for error!”
“Wow,” Phoenix said, flipping through the pages. “This is…it’s really neat, Miles. I don’t understand, uh, all of the words, but I like the little numbers.” He grinned. “So did you decide it wasn’t a…uh, a ‘useless exercise’ after all?”
Miles flushed. “It’s still not very practical,” he said, “but even if genies aren’t real, I did find the experiment…somewhat worthwhile.”
Phoenix grinned even wider. “Cool,” he said.
“What about you?” Miles asked. “Did you ever decide on your wishes?”
Phoenix nodded. “Kind of,” he said. “Because I think you’re right, I think if you’re careful enough you can definitely make a wish that a genie can’t turn around on you. But…it seems like an awful lot of work.” He pointed at Miles’ document. “And I didn’t want to do all of that. But then I figured it out. I’d wish for you.”
“O-oh,” Miles squeaked.
“Yeah!” Phoenix said, beaming proudly. “I’d wish for you, and then you could come and help me and we could get it perfect together!”
Miles frowned. “Well—” he began.
Phoenix’s face fell. “I mean, not if you wouldn’t want to—”
“It’s not that,” Miles told him. “Obviously I’d help you. But if you’re using one of your wishes just to summon me then I have to redo everything to get it all into two.” He picked the document back up off the desk, mind whirring. “I think I can probably get world hunger and world peace into one big subsection—it’s easier than trying to fit the Signal Samurai in there—”
“But genies aren’t real, right?” Phoenix pointed out. “I mean, that’s what you keep saying. So it’s not like you’d ever actually need to use this.”
Miles ducked his head, embarrassed. “Yes. Of course. It’s silly.”
“You know,” Phoenix said quietly, “I wouldn’t just wish for you because I need your help.”
“N-no?” Miles asked.
Phoenix shook his head. “Of course not! I’d also want you there because it’d be way better with you around. Everything always is.”
And none of Miles’ wish-clauses had been about anything remotely like that, but right then he felt as though he’d just had one of them granted anyway.