On July 12, 2007 Jonathan was celebrating his eleventh birthday party. No friends had attended the party, only his mother, a tall skinny woman with a kind face who was definitely emotionally stronger than she looked, having raised her kid all on her own, and his uncle Enrique, a man that at first sight one could not say whether he was fat or muscular due to the fact that his broad shoulders were proportionally as big as his large belly, but it could be affirmed without a shadow of a doubt that he was very hairy, since he did not hide his leafy chest nor his tremendously hairy arms, visible behind his white tank top, although they did not compare to the moustache that stuck out, clearly visible even in the silhouette of the back of his face.
Those were the only two people present at that humble, rather poor birthday party. He had in fact not invited anyone from his class to attend his birthday this year. If he doesn’t invite anyone, he thought, he would not be disappointed when nobody showed up. His family was so poor, and his celebrations so humble, that in the years when another kid did show up they would end up being disappointed in the lack of decoration and effort put into making the celebration special, and their friendship would take a hit. Rumours would spread at school that the party was “really lame” and it was then even less likely that anyone would show up the next year. Although he had seen boys on television celebrating showy parties with friends, boxes full of gifts, music and pointy hats, he did not remember any of that in any of his birthdays, which commonly consisted of a simple meal, no different from the ones in any other day of the year, but with a cake and maybe a simple gift that his mother assured Jonathan it was something very special, something he deserved because he had been so well behaved during the past year, which was nothing more than an excuse that allowed her not to have to give him anything in the years in which the household economy did not allow it.
Both adults insisted on singing the “happy birthday to you” song, something for which he already felt too old. Once they finished, his mother gently placed her hand on the young boy’s shoulder, and suggested he close his eyes, make a wish, and blow out the candles. He didn’t have to think very hard as what he wished the most in his life at that moment was quite obvious. There was one thing he wanted more than anything in the world, and he fulfilled his part in the tradition. He closed his eyes and whispered his wish.
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To his surprise, upon opening his eyes he found that his unlikely wish had come true. In his hands he had, without knowing how it had gotten there, a Nintendo 64, the video game console that had just come out on the market a few months ago. He cared little that the console was not in its box, had already a cartridge inserted in its slot, and with all the cables hanging from the back. He no longer had to go to Juan’s house, a neighbour from the same building whose father was rich (as far as he knew) and had been able to get him one at launch. Juan, who is the same age as him, had invited him to his flat to show off the new video game console but did not allow him to play, forcing him to watch how he played instead of giving him a turn with the controller. After having begged for a Nintendo 64 ever since, being able to finally have his own console filled him with joy.
– Thanks, mom! It’s exactly what I wished for!
The second surprise came when his own mother, who being an overprotective single mother had never even scolded him, slapped him across the face with more strength than her skinny arm seemed to have. He was left petrified and, when the shock disappeared, he began to tear up. His mother took the video game console from his hands with a strong pull and walked with it to the front door of the apartment, which was open, although Jonathan didn’t remember anyone opening it. The woman handed the video game console to a very well-dressed man on the other side of the door who, with his arms akimbo, seemed angry for some reason.
–I’m so, so sorry. – pleaded the woman to that person – He normally doesn’t behave like this.
–I hope you give him a good scolding. And I don’t want him to play with Juan ever again.
–Of course, I understand. I’m very sorry.
He had never seen his mother with her face so red. She looked down at the floor, making small bows each time she apologised.
–Why did you do that? – his uncle asked him, standing in front of the chair where the boy was sitting, imposing Jonathan with his great presence.
–I didn’t do anything. – he responded, confused, feeling as if that great mass of a person was getting bigger and bigger while he was getting smaller.
He didn’t know it yet, but that was the first time he used the ability to make a wish come true. Of course, that video game console didn’t materialise out of nowhere in his hands, that would be ridiculous.
The boy was punished severely, forced to stay in his room, without tasting his own birthday cake and they obviously didn’t give him his gift, and without any explanation of what had happened. His mother insisted he could come out when he stopped lying and apologised for the thing they both clearly saw him do, so there was no point in denying it. The rest of that afternoon, locked in his room, he spent tying loose ends and thinking about what could have happened. Through the hints from his mother and his uncle Enrique, he came to deduce what had happened: Somehow he had to be the perpetrator of the acts he was being accused of. It must have been him who had gone to steal his own gift all by himself, and somehow he had no memory of it.
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As confusion gave way to anger, he started feeling that it wasn’t fair that it had happened to him. After all, even if it were true that he had done what he was being accused of, he hadn’t done it on purpose, and yet he found himself unable to convince his family that he really hadn’t done it consciously. Next, the anger gave way to resentment; If it wasn’t his fault, logically it had to be someone else’s. He didn’t figure out how, but surely it was Juan’s fault, or Juan’s father’s, because they were unpleasant people. Anyone but his own. That theory didn’t hold up for very long.
Even though he didn’t know exactly what happened, it couldn’t be denied that the video game console appeared in his arms when he had wished for it, so resigning himself to the facts he finally asked his mother for forgiveness, which she was quick to come around and do. he was allowed to try a piece of the cake. However, a couple days had already passed since the incident, and the cake no longer tasted like a birthday cake; A cake that in fact seems to taste better just because he was the protagonist for the day, now instead just tasted like normal, everyday cake. And he could forget any idea of his family ever gifting him a video game console at any point in his life. That incident would remain in the memory of that household for the rest of the time he lived under his mother’s roof, and having a video game console would become implicitly an unnameable taboo; In the following years he would never again dare to ask his mother for a Nintendo 64, or any other video game console, for fear of having to go through the uncomfortable conversation about what had happened that day.
The following weeks passed without further incidents. That event had already almost been forgotten if it weren’t for the fact that from time to time the sequence of events from that day would come back to his memory, filling him with doubts about what could have happened.
But then, processing the series of events that had happened he started to wonder why it even happened in the first place, and could it be replicated? If he wishes for something else, will it come true? What kinds of things could he wish for? He might get in trouble for doing it again but, what if he wished for something so important that, even if he were punished for it, it wouldn’t matter if it meant it would come true? But that’s impossible, right? The idea of replicating that experiment obsessed him, and for several days he could hardly think about anything else. He decided that he had to try it; he was going to wish for his father to come back. What did he have to lose by trying?
In order to replicate what had happened that day, he made a mental list of everything that had taken place as if it were a ritual. He had managed to save enough to buy a cake (a small one, but maybe it could work) and candles. He stuck into the cake exactly the same number of candles as last time and lit them. He closed his eyes very tightly; more than usual, and whispered his wish before blowing out the candles. Upon opening them, he waited for the apartment door to open and for his father, whom he hadn’t seen in years, to appear announcing he was home. But he remained alone in that small, almost claustrophobic apartment where nothing interesting ever happened.
Had he rushed too much in making the wish? Last time he made the wish after singing “happy birthday to you”, maybe he needed to follow the correct order of that ritual. He sang the song quickly, hurrying to mention every word of the chant as fast as possible, closed his eyes and tried again. And again, and again.
Nothing.
Maybe wishing for things to magically become real was after all a silly impossibility. Or maybe that specific wish was impossible; he knew that his father had died and the dead don’t come back to life. What could he do, a simple child, to bring him back? After all, last time, even though he didn’t remember, it was he himself who made his wish come true. What happened followed some rules, and it doesn’t grant impossible wishes. But what’s the point of being able to wish for anything when it’s something you can make happen by your own means? Nonsense, he thought. He was too upset to even try the cake, even though it was his favourite.
That day, as usual, she got home when Jonathan was already in bed, which gave her little time to socialise with her own son. But being a single mother, her multiple jobs and the little bit of money her brother Enrique helped with were the only things that put food on the table and paid for her son’s education. That was the most important thing for her, even though she often felt like a stranger in her own son’s life. They usually only interacted with each other during the mornings, when she had to wake him up and make sure he would get dressed, eat breakfast, and then she would accompany him to the school gate, from where she would go to the first of her jobs. And weekends, despite there being no school, were no different, as day to day she had to settle for an interaction that was more like that of a prison guard than a mother.
She opened the fridge to find a cake she didn’t remember buying. She wondered if Jonathan had stolen it too, like that video game console, however rummaging through the trash she found the purchase receipt from the bakery, so she sighed knowing that at least he had bought it. She had to admit to herself that she had jumped to conclusions by assuming the kid had stolen something but, of course, remembering the incident during the birthday party it wouldn’t have been the first time he’s done it. That worried her a lot. The absence of a father figure hadn’t been something that concerned her too much so far, but the lack of a stable job that allowed her free hours to spend time with Jonathan had put her in a situation where the boy was suffering from the absence of anyone to guide him through life at all. Jonathan took care of himself, he was free to make his own decisions. Who knows what kind of person he would end up becoming, having grown up in a neighbourhood that was not exactly hospitable.
The next day she bought a diary and gave it to Jonathan, but the boy wasn’t particularly thrilled about the unexpected present after those days spent getting used to the idea that maybe his greatest wish could come true. He saw no interest in using the diary, even though his mother insisted on it, perhaps driven by motives less altruistic than a gift would usually imply; unable to forget what happened during the birthday, as a single mother she was worried about her son, and came to the conclusion of giving him a diary with the less than morally correct intention of reading it without his consent in order to understand if something bad was happening to him, if there was a possibility that, due to a lack of a father figure in his life, he had certain criminal tendencies that would lead him down a bad path in life.
