The hooded man approached me in the middle of the night, as I was walking home from a business meeting that ran late. He said the words that tear at the soul, a question with infinite answers but always a constant result: “I will grant you one wish.” I laughed to myself. Crazy person or not, I knew how these stories always went: make wish, granted in a horrifying way, wisher dies. Simple as that. I’d read “The Monkey’s Paw.” I’d seen Wishmaster. I wouldn’t be so carelessly stupid. I thought myself clever when I made my wish, so innocuous that any play on it would be downright foolish.