I am dictating into a smart phone which is in turn typing out everything I say. What an amazing app exclamation point no I mean put an! Oh there it goes. What an amazing app! I just downloaded it for a dollar ninety five. All without getting out of bed. I am going to keep strict control of and tight tabs on my actions this time and I will document it all using this smart phone app. Yesterday or I guess I should call it quote the last time I experienced today unquote I talked to a new doctor. He’s the one that gave me the idea to use a recorder to document my day.

Today I will not do a reset. What, you ask, is a reset question mark no stop. What, you ask, is a reset? It’s when I start things over again. I always reset back to the last moment I can remember not having these powers. What powers you ask? I can quote will unquote things to happen. Whatever I want to happen happens and I’ve yet to make it through the day without using these powers. Sounds great doesn’t it? Well inevitably things just get weirder and weirder until I say screw it and reset back to nine o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, July 21 and try again. 

I don’t want these powers to wish things to happen anymore. I’ve tried to wish them away but that doesn’t work. I’m thinking that if I can make it through the entire day without using them then maybe they will go away. Like maybe not using them is some sort of test. I don’t know where these powers came from but I do remember the first time I woke up in my crummy little studio apartment at nine o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, July 21, same as it is right now well actually it’s nine fifteen right now I had to get this recorder app to work. The first time nine o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, July 21 happened I was lying here like I am now listening to the beeping of trucks backing up two blocks over. The first thing I saw as always was the wallpaper peeling up in the corner because of all the condensation from me boiling water for Ramen noodles all the time. That’s all us thirty year old unemployed guys eat isn’t it? I remember that on that first day I did make it out of the house before I used my powers for the first time so I should be able to get up and out now without too much trouble. But I’ve never recorded Tuesday the 21st before. I’m going to put my smart phone on the nightstand now and get dressed without thinking of anything that could cause me to make something happen at my command.

Success! I’m back and no willing or wishing or anything just good old manual dressing. I thought about skipping group meeting today and simply staying cooped up in my room here avoiding temptations but there’s going to be a water leak in the apartment above me around ten forty five and the super and maintenance are going to come in and it just gets too stressful because they have to move my dresser and my album collection and open the ceiling and I can’t handle it! I would just will the leak from happening in the first place but then there would go any chance of ending this curse because I made a wish right off the bat. So I think I will start today off doing what I think I am supposed to do and go to group. New paragraph I’m out on the street, walking to group. I will keep my mind busy by describing what I see. It is hot and the concrete sidewalk has weeds in the cracks and the curb juts up just a little higher and at a little bit of an angle like the sidewalk and curb weren’t poured at the same time. Last summer the city took out a concrete sidewalk square every so often and replaced them with skinny little maple trees that look like they need water now. I am looking down and describing I guess because I’m afraid of what I hear in the park up ahead. Yep, I see them now. Two little boys are fighting over the one working swing. I think this was my first quote will unquote. He pushes him. Now the other pushes him back. I wish I could just stop the - whoa! I almost did it! I almost made a wish! You see now? Do you see what I’m up against? It’s so easy to just say quote I wish unquote. And when that wish comes true every time well there goes the neighborhood. Ha! I did that a few times! I wished the neighborhood was gone and it went away! I was standing on Manhattan Island in the time of the Indians and it was just trees and swampy and buggy. 

I guess I don’t know how to do quotes. Wait “ oh there it is. Not say quote and unquote but actually just I’ll say it slowly quotation mark. Got it. “ “ “ And until this is downloaded to my laptop I can’t go back and delete or edit so sorry for the punctuation!

Yep those little boys are fighting. And no one is around. Why are their parents never around? Why does this fall to me every day? Countless sit downs and talking twos had no effect. And when I will a second swing to appear next to the first? They just freak out, get scared, and run away. They’re looking at me look at them right now. I must look rather creepy this guy watching them and talking into a phone but not holding it like a phone but maybe it looks like it’s on speakerphone. I should probably move on before someone asks me what I’m doing. That would be my luck wouldn’t it someone caring what I’m doing but not caring if two little boys beat the heck out of each other on the playground!

All right then fine, I’m going to keep walking through the park on my way to group but I’m not going to stop for anything. Don’t say I wish don’t say I wish don’t say I wish I’ll just describe. I’m on a paved asphalt path that winds around through bushes and flower gardens and there’s a little cute walking bridge over a pond. There are people everywhere. That woman with the red big brimmed hat is going to pick a rose in a minute and put it in her hat. I hate it every time she does that because I think that that rose should not be picked. A couple times I made it so that she pricks her finger on a thorn! Ha! Or that a police man saw her do it and gave her a ticket because it’s illegal to pick flowers in the park. But today I’m going to hurry by. I don’t want to see her do it today. The roses are so pretty and they shouldn’t be picked. There she’s behind me now. She can do anything she wants for all I care. 

New paragraph oops sorry let me try again

Group is in that tall building there. I don’t want to go anymore. They never believe me when I tell them what I can do and then when I show them all hell breaks loose. It always turns out after the initial shock wears off that they say I should use my powers “for good” whatever that means. And don’t be shocked by that. I mean it. “Whatever that means.” I couldn’t stop two boys from fighting remember? I even froze them in place. They could breathe and move their eyes and watch me and listen but they couldn’t move. I willed them to stay still like that as I tried to explain to them about how the swing is nothing to fight over. Hell I can’t hardly pay my rent and you’re fighting over a swing. But then when I release them they run away crying.

Maybe I will go to group.

Here I am at the outpatient center. First flight of stairs eleven steps then twelve steps then eleven steps then twelve steps. I remember when I made all the stairwells be twelve steps so I wouldn’t have to count anymore. No one noticed and I felt like I got away with something. Looking back I guess I didn’t specify whether anyone should or shouldn’t notice. Maybe I didn’t get away with something if no one was even able to notice. Now I’m at the end of the hallway almost whispering into this recording app. There’s Adrian walking into the room up ahead of me. She looks like Rocky Balboa’s girlfriend in the original rocky movie, sort of homely. Okay her real name is Penny but I like Adrian better. I always rename her but she’ll have to stay Penny today if I want to break this curse. I know who she really is. Adrian yo Adrian.

Quietly now. It’s the first break time during group and I’m sitting on the end of a sofa, but group leader Ms. Kinsey is in a chair off the other end. I can’t see her very well and when I sit forward to see I block the view of a person on a couch perpendicular to mine. Oh, if I could just do one thing today: rearrange the room. No no no whew that was close. I thought that might have counted as a wish, but nothing changed so I must not have wished. Got to go

I’m back. George was giving me a funny look. I had to put this away until now which is our second break time. George said no recordings are allowed in group which is true but I said I was just leaving a voicemail for someone and he said who and I said my brother but then I couldn’t remember if George knew my brother had died but he didn’t say anything. Anyway break is almost over now so I’m putting this away until we’re done. Bye. But you don’t know anything about me or what I can do if I wanted to I could will all of you dead or millionaires or gerbils but it wouldn’t even matter because then I’d just reset to this morning I’m not going to prove it this time because I want to break this curse I’m sorry Ms. Kinsey it’s time to go can I go now I’d really like to go now no George I’m not going to wish you dead I just want to get out of here no Ms. Kinsey you don’t need to call anyone I’ve got to go now

Oh my god! You should have heard it in there. They always ask what’s bothering us or what’s on our mind and I should know by now not to be honest but I want to be honest especially today when today’s going to be the day I finally break this curse. I practically ran out and now I’m hurrying down the stairs. I don’t know where to go right now to be alone and not tempted to make any wishes. I just have to get out of this stairwell and out of this building.

I’m back in the park sitting on the grass. I found as quiet and secluded a spot as I can. I can’t go home because they’re going to have my ceiling torn apart to get at the water leak from the apartment above mine. My mind is racing. What did that doctor say yesterday? I should find a philosopher? Wait you don’t know what I’m talking about. 

Yesterday, if I can call it that – the last Tuesday, July 21st before this one – I went to the Meadows University or Institute or Hospital or whatever they are to their psychiatric unit. I asked the guy at the front desk if they had an “expert” on humanity and changing people’s attitudes. I told him there was nothing wrong with my mind, but that I needed someone to help me with my powers. I ended up talking to a big shot psychiatrist named Dr. O’Toole. I explained I am having trouble fixing humanity and he asked why I didn’t go talk to a philosopher. But of course he didn’t understand I have this power.

Did I explain that I think I was given this power to fix humanity? Before I even had this power I would daydream about having unlimited wishes and fixing all the strife in the world. Just wish it away! Doesn’t everyone dream about this? If not they should. So then when I got these powers I figured that must have been why they were given to me. Well not at first I didn’t think that. At first I wished myself onto tropical beaches with Victoria’s Secret models but I got tired of that eventually. So I decided to find some purpose in all of this, something that I’m supposed to do with this power. I figured it was to fix humanity. But I can’t. No really, with unlimited powers, I can’t seem to fix humanity. 

Oh, the doctor also said “omnipotent.” How’d he put it? “If you are omnipotent, then what do you need me for?” The doctor was sort of a jerk but I guess my story is really a little difficult to believe. 

I told him that I decided to stop human suffering. I decided to stop war. He said “You decided to stop the war, but you couldn’t do it? That’s why you’re here?” I said I didn’t mean the war. I meant war. War in general. Humanity fighting amongst itself. Think about it I told him, eliminating conflict! I have unlimited wishes so I should be able to do it right? But he was a slick one. 

“If you are looking to wax philosophical you’re wasting my valuable time. If you are being serious then you’ve given me no reason to think that you are anything other than delusional.” Blah blah blah he went on. I told him I do too have powers but that I was trying to get through just one day without actually using them. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you. I tried this not using my powers thing yesterday too. I’ll get to where I screwed that up in a minute.

“So you are God incarnate? Jesus is back?” 

He really was a jerk. My right hand was starting to shake because of what a jerk he was. I told him I’m not God or Jesus. I just woke up one day with these powers. I told him how I played with my powers for a while, new cars, hanging out on a yacht, flying in my own private jet and then like superman. Then I discovered I could just teleport myself wherever I wanted. Bing! There I was. It was great but believe it or not it got boring after a while. After a long long while. I’ve been living like this for maybe years. I don’t know. I have no way to track it. I told the doctor that eventually I started questioning my purpose. That there must be a meaning for all of this. I decided it must be that I need to better humanity. 

“Why do you think you know what’s best for the world?” he asked. 

I couldn’t believe it. I could feel my ears getting hot. How could anyone think stopping war and aggression isn’t best for the world? I pointed at him. “Haven’t you been listening to me?” I said.

Then he’d had enough of me. He got all serious for a second. “Do you think that maybe you’re imagining you’re in control so that nobody can hurt you?” 

I counted to ten like they taught us in group. It wasn’t my fault, I explained as calmly as I could, that this was happening to me. And anyway, I don’t need to think about that, I said. Me getting hurt. I can always reset. There was so much else to think about. So much to change. 

I tried to explain it all again. I told him everything that was wrong with the world, how everyone is hurting everyone and that this is about way more than just me. But all he wanted was for me to prove I had these powers. I told him I’m trying to break the curse. If I use them then I have to start all over again. Besides, I’ve already shown people. Lots of people. I’ve shown everybody in fact but they just worshipped me while I was looking and plotted to use my powers when I wasn’t.

He said he didn’t remember being shown and that’s when I told him about how I reset the world like a computer game every time things start going wrong. Somewhere in here he said I should hear myself and that’s when I thought of using this transcribing recording app on my phone. Then he started with the “why can’t you just will the world to be perfect and be done with it?” I’d done this too. But then it’s not the same world, not the same humanity. I decided that people need to learn. I need to do it so people are the same. I can’t change personalities or mess with their minds. Then it’s not actual humanity I’m saving. I’d be playing with dolls. “In other words,” he said, “you won’t take away their free will?”

Then he said we had moved from philosophy to religion and he had heard enough and he started talking about admitting me into the ward there in the hospital. He tried to make it sound all helpful for me, something about me being a confused philosopher that needed to rest and get my meds in line. I said no thanks and asked to leave but I forgot we were already on the locked floor. I got back into the hallway but two security guys started following me. When they tried to grab me well there’s where I blew my no wishing for the day. The next thing I knew, the security guards and the doctor were all standing frozen in the lobby watching me walk out. I also made it so they were naked! That was mean of me. I feel bad about that part. Well for the security guys anyway. The doctor deserved it. He wouldn’t listen to me. He didn’t even want me to save humanity!

That’s what happened “yesterday”. No I think the period is supposed to go inside the quotes “yesterday.” There. Got it. 

So now here I am today in the middle of my latest attempt at no wishing for a day. I’m still sitting on the grass in the park watching people. There’s a playground with a low fence around it where all the nannies bring the rich people’s kids. So much for parenting am I right? I have talked to a few of the nannies at one time or another but they obviously have to watch the kids so we never have much of a conversation. There’s the old lady with the disgusting little Chihuahua looking dog with the teeth sticking out all weird. Oh, there are a couple of police officers walking around on the far side of the park. I don’t remember them hanging out in the park before but that’s not really unusual. I’ve found that the littlest things can change the way the whole day goes. One time I decided to tie my shoelaces tighter before crossing the street so I stooped down and this guy behind me tripped a little and stumbled into the street where a cab had to swerve to not hit him and the cab hit another cab. Whoa what a scene! That never happened on any other Tuesday, July 21! So something must have happened just a smidge different for those policemen to be in the park today. Maybe someone called them because of that lady picking the rose?

Since I’ve got nothing to do but wait for the day to be over I’ll just explain into this smart phone app as best I can now what the doctor didn’t let me finish telling him. I remember the first time, the first Tuesday the 21st, that I decided to try to fix humanity.

I had left my apartment. I was psyched. I needed an opportunity to fix something. I saw those boys again arguing over the swing on the other side of this park. I had frozen them in the past, but I thought I’d try again. This time I would be convincing. They couldn’t move and I tried to reason with them but they were as usual more concerned that they couldn’t move. I said they could move again if they could work out their problem with the swing. I made them both promise. Of course when I let them go they ran away crying. So I decided that children were too young and scared to understand. Too young to understand the problem that aggression is. 

So I set my sights higher. These boys have teachers somewhere I thought. No perhaps their principals. No mayors. Screw it, I thought, I’ll go big! The governor! Senators! The president! All the presidents! Kings! All world leaders! And then I zapped them all to Madison Square Garden. All of them. Every leader of every nation. Froze them all in place. They couldn’t move or speak. They had to listen to me. As a matter of fact I made it so each one could understand me, even though most of them spoke different languages. I was really proud that I thought of that. I explained that aggression needs to be over. Please stop. Then I let them move and talk and they freaked out. Wouldn’t listen to reason.

So I decided to try something else. Aggression needed to stop so I sent all the leaders home and then modified my freezing of people to freeze them when they are aggressive. I applied this to everyone in the world. Oh, and I made all weapons inoperable. If someone tried to shoot a pistol all that would happen was their finger bent. I physically stopped all aggression. No one was listening to me, I had to do something.

And then people all over the world bitched at me! I stopped war and they were mad! “Who was I to do that?” they yelled! But most surprising were the victims of oppression. Once they saw their oppressors were disabled they took the opportunity to try to attack them back. You would think they of all people would know what it’s like to suffer at the hands of others. Of course they couldn’t attack them back. They were prevented by my little freezing spell too. I took one last look around the world at all the people continuing to try to hurt each other and then I reset back to nine o’clock in the morning on Tuesday, July 21.

It’s lunchtime now and I’m tired of sitting on the grass but I’ve got another problem. I think those policemen might be looking for me. They’ve sort of made eye contact with me a couple times. I bet Ms. Kinsey called them. She really wanted me to stay so she could call my doctor and I’m sure my doctor would tell me to go to the hospital and I bet that’s what Ms. Kinsey wants too. Okay the police seem to have moved past. They’re behind me now. She’s always been nice, Ms. Kinsey. I never made her frozen. Or naked! Oh poor woman I would never do that to her! But George though. He’s mean to her. If I blow it and make a wish today then before I reset the day I’ll make George stand frozen and naked in the middle of the park here. Ha! Excuse me no I’m not him okay okay yes that’s me no wait let me push pause on my