I woke up and found a wish trapped in my welcome mat.

The mat's a fairly new addition to the house's earth tone decor, a brown rectangle with a surface reminiscent of dry scrub brush. Despite the mid-sixty degree temperatures, bright morning sun shone down on me and I had to squint behind my clip-on sunglasses.

Still, I looked down at this ... sorry, I realize everybody may not have grown up where I did. A "wish" is a kind of floating seed/spore with long, white ethereal extensions from a very small center that's light in mass. They might be dandelion seeds. I'm not really sure. These things can move with the wind and are often found by children, who pick them up, close their eyes, make a wish and blow them back into the wind. If they soar, it allegedly increases the chance of the wish succeeding. If they sink and get stuck in the grass, not so much. I'd always considered these things little fragment of wonder that I never let go of from my childhood, the possibility of amazing, shining through the crushing tedium of everyday life.

Anyway, so I bent down and picked up the wish. I concentrated and shut my eyes tight before blowing and watching it fly north and upwards, into the clear blue sky. I took a deep breath and walked to my car before driving to work.

I didn't see any ice bursting up from the ground, frozen demons staggering through their last sulfuric breaths, so I guess my wish didn't come true.

Yet.

Playing (Music): "Make Her Say" by Kid Cudi, Kanye West and Common