Jon realized, however, that the magic stone was still stuck to his hand. A previous wish had made it stuck, so even a wish made while asleep couldn't reverse the wish and unstick it, at least unless he worded his wish very carefully.
"I wish I was out of here!" he said. Nothing happened.
"I wish I knew what wish I made!" Nothing happened.
The man said, "You can't really make wishes. You'll have to face the truth someday if you ever really want to be let out of here."
Jon sighed. He knew the stone was real, but... how could he possibly prove it? Or was he really insane after all? Wait a minute... he couldn't make wishes, but he did have one thing strange. "If I can't make wishes, why is this stone stuck to my hand?"
"You probably super-glued it to your hand. Having a stone glued to your hand doesn't mean you have magic powers!"
"Well, then why don't you get a doctor to examine me. Use nail polish remover or whatever they use for super-glue."
The doctor arrived in less than an hour, though by judicious questioning Jon discovered he was scheduled to see one anyway--they hadn't listened to him and sent the doctor to look at the stone. Still, it gave him a chance. "Dr. Brown, would you please look at this?" He held his hand up.
"It's just a rock. It doesn't have any magical powers."
"Well, if it's just a rock, how can it be removed from my hand? Look!" He shoved the hand in the doctor's face and a guard looked at Jon with suspicion, but finally was satisfied that Jon wasn't getting violent.
The doctor sighed and looked at Jon's hand. "It's all super-glue. Look, it's right here... umm... You must have dissolved away the extra so I couldn't see it."
"There is no super-glue! The stone is stuck to my hand by magic! Go ahead, get your solutions and try to dissolve it!"
The doctor called over a guard who went away and came by with a bottle of some fluid. The guard kept watching, perhaps afraid that Jon would try to set the fluid on fire or do something else dangerous, but Jon let the doctor do as he wished. He poured the fluid around the stone and looked at the edges. "It's not dissolving."
"It isn't dissolving because the only thing holding it there is magic!"
The doctor finally grabbed the stone and tugged at it. He couldn't move it. he couldn't even pull the stone and lift Jon's hand by the stone, either. "This is impossible!" he exclaimed. "It's as if..."
"As if it's magically attached, in some way that violates the known laws of physics?" asked Jon.
"Don't be ridiculous! There must be some explanation."
"Maybe I have magic powers."
"If you did, you'd be out of here," said the doctor.
Unknown to Dr. Brown, Jon's wish in his sleep had only kept Jon himself from using it. The doctor couldn't steal the stone, but there was nothing to keep him from making wishes by touching the stone while it was still stuck to Jon's hand.
And it so happened what he said next was, "I wish...."
