The stone, of course, couldn't affect the whole world. At least without not phrasing the wish a lot more carefully than that. There was really only one way for the stone to grant the wish.
So Gary was very surprised to suddenly find himself in a humid, green, forest full of things that looked like palms and things that looked like mosses. It was an alien place--no squirrels, no birds, no flowers. The air smelled fresh and free of pollution. Overhead a flying reptilian creature shrieked out a sound.
And through the trees poked the head of a brontosaurus. There was no doubt about it; it looked just like every brontosaurus drawing he had ever seen.
He ran. Fortunately brontosauruses don't eat meat, and this one barely even thought he was a nuisance.
"What in the world is going on here?!" he yelled. "I wish I knew!"
Suddenly, he did know. The stone was a wishing stone, that grants all wishes, but can't reverse them. It has a limited range, so the only way it could make him the only man on Earth was to take him back to when the Earth had no people. It couldn't grant his wish by getting rid of the other men because most of them were outside its range. All the women were his slaves--all zero of them.
"I wish I had some women here," he said, and added, "And I don't mean dinosaur women, either."
