And thus the world changed. It became exactly as Karyn asked for it to be.
With a smug smile, Karyn was confident that the world was now her oyster. Bad for Jon, but sucks to be him. Who cares about him. Why was she even friends with him in the first place? He was the enemy.
Karyn made another wish, "I wish Jon would forget about the rock's existence, and wouldn't bother me again." There, she thought to herself. I have cut ties with the only impediment still holding me back. He served his purpose, the only role fit for a male, propping a female up, but now that I no longer have use for him, I can discard him like the garbage he is. My greatness will know no limits now. Because I deserve it. The world owes it to me. I am woman, hear me roar.
Karyn returned to class with a smug smile. The smile almost reached her ears, when her final class of the day, algebra 2, was taught by a man, when formerly the teacher was by a woman. Ha! Now they can be the K-12 teachers! Karyn thought.
After class, school was done for the day. All the other students left, and very quickly the whole school was almost empty, while Karyn was left alone with her thoughts. The man, the counterpart of Miss Shelley, continued working at the desk.
"So..." what was his name again. Oh, right. "Mister Stein"
"Call me Victor," he said, looking at Karyn.
Karyn kind of wanted to know, if he was the same person, now male, or if the real Miss Shelley simply had followed different life choices. What exactly had the wish done in cases like this? Would he have any idea how to tell her what she wanted to know, namely what he had been before, and if he knew a Miss Shelley and what she was doing now? Maybe they were complete strangers and this guy couldn't give her any insight on what happened. Well, she could ask the rock for information, maybe. That was an idea. Would it do that? Wouldn't that make it conscious, or at least capable of carrying a conversation, if you could ask it for communication and it replied with it though?
"Tell me, about yourself..." Karyn said, trying to be vague to start with.
"You're, interested, in me?" Victor said, a strange look on his face.
"Well, my, wise, intelligent, math teacher," Karyn said, twirling a lock of her newly modified hair around a finger in plain view, "is very interesting."
Before she knew it, he was on her, grabbing her big new chest.
Karyn's eyes went wide in shock.
"AAAhhhhhh!!!!!" she screamed.
A woman came running in, "What happened!" the woman asked.
"This man just sexually assaulted me!" Karyn shouted.
"Oh, sure," the woman said. "As if. Lucky girl. Damn, I wish it had happened to me when I was a kid," she said, leaving the room.
"Even if you tell, even if anyone believes you, no one will ever care," Victor said, a wicked smile on his face, as Karyn stood there stunned at this turn of events. Karyn realized, he had done this before.
Karyn decided she would get him later, after she decided precisely what to do to him.
After school, Jon was nowhere to be found. Good, Karyn thought. She walked home. She turned the key to her front door and walked in.
Karyn stood there openmouthed. There stood her father. A man she hadn't seen since she was 7.
"What are you doing out of jail!" Karyn yelled at her father.
"What are you on about, Karyn," her father said sternly.
"Where's mom?" Karyn asked, apprehensively.
"That worthless deadbeat? I assume the same place she has been for the last 9 years, the state penn. I assume she'll stay there for the rest of her life. That back child support due ain't getting any smaller, and she only gets released if it gets paid in full. It's beautiful, if you think about it."
The rock must have done this? But that's not what she asked for! Why would it help her deadbeat dad and put her mother in jail? It was supposed to hurt men and help women, not the other way around!
"Oh, incidentally, this came in the mail for you, Karyn. You need to fill it out," her father said, handing her a slip of paper.
"What is it?" Karyn asked.
"Selective service registration," he said.
"Selective service, what's that," Karyn said back.
"You know, the draft. Fortunately, you can thank president Pat Ryan for mostly ending the draft. The odds are low you'll be called to service, like your worthless mother was to Vietnam, but you still have to register and be ready if your country calls on you."
Ok, I know what's going on here, Karyn thought. Oh ha ha. Very funny, rock. You think you're going to teach me some sort of Twilight Zone lesson here, is that it? Game on!
"Hopefully I still have that..." no... it couldn't be.
Karyn stormed into her room. She looked everywhere for a certain piece of paper. But she knew what happened. It was now for men only, wasn't it.
She held the stone. "I wish that I had the..." wait a moment. If she wished for the scholarship, it might turn her into a male.
"I wish the Women in Engineering is our Future scholarship was once again only available to girls or women, and that I had been accepted into it."
Nothing happened. No light. No desire to look away. And no reappearance of the acceptance letter.
"Why didn't that work!" Karyn whined. "I wish I knew why that didn't work.... because it contradicts the previous wish that men would be 'oppressed' the same way women are now and also that's no longer what it's called, it's now called the Men in Engineering is our Future scholarship, because as everyone knows, we need to get more men into engineering." Karyn dropped the stone as she said the answer involuntarily, as if someone else was controlling her voice. "You have a loose concept of the word 'oppressed' you stupid rock," Karyn said to the stone on the floor.
A piece of paper appeared in midair and looped around as if by gusts of wind far beyond the indoor ventilation, as it wafted to the ground. Karyn picked it up. It said the words:
"enjoy the hell of your own creation
you have only seen a small part of it
by all means, try to fix it,
and dig your hole even deeper
also, you're the stupid one
nice tits, dumb blonde"
And to add insult to injury, it was written in comic sans font. The stone did indeed have a personality, and a snippity one at that.
