(The third and final piece)
For several days after, he did not even want to see another piece of paper. Nonetheless, he really wanted a new bicycle. This time he decided to prepare and made the wish in the bathroom. He filled the sink and bathtub with water in advance. He made the wish and small paper alligator formed. Quickly grabbing it by the tail, he dispatched it into the bathtub where it swam for a minute before dissolving.
It became easier and easier for him to make wishes, catch the little monsters, and extinguish them in some container of water.
I am sure you know what happened next. No one gets off that easily in Willakaville. Something bad is going to happen. There will be a big mess. Somehow, it gets resolved, everybody is safe again, and they all learn a lesson.
Not this time! Marcus kept on making wishes and got whatever he wanted, the end.
*****
Just kidding. Stories are not fun if everything goes right. We all love there to be a challenge to overcome. Life is the same way. It can be difficult sometimes, but it is more fun when we have to use our brains to solve a problem. Try to remember this next time you are having a hard time in your life. All right, enough of me giving you boring advice. Back to the story.
As you can imagine, Marcus made bigger and bigger wishes which resulted in bigger and bigger origami monsters. He felt he could handle it, so he kept going. He had all the toys, ate candy and cake every day, didn’t go to school, and was good at every sport he played.
Then he wished for the big one. The one wish that we all think of when we imagine being granted a wish. He wished for infinite wishes. Well, what do you think happened? That’s right, an infinite amount of origami monsters appeared. Every second a new monster popped up.
Within a minute, Marcus was overwhelmed. He barely made it out of the house before they took over. He watched from down the street with horror as hundreds of little origami monsters streamed from his house. They swarmed to the trees. Eating the wood allowed some to grow into humungous sizes, casting large angled shadows over the houses. Others in the forms of spiders, wasps, and other insect stayed small.
More and more kept coming. People ran from their homes as the monsters spread like fire. All seemed lost and Marcus felt lower than the deepest ocean crevasse. The entire world was being destroyed and it was all his fault. Too shameful to go on, he sat down and gave up.
The paper swarm came closer and closer. Marcus braced himself for the worst when he heard a somewhat familiar voice. It said, “You should have listened to me.” Marcus turned around to see the sushi chef from the Golden Ginzo. The chef held a glowing gold Makari. He raised it above his head and yelled, “Mizu wa jōshō shimasu!”
Water began flowing from every direction, surrounding the origami horde. It formed a giant wall and began closing in. With a giant crash, a huge circular wave came falling down on top of the masses. The chef motioned his hands into a spin and the water swirled tighter and tighter, tearing the origami into bits of paper. It then raised into the sky, a giant funnel of water sucking itself into the blue ceiling.
The chef brought his hands together with a large clap. The spout exploded, sending giant spit wads in every direction. They fell with splats to the ground making small piles of wet mushy pulp.
Marcus looked at the chef with amazement. The chef simply bowed and nodded his head. Marcus instinctively bowed back. Neither of them spoke a word and parted ways.
Marcus spent the rest of the day helping to clean up the mess. In fact, he spent the rest of the month cleaning. By the end of it, he never wanted to see paper again. He was even tempted to burn the instructions for the Magic Makari. Yet, something inside him told him that he might need it one day. So, he hid it inside a puzzle box his grandfather had given him and placed in the attic of his house.