The Eyes Of Kid Midas

'No!' Kevin pushed Josh's hand away. Josh frowned but didn't reach for them again.

'What do you want me to do, then?' asked Josh.

Kevin's voice was a whisper. 'Ask me to wish for something.'

'You're nuts.'

'Ask me.'

'You're certifiable!'

'What are you afraid of?'

It was a good question, and rather than admit he was afraid, Josh gave Kevin a wish.

'An ice-cream cone,' said Josh.

'What flavor?'

'Unmerciful Chocolate Destruction. A double scoop.'

'Cake cone or sugar cone?'

'Just get it over with!'

Kevin planted his feet firmly on the ground and stuck out his hand, concentrating with the full force of his mind.

'Okay,' said Kevin, 'give me one double dip of Unmerciful Chocolate Destruction on a sugar cone to go!'

The glasses went dark, and at first Kevin could see nothing. Then a spot of light appeared before him, which exploded in waves of brilliant color. He could feel the warmth and tingle of the frames as they ever so slightly surged with energy, as if they were pulling it right out of Kevin's head.

'Kevin,' said Josh, his voice trembling, 'your eyes . . . I think they're glowing!'

In his mind, Kevin imagined the cone dripping with ice cream, and then, when the colors faded from before his eyes, he realized that the picture he had in his mind had entered the real world.

Unmerciful Chocolate Destruction dripped down his fingers, cold and sticky.

Josh was the first to scream, and Kevin joined him. He dropped the cone and they both ran from it, screaming at the top of their lungs, until they got to a clearing far away from the horrific cone. There they stopped to catch their breath.

'This is weird, Kevin!'

'I know!'

'No, I mean this is really weird. Remember when Ralphy Sherman said his father was a werewolf, and then they found him one morning sleeping in a neighbor's doghouse? Well, this is weirder.'

Kevin looked at his hand, which still had some melted chocolate ice cream on it. He licked it. It was unmercifully real.

'What are we gonna do?' asked Josh. 'What are we gonna do?' And then something struck him. 'Hey,' asked Josh, 'where's my ice-cream cone?'

 ***

With Hamburger Helpless on the menu, it quickly became obvious what they were going to do. If reality was flexible enough to allow an ice-cream cone to be born out of thin air, then it was flexible enough for quite a variety of things.

Within ten minutes the little clearing was filled with food. Burgers from every imaginable fast-food chain lay all over the ground, one bite taken from each. The birds were feasting on french fries, and a bivouac of army ants was all but carrying away the discarded burgers.

And, of course, the feast was topped off by a whole gallon barrel of U.C.D. ice cream. They kept shoveling in the ice cream until it could no longer go down and just sort of squirted out of the sides of their mouths when they tried to swallow. Then they rested; two beached whales barely able to move.

The glasses, which had gotten a bit warm when Kevin wished up their gluttonous feast, had cooled off. Now, in the moonlit sky, their tint seemed to have disappeared, leaving the lenses completely clear.

'This is just the beginning.' Kevin took off his glasses and polished them against his shirt. 'There's no limit to the things we can wish up!'

'Yeah,' said Josh. 'But what if it's not all free?'

'Like how?'

'What if the glasses are like some . . . I don't know . . . like some intergalactic charge card, or something? And what if someone comes to collect the bill?'

'They don't work like that,' said Kevin.

'How do you know?'

'Because I do! When you wear the glasses, you just know things about them.'

'Like what?'

Kevin cradled the glasses in his hands, running his fingers tenderly across the black-and-gold rim.

'Like they were meant to be used,' he said. 'Like they're supposed to make everything a whole lot better. That they're more valuable than anything in the world.'

Josh reached out and gently took the glasses from Kevin, staring at them as if he held the world's most precious diamond in his hands. He seemed almost afraid to be touching them.

'Would I feel all that if I wore them?' asked Josh.

'Probably,' said Kevin, grabbing the glasses back and slipping them on. 'But you don't need to wear them, as long as you've got me. I'll give you whatever you want.'

Josh seemed relieved, as if he really didn't want to test them himself, anyway.

Kevin burped, then giggled as a thought occurred to him. 'I guess I'm the master of the universe.'

'Ah, put a leash on it!' said Josh.

'No way.' Kevin's imagination had been strapped to a post long enough. He stood up, hungry for something more than fast food, and climbed on a high boulder, reaching a hand up to the heavens.

Josh laughed. 'Whatcha gonna do? Part the Red Sea?'

'Something like that.'

Josh stopped laughing and watched as Kevin stared through his glasses at the infinite depths of the star-filled sky.

'Clouds,' he whispered to the night. The frame of the glasses began to get warm, the lenses went dark and then silver. Directly above them, a gray spot appeared, like a hole in the sky, and clouds began to unfold, growing high above their heads—dense gray clouds, but the glasses reflected them in rich, swirling hues.

'Pretty intense,' said Josh 'Now stop it.'

The clouds spread out and blackened. Now the entire mountain was covered by gray clouds, turning black. A billow shrouded the moon, and the forest became as dark as moonshadow. Kevin held both hands up to the sky. 'Wind!' he said. And the mountain breathed, sending a wind that rasped across the treetops, then swooped down, picking up leaves and pine needles, dragging them away.

Josh labored against his full stomach to stand up. 'Are you deaf? I said that's enough!'

'Faster!' Kevin said. The wind began to groan and the trees to bend to its voice.

Back at the campsite, everyone must have been watching the dark threat of the sky. Kevin could imagine tents blowing away with the wind, his wind.

'You see?' said Kevin. 'All I have to do is say it, and it happens! Even if I just whisper it!' Far above, the clouds began to flash and rumble.

'Kevin, you're scaring me!' yelled Josh. 'Stop it!'

'I'm not finished!' It was Christmas rolled up with the Fourth of July. The clouds began to swirl and change, their electricity moaning to be released.

Now the smile was gone from Kevin's face, and although the glasses had gone as dark as dark could be, Kevin could see through them with an impossible clarity. He could see all the clouds, inside and out, swirling with color. The eyeglass frame was heating up around his ears and across his eyebrows. It glowed a dull red. 'Now the fireworks!' He threw up his hands like the very small conductor of a very large orchestra.

'Lightning,' he said.

'Kevin, no!'

Lightning exploded all around them.