He sat alone in the fading twilight near his window. He could see the hustle of the new year party in the courtyard. He knew he wasn’t invited, and he wouldn’t attend even if he was. This is exactly how he had spent the New Year’s Eve for last so many years.

As he reminisced the last few years, he was surprised that for the last four years, there has been an incident within first few days of a new year involving people he knew very well. And then a realization hit him – there was a pattern to all those incidents!

All these years, he has considered himself a failure – personally and professionally. No steady job, no relationships, strained relations with his parents and no close friends. Every new year brought more misery, worry and despair instead of hope, joy and celebrations other people looked forward to.

Four years ago, drunk with anger and humiliation, he had wished his landlord would stop harassing him for rent. Two days later, the man was found dead in his apartment of a cardiac arrest. The rent calls stopped. The silence that followed had not felt like relief.

Three years ago, exhausted by workplace fatigue, he had wished his discontented supervisor would simply vanish from his life and leave him in peace. The man was arrested for reasons that were never revealed, and sentenced for ten years. The office moved on, as offices always do.

Two years ago, he wished his cousin, who was chasing him for his borrowed money, would never trouble him again. A car accident followed within the month. Non-fatal, but final enough.

Last year, envious and bitter, he wished for a friend’s successful business to collapse. It folded suddenly, undone by circumstances no one could quite explain.

He had wished for all those four people to go out of his life. Each time, the wish had been answered.

Not kindly. Not cleanly. But effectively. Each time, it was his first wish of a new year that has resulted into these outcomes. The pattern was impossible to ignore. Only the first wish. The one formed before his conscience had time to intervene.

This was not luck. Not coincidence. It was a rule.

For the first time in years, he felt something like power. And he was going to use it at the dawn, as the new year would unfold with the sunrise.

He stayed awake through the night, guarding his thoughts with unnatural care. He rehearsed sentences silently, weighing each word. He would be precise. He would be restrained. More importantly, this would be the most efficacious wish, now that he knew the secret.

When sleep finally came, it was thin and restless. Morning arrived without ceremony.

He woke before the alarm, aware of his breathing, of the quiet weight pressing against his chest. He did not let his mind wander. He brought the thought forward deliberately, carefully, as one might lift something both fragile and dangerous.

He had prepared for this moment. He allowed the thought to settle fully in his mind. For a brief instant, it felt right. An unexplained confidence told him that the wish has ‘reached’, and will be acted upon.

And then the regret followed.

Not fear. Not panic. Recognition.

He understood immediately that whatever he had just wished for, did not belong to the man he believed himself to be. It was not cruelty that had spoken, nor malice. It was the exhaustion, the defeat of living a failed life. Not natural. Not sincere.

Now the realization unsettled him. He had never been someone who wished harm, not even quietly, not even inwardly. And yet, something irrevocable had crossed the threshold.

He whispered other thoughts aloud. Gentler, softer ones, trying to undo his spell. But they sounded irrelevant, like amendments offered after a contract had already been signed.

The rule was clear. The first wish, once formed, was complete. Irreversible.

He knew he shouldn’t panic, but think of his next action carefully. Nothing had gone wrong. Yet.

What had happened was simpler, and heavier. He had made a choice. Not blindly. Not accidentally. With full knowledge of what such choices had done before.

Whatever followed would not be a punishment unfairly assigned. Rather, the consequence of a truth he had allowed himself to articulate.

Strangely, this did not terrify him. It steadied him.

For years, life had felt like something that happened to him. Forces acting without consent, losses arriving unannounced. But this was different. This belonged to him. And because it did, he would not look away from it. That was the only right thing to do.

He would not bargain. Not plead. Not pretend he had not meant it.

If the wish unfolded gently, he would accept that. Not fate’s cruelty. But his own voice, finally heard.

He went on with the day, fully awake, carrying the knowledge like a weight he had placed upon himself. Not as a penance, but as ownership.

Whatever came next would not surprise him.

And with that, he understood. Some wishes do not destroy you. They make you responsible for the inevitable.