I woke up in the morning gradually. The sun shone brightly through the windows. I had to shield my eyes from
it as it blinded me. I walked over to the window to pull down the curtains. Before I did so I looked
outside. There was the normal amount of people on the street, but something seemed a bit different about
them. Every single person appeared to have a smile upon his or her face. They all exchanged pleasantries to
each other, too. This wasn't what I would normally see. I shrugged it off, pulled down the curtains and
returned to the couch.
There was no sign of Rachel as of yet and I did not want to disturb her. So I turned on the TV to see what
was going on. I could not have been more surprised by what I saw. The TV was tuned to one of the cable news
channels and it had a huge headline emblazoned upon the screen that read, "NATIONS AGREE TO WORLD PEACE." I
was stunned. Did my wish actually work? I switched to another channel. Its headline read, "WORLDWIDE
DISARMAMENT TO COMMENCE IMMEDIATELY." I switched to another channel that said, "SUSPECTED TERRORIST
ORGANIZATIONS DISBAND." Every station said something similar. Somehow, someway world peace took hold.
I still had to wonder why. Why didn't my wish take immediate effect? I settled on the first channel I'd seen
to try and get some additional information. From what the news anchor reported, it seemed that since the time
I'd made my wish, all of the various world leaders somehow communicated with each other that they all felt it
was time to live in peace. Even fringe groups, terrorist organizations, rebel forces, whatever you wanted to
call them, also somehow communicated that they were putting down their arms.
There were some other interesting points made. All of humanity had pledged to not bear arms against each
other, but had decided to keep existing weapons in case of alien invasions. That floored me quite a bit. I
knew that a lot of people could not believe in aliens. Did my wish alter their perspectives on that
possibility? Better safe than sorry, I figured, and I guess so did everyone else. Then again, I thought, if
hostile aliens did ever show up, this ring might be able to solve that little problem.
It was also extremely interesting to see images from various places around the world. It seemed that every
human being was in a completely celebratory mood. There was video of parts of the world where celebrations
usually involved people firing guns into the air. Nothing of the sort happened now. Instead everyone
embraced each other with smiles on their faces. People from different religions hugged one another as if
they'd been friends for years.
At this moment I heard my bedroom door open. Rachel staggered into the room and looked like she wasn't fully
awake. "Hi, Joe," she yawned. "What's going on?" she asked as her eyes focused on the television.
"Apparently my wish just needed time," I said.
Rachel sat down on the couch and her eyes went wide as she spied the headlines on the screen.
"Oh...my...God," she said. "It...it really happened. This is incredible!" We just sat there together and
watched the news reports in silence. After a few minutes, Rachel said, "You know what? I've got an idea for
something. But it's weird."
"I'm all ears," I said.
Before Rachel could tell me her idea, there was a loud knock on the door.