I remained in total blackness waiting, wondering. I decided to utilize the time and concentrated with every fiber of remembrance. I envisioned her face, her delicate skin.

"Lizzy? Can you hear me? Where are you?" I asked.

I could not quite home in on her presence, but I did manage to decipher muffled sounds echoing.

"Elizabeth Fenmore? It's me Robert....how could you switch teams?" I asked feeling extreme regret for her soul.

"Lizzy? Are you out there somehow, waiting for me?"

"Robert, oh my Robert! I knew you'd hear me. I've been calling you over and over again. It's horrible here.....absolutely dreadful. There's another genie with me, and I.........." Her voice became absent, filtering away into silence.

"Jeanne? Jeanne Wishgiven?" I said feeling a sudden loss of sorts.

"I'm here, I'm listening....you've got to focus on me! Lizzy!"

As if a phone line was severed, I lost the connection.

"Darn!" I said to myself out of frustration.

Ever since Granny applied erasure, the sudden awakening as to my relationship with Elizabeth Fenmore was somewhat sporadic. Oh, how I wanted to see her again, how I wanted to become enlightened to the awesome feelings that were conjured just from the sight of her. Those green eyes hinted at a unique perspective within and her personality was so full of verve.

Through a light mist I suddenly formed a memory. The splash of the wake caressed the great beach from behind. Sunset drizzled copper hues softening the day into night. In that moment, in that instant, Lizzy was positioned along the beach. It was the first flash our eyes connected and our spirits mingled. She turned her face away from two menacing gulls...turned her vision and locked onto me. It was a spark! I felt electric as her gaze shifted onto me.

If ever there was a million wonders of the world. It was as if I had been in a dark chamber and someone illuminated my surroundings with a 1000 watt bulb. Everything was felt all at once, life had meaning...wondrous, mind boggling, beautiful life. Such a vision, such a wonder, my Lizzy!

________

As if on cue, a fresh box was pulled opened and my new circumstance became obvious. I was the side mirror on some type of plastic framed glasses. They were orange frames, a cheap toy, a marketing tool from a cereal company.

A child's hand, not very clean, plunged towards the bottom of the contents. "Oh boy!" He shouted as his grasp connected with the package of which I was included.

We were skipping now, trotting around the kitchen.

"I got the toy mom!" He said with excitement. "The spy glasses are mine!"

I was swinging through the air as the boy did leaps and bounds. The child struggled to unwrap the machine adhered plastic. "Why do they pack these things so tight?" He asked running in the direction of his mother.

A moment later the woman with a mouth tilted in a natural frown, pulled some kitchen sheers and cut my way to freedom.

The surroundings were clear all at once and the horrible sweet from the cereal was slowly dissolving.

The boy placed the glasses on his face and gazed towards his mom. I heard chuckles from her, but could not see before me. My vision was limited to the view from behind since the mirrors were positioned in a rear view on each side of the glasses. I was perched on the right side of the boy. I couldn't help but notice a wad of chewing gum tangled in the back of his curly brown hair.

"My second pair mom!" He said as we rushed through the house and outside. Everything bounced in a wild repetition. The length of his short legs added to the stride vibration.

"Oh what I wouldn't give to be adhered to the wall." I said in a quiet tone.

The boy was on a sidewalk now, running down the block. Dogs were barking as he moved past nice two story cape cods. In an abrupt turn, we shifted direction. I could now view the street from behind and our location could have been anywhere in small town America.

The doorbell rang in several quick chimes, then it squeaked as it swung open.

"Alex, your bratty little friend is here!" A teenage girl with a posture of attitude shouted.

A moment later, we were darting inside. The girl slammed the door behind taking her time to move to the entryway mirror. She opened her mouth while peering at her reflection. Thick metallic braces covered her teeth reminding me of railroad tracks for a miniature village of pearls.

We were running now upwards, the boy taking two steps at a time.

The bedroom door closed in our wake as the boy removed the glasses and I could finally view my surroundings ahead.

There were two boys probably of the first grade school age. The room was decorated in a basketball theme. Draperies with miniature basketballs in a bright orange color, the light fixture above illuminating through a thick orange basketball shape. In every direction, there was some type of basketball and a full sized hoop was mounted to the wall above the trash receptacle.

"I'll trade you!" The other boy demanded.

"Sure." The boy with the glasses managed swinging me through the air. "It has to be a fair trade though."

"Okay." Alex agreed. He pulled a small cigar box from the dresser drawer and opened it.

"You know what I've had my eye on?" The boy who owned the glasses asked.

"I'm not sure I want to trade a spy flashlight for that." Alex said.

"Well, I have two of these now and you have two flashlights....I think it would be a good idea."

Alex shrugged his shoulders then finally nodded in agreement.

"Okay."

Within ten minutes of being rescued from the cereal box, I had changed ownership.

By evening, the first boy who I learned was named Sam, had gone home for the day. If I were a human, I would have been exhausted. The two best friends played all afternoon as secret spies trying to obtain the most prized key in the house, the key to the diary of Alex's sister Vicky.

I understood all too well the ramifications of buying sugar cereal for the toys within. Both youngsters were in hyper drive and at one point pretended the living room furniture was a caravan of boats and the blue carpet below was shark-infested water. They jumped from sofa to chair... from chair to coffee table maneuvering in a U throughout the room...over and over again. The older sister Vicky was supposed to be watching her brother, but spent most of the time with a telephone receiver glued to her ear. When not engrossed in teenage gossip, she had the television set to outrageous daytime stories from the adjoining kitchen and worked to carefully apply some sort of paint to her toenails.

I was laid to rest on the kitchen cabinet as the entire family met for dinner. A tiger cat had pounced near me and began sniffing at the plastic frames.

I attempted with several bursts of sound to scare the creature away. The cat retreated, but not before knocking me to the floor.

A man finally entered the kitchen carrying a thermos and heaved it into the stainless steel sink. After his large shoe kicked the frames, he reached down and plucked me into his grasp.

"Hi dad!" Alex shouted as he ran from the dinner table and threw his arms around the father.

"Hurry up Stuart, dinner is getting cold." The mom declared.

Alex released his grip as the father swung the orange frames to his face. A receding hairline became obvious with whispers of gray mixed in throughout.

"You catch any bad guys today dad?" The boy asked with enthusiasm.

"Nope but I've been sitting in my car waiting for the bad guys to show themselves."

We were moving now, strolling to the dinner table. "How is the stakeout going?" The wife asked.

"Not too well. It's been three shifts and the wanted criminal is nowhere to be seen. I'm thinking our source of information fed us a bunch of lies to save himself." Stuart admitted.

"Dad I was wondering..." Vicky began in a voice of forced confidence.

"Next weekend some of my friends are headed to the dunes for an overnight camp out on the beach. You know the place, Three Corners....well, I know you'd never approve of me going, but maybe you'd consider letting me go if I take Alex along...you know, sort of a chaperone?"

The father began to chuckle. "There's no way I'd ever consider letting you go Victoria. Number one, sleeping along the beach is against the law. Number two, you don't know what other characters are out there to hurt you. Number three, aren't you still grounded for breaking curfew last weekend?"

"MOM?" The girl whined.

"I have to agree with your father. You're only sixteen years old! My parents would never have considered such a thing when I was your age."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better? Grandma and Grandpa are so uptight, they probably followed you to the grocery store to make sure you didn't buy the wrong maxi pads or something!"

"Victoria that's enough!" Stuart managed in a no-nonsense tone.

Vicky stormed off, her chair squeaking as she slid it to the table with force.

"I like these glasses Alex!" Stuart admitted.

"Maybe you should take them with you next time. They might help you see the bad guys sneaking up from behind."

Stuart extended his fingertips and brushed Alex's hair. He then gazed at his wife then smiled. "If only we could give the kids some 'no-grow drops' to keep them sweet and innocent."

I caught a distorted view of his wife nodding in agreement.

I was then folded and placed near Stuart's coffee cup and was subjected to watching him enjoy the most tender pork chops that I had ever seen. The entire dinner appeared absolutely delicious....but even more torturous was the chocolate mud cake with a fudge type of frosting for dessert. I moaned as Stuart consumed each and every morsel.

"How about after dinner we go and play some basketball dad?" Alex asked.

"That would be great son." The father agreed.

Just as they were standing to go outside, the telephone interrupted the peacefulness of the house. Vicky shouted from upstairs, "it's for dad!"

"Yeah?" Stuart managed as I lost sight of him obscured by the angle of the dinner plate.

"Does it have to be right now?" He asked with disappointment to his tone.

"All right, I understand."

A moment later Stuart explained to his son the reason he was being called back was a new development in the stakeout.

As the father was about to leave, Alex grabbed the orange-framed glasses and handed them to his father.

"Here! Take them so you can see everything all around ya dad."

"Okay Alex. I'll give them back to you later."

Stuart shoved me in his front pocket and the mirror stood above a mere half inch. It was just enough to catch a glimpse ahead as we traveled along.

In no time we were sitting in a car outside of a brick building. It was a line of apartments and from the appearance of graffiti, the area was rough.

We were only there a few minutes when another man entered the car.

"Did you eat dinner?" He asked tossing a bag with grease circles absorbed around the base.

"Yep." Stuart admitted. "Christine made the best darned pork chops that I've ever tasted and her famous chocolate dirt cake."

"Ouch and I have to eat grease for dinner! Some people have all the luck." The other man admitted through a chuckle.

Conversations shifted from food to sports then back to food again. It took several minutes before Stuart inquired about the suspect within. It had just been mentioned that the criminal was observed selling drugs at the high school that very afternoon. Both Stuart and his partner had gone over the current facts, when the lobby door of the apartment flung open and the suspect took off in a sprint as quick as a bullet.

"That's him!" Stuart' partner declared.

In an instant Stuart and I bolted from the car-giving chase on foot. The criminal was slick, darting through narrow alleys, up and over six foot fences. He even utilized a thrift store by darting within and hunkering down below the line of clothes racks as he moved to the back and out the door.

Stuart was alone in the pursuit now as his overweight co-worker fell to the side panting for oxygen.

Even within the pace of a run I could still view what was before me. The criminal hurried down a shaded alley and Stuart skidded his feet in an abrupt stop. He pulled a walkie-talkie from the side and reported his location. He then clenched hold of a revolver, knuckles white, holding it in a position directed towards the sky. His hand was trembling, his chest rising and falling from the exertion. I could feel the tension as we reached the end of the enclosed alley. The building formed a sort of gut with no options for escape other than past Stuart.

"You might as well give it up Landow! I know you're here somewhere."

Everything remained motionless within our surroundings. In the far corner a long cable clicked on the brick wall from the natural breeze.

Stuart kept twisting about as he shuffled further into the surround.

In a flash, we tumbled to the ground. The criminal was now on top of us directing the barrel of the revolver towards Stuart. I caught sight of his eyes...crazed, desperate. He reminded me of a hopeless animal ready to chew his own foot rather than remain snared within the teeth of a trap.

Landow was handsome but there was something cold in his dark brown eyes. His aura was cold, heartless, hardened. Somehow I sensed that Stuart was about to become another police officer killed in the line of duty.

"Um...excuse me?" I began.

Both Landow and Stuart gazed about with surprise.

"How are you doing that?" Landow asked Stuart.

"I'm not!" Stuart said as he began to squirm. Landow clicked the hammer back.

"You're not getting out of here cop!" "I'm not going back to that horrible place...not now, not ever and I'll do anything to prevent you from taking me."

"I've got kids..." Stuart muttered.

"So? So do I." Landow responded.

"Excuse me?" I tried again. "Calm down mister!" I said as my image suddenly catapulted from the glasses in a glistening array of light.

"What the heck?" Landow asked.

"I'm Robert." I said as Landow popped off three shots through my image.

"Oh, that won't work on me, by the way."

Landow gazed at the police gun and Stuart was trembling with fright. Stuart believed that Landow had actually shot him.

"Stuart, give me your wish!" I demanded. Somehow I realized that at any moment a bullet to the head would extinguish his life.

"My wish?" Stuart said. "My wish is to make it out of here safe and sound. I want this whole mess over with so that I can return to my family."

"You've got it!" I exclaimed extending my hand and waving over the gun. The next release of bullets was miraculously transformed into a spray of water.

"What the heck?" Landow asked as he suddenly realized his wrists were in handcuffs...not just any handcuffs, but the type the police used back at the turn of the century with two compact wrist holds and tarnished connecting chains.

"What's this?" Landow asked with surprise.

"An arrest." I spat as I assisted Stuart to his feet. "YOU managed the perfect wish. Your family needs you sir, please be careful and have a good life." I said as I shuffled down the alley and hesitated at the street.

Several minutes passed before the other policeman approached. His face was pale and he was gripping his chest in agony. Because I had not dissolved away, I suspected that I had not fulfilled the full destiny of this assignment.

The overweight officer fell to the ground. I simply leaned over him, extending my hand to his chest and whispered a thought sending waves of power to the failing human pump.

"Be well." I said as the man's eyes fell open. He gazed at me with a renewed energy. In not more than three minutes the man was on his feet and running in the direction of Stuart. Without the pleasure of experiencing a simple word of gratitude, my image folded into the shape of a miniature box. I then levitated from my position and popped into the nothingness of the next dimension. The explosion of a firecracker came to mind as I entered the next tunnel and was vacuumed away.