Wish Granted by Peter James West Page A

the dust of its own shadow as its eyes stare upwards in wonder. The blue globe is mesmerising. Through puffy white swirls, the Kletch gazes down upon wide blue oceans and sprawling patches of lush green land. These things the voice has named before, but there are many other things that it cannot name. The Kletch watches them all. Sometimes it asks questions, hoping to learn more about the distant things that it doesn't understand. The voice may answer, or it may not. The voice is the source of all knowledge, and also the source of torment. By answering a question it can bring pleasure, and by denying an answer it can bring pain. The Kletch is driven by a ferocious need to understand. Maybe by understanding, it will one day be able to journey to the blue globe itself. It dreams of dancing with the strange creatures that it has seen on the blue globe's surface. On the blue globe, it would never have to be alone. On the blue globe, it could always be warm.
    The voice has no form, but the Kletch can feel when it is close. Even now, it lingers in the back of its mind, probing and testing, looking for any weakness to exploit. The Kletch scans the crater's edge with one darting, wild eye while the other examines the blue globe above, yearning to see every detail of the creatures that roam its colourful surface. The Kletch's golden eyes dilate as it stares into the distance. It watches the golden beasts that run with fur upon their backs. It watches the swimming beasts with rows of sharp white teeth. The Kletch asks the voice to name them all, but the voice doesn't answer.
    One creature floats above all others. Its face comes to a point, and its arms carry long brown strands that flutter as it glides.
    'Why does it not fall?'
    The voice remains silent, but it is near.
    'Why does it not fall?' The Kletch asks again.
    Silence.
    The creature flies above the land and the oceans floating with effortless grace. It knows no barriers. It is free. Its skin is different. It isn't grey and hard like the Kletch's, but brown and smooth, made of many fluttering strands. When it turns to swoop towards the ground, the Kletch is excited to see that it has talons. It plummets into a fierce dive towards the ground, arms tucked back towards its tail.
    'Now it falls?'
    'It hunts,' the voice replies.
    Hunts? The Kletch has never heard the word before. It forms a different shape in its mind. The creature swoops close to the ground before levelling its dive into a rapid horizontal sweep. Low and fast, it snatches at something on the ground and speeds upwards once more. The Kletch watches it cling to something small and furry, something terrified. It hunts.
    'Why does it hunt?'
    The voice is silent once more. The blackness seems closer than ever.
    After watching the creatures for a long time, the Kletch lies down to rest. The warmth of the yellow light will not last for ever. If it is to sleep, the Kletch must do it now, before the blackness returns. This is the only time that it is safe to relax its muscles without the need for flexing and straining to maintain the warmth of its body.
    The Kletch curls into a ball and dreams of the creatures that it has seen. It dreams of running amongst them, floating and hunting, running across the land, and swimming in the oceans. It wants to be with the other creatures, more than anything, but when it wakes, it finds that it is alone once more.
    Soon the blackness returns. It drains the heat from the rocky ground as though it had never been there. The Kletch starts to shiver on the cold ground even before it is fully awake. It has slept too long. Gathering its limbs into a tight ball once more, it begins the endless process of flexing opposing muscle groups to generate enough heat to keep its blood from freezing in its veins. The bitter cold seeps into its body. It shuts its eyes tight and waits for the yellow warmth to return. The wait is long and tortuous. The ground stings against the Kletch's thick grey skin, and its