The electricity has been off for nearly two and a half weeks and I must either join and likely die in the food riots outside or starve alone.

Someday my nameless forgotten skeleton will be discovered in a house filled with gold, silver, and jewels, or I must resign myself to being killed and having my house looted when someone finds out.

I never imagined, when blowing out the birthday candles, that having the most money in the world might have these unintended consequences.

I always like the idea of there being unintended consequences for self-gratification. I mean, if you had all of the money in the world, that would mean someone else doesn’t have it anymore, right? Society would fall apart pretty quickly. There’s something inherently “ill-gotten” about wished for riches, fame, etc. They weren’t earned so someone, somewhere, must pay a price for them.

As the gif might indicate, this story idea exists already and was done very well in a short horror story called “The Monkey’s Paw.”

I tried to think through what I might do if I found my house flooded with treasure. I’d be afraid to tell anyone. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to immediately tell the authorities… but that would absolutely bring in the media and the attention of those who were robbed via magic. You’d be afraid to turn on your car engine for the rest of your life. Society can’t have someone who has wishes like that granted, ever making similar wishes again.

If you tried to give it away, even covertly, it would eventually get traced back to you and the same thing would happen.

Your best bet might be to take a small amount of the treasure, change your name and effectively disappear. When your house and the loot is eventually discovered, hopefully you’re well hidden enough by then to stay that way. But that would be hard to pull off. So far, my best case scenario is that the granted wish would send one into something akin to a self-imposed witness protection.

Maybe wealth like that is limited to banks and dragons for a reason.