The desire

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Someone Like You - front cover of the first edition from 1953

The Wish is a short story by the British writer Roald Dahl (1916–1990). It was first published in 1953 in Dahl's second collection of short stories entitled Someone Like You under the English original title The Wish . The German translation The wish of Hans-Heinrich Wellmann was added to the collection in 1967 ... and another kiss! (Content as published in Someone Like You ).

action

A bored boy sits on a staircase at home and stares at the huge red, black and yellow patterned carpet that extends in the hall from the stairs to the front door. In his imagination, the red patterns are hot coals that would burn him completely if touched. The black fields remind him of poisonous snakes that would bite and kill if touched. The boy sets himself the task of finding the way from the stairs to the front door over the carpet in such a way that he would only enter the yellow fields. If he could successfully reach the goal without being burned or fatally bitten, he would get a puppy as a reward for his birthday the next day - that's his idea.

The first part of the path is easy, but then it reaches difficult fields and has to take larger and more complicated steps in order not to step into the “fire” or the “snakes”, but to get to the safe yellow fields. Finally he struggles to reach the center of the carpet and realizes that turning back or jumping off is impossible. The boy is seized with panic and takes a step to the only accessible yellow field; his foot is only an inch from a black spot. A snake moves, lifts its head and stares at the boy. After further difficult steps full of fear, he has to take a risky leap. He does a split and sees the writhing, shiny snake bodies below. The boy swayed, waved his arms wildly, instinctively stretching out his hand to cushion the fall. What he saw immediately made him scream with horror: His bare hand thrust into a large, shiny mass of black and disappeared into it.

Outside in the sunshine, far behind the house, the mother was looking for her son. "

See also

literature

  • Roald Dahl: The wish, in: ... and another kiss! More unusual stories, Reinbek 1967, p. 102 - p. 104
  • Roald Dahl: The Wish, in: Someone Like You, London 2011, pp. 161 - p. 165
  • Donald Sturrock: Storyteller. The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl, New York and London 2010

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Sturrock, p. 627
  2. ↑ The Desire , p. 104