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why a burrito, specifically?"

"Because it's what I want. I need what I want, and I will be given what I need."

I pondered this. "Do you really think the world works like that?"

He looked surprised, "Of course it does, as long as I say it loudly enough. the world provides what I need."

"Has it done so long?"

"Always."

"I've never noticed that in MY life. Why doesn't it do that for me?"

He glanced at the crows, then looked at me conspiratorially and lowered his voice. "Because you aren't saying it loudly enough. That's the secret. BURRITO!" I covered my ears as he suddenly turned round and shrieked the word at the sky.

"So..." I started, "how long have you known this? A long time?"

"Oh no!" said the man, and he smiled. "I only realized it a few weeks ago. Before that I was just like everyone else. Then I was walking in the park..." he began, and it was as if a dam burst. He suddenly began a long, disjointed rant that I listened to with an uncomfortable mixture of stark amazement and horror.

"I was walking in the park," he said again, "it was, maybe, I think it must have been about six weeks ago. No, seven... it was about two weeks after my last wife left me, and she left on the 23rd, or was it the 24th? And that was a week after I got my pink slip... and I was walking through the park, and there was this big black crow in front of me. And I was frustrated, so I kicked dirt at it, and it said 'caw!'

"And I said, 'Crow, why is my life so miserable? I used to get what I needed. When I was little, I just had to wish for things and I got them. I really wanted a red fire truck and I asked a shooting star and I got it. I asked my mother for candy often enough and she gave it to me. Why are the things I want kept from me now?' and the crow cocked it's head. 'They are not kept from you.' It said, 'But they are not given either. You must take them for yourself.' So I replied "but it wasn't always that way! I got what I wanted when I asked for it! Things can't change that much just because you grow up!'

"The crow said, 'do you think the world will give you anything you want if you yell at it loudly enough?' and it laughed at me. But while it was laughing at me it hit me! Yes! That is EXACTLY how the world works! THAT is why I stopped getting things my way, I stopped asking for it! I stopped demanding things the way I want them to be, and started wishing silently instead. I didn't ask, so I got nothing!"

The man smiled widely. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck. "That," he

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