If you catch a magpie and lock it in a cage, it will give you 1 wish as compensation for depriving it of its freedom.

This was the first thing the old man said when I walked into his office.<br><br>Two hours ago I was washing dishes at the apartment. Two hours before that I was lying in bed reading a book. Two hours before that I was doing the chores for the local inn. Two hours before *that* I was having breakfast with my family. And every two hours, someone would talk say something to me and it would always start with the exact same phrase. <br><br>"What if..." <br><br>"What if I asked the prettiest girl in town to dance with me and she said yes?" said the pretty girl herself. <br><br>I danced with her. Then I went to the forest to fetch some firewood. "What if you let that bear go?" said the gamekeeper, and I let it go, then I went home and had lunch. "What if you helped me steal this cow?" asked one of the local misfits, and I did, then I was arrested and put in jail. I sat there for just two hours, and then the warden said, "What if I let you out?" and I was out. Then I was in this office, listening to an old man I had never seen before.<br><br>"If you catch a magpie and lock it in a cage, it will give you one wish as compensation for depriving it of its freedom," he repeated. <br><br>"Is that true?, I asked.<br><br>"I don't know," he replied. "But I think it may be. You see, you are a very special young man. <br><br>I furrowed my eyebrows. How did he know my name?<br><br>"Every two hours, it seems, you switch realities," he went on. "I think you may be able to try it. To catch a magpie, I mean."<br><br>"How do you know about me?" I asked. <br><br>"Look," said the old man, and pointed to a piece of paper on his desk. I walked over to look at it. <br><br>"I think I've figured out how it works," said the old man. "I think that someone talks to you, they say 'what if' and it opens up a new reality. And I think that every two hours, you switch to the next one."<br><br>The paper itself was covered in scribbles that didn't make sense. "What is this?" I asked.<br><br>"It's a graph," said the old man. "On one axis, time goes up. On the other, realities go right. And that dot," he pointed to a dot near the bottom left corner, "represents the reality you are currently in, and the time you are currently at."<br><br>I nodded. At least that made sense. <br><br>"But don't just take my word for it," said the old man. "I've done a bit of research."<br><br>He reached under the desk and held up a little notebook. "While you're here," he said, "I'm going to go and learn everything I can about magpies."<br><br>And with that he left. I sat down at the desk to look at the notebook. It was enormous, with well over a thousand pages. The first page said, in neat cursive, "What if I learned to make a really good omelette?" The second page said, "What if I saved a child's balloon from getting caught in a tree?" <br><br>I flicked through the pages. Some entries were long and some were short. Some were positive and some negative. I noticed that the old man had terrible handwriting, and that enough dodos to populate an island had been saved since this began. <br><br>I flicked to the back. The second-to-last page was incomplete. The last page said only "What if I caught a magpie and locked it in a cage?" It was written in neat cursive. <br><br>And then I heard a voice. "What if you actually did it?" it said.