Your Fairy Godmother appears one night and offers you the choice of two wishes.
-
You will have the power to read minds, plus the power to inflict heart attacks on anyone of your choosing from a distance of 1km. You will be able to rid the world of drug lords, pornographers, rapists, child abusers, corrupt officials, dodgy bankers etc. You will be like John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Arnold Himself (on his better days.) Growing old, you can pass on your gift to another who is worthy.
-
You will find yourself in a savage village where you will live a good life, but be misunderstood, vilified, abused and hounded. You will live there for the best part of your life. After some decades of suffering, you will be set upon by a crazed mob and lynched. But your good life will sow a seed in the mind of one villager. He will leave his evil past behind, become a Great Sage, and write a book that changes the world forever.
Seriously, what would you choose if this chance was given to you? What do you desire? To take the life of the wicked, or to give your life for the wicked? Are you, in your deepest soul, Christian or Pagan? Myself, I’d be sore tempted to choose the first. I’d rather wield the power than be crushed by it. I’d rather become a self-righteous mass-murderer than to be murdered myself.
Not a nice thought, really.