2025 Star Festival Prompt
The Wishing Tree (1): A Destiny City Star Festival Tradition to be held every year; In Town Square, there is a beautiful tree with spreading branches. It is tall, but the lowest branches are easily reached. The city has decorated the tree with small, starlike ornaments and glistening lights. Thick leaves and beautiful purple flowers dangle from the branches, along with a myriad of different colored papers with handwritten wishes. Next to the tree is a stack of blank paper with twine attached, and a handwritten sign that explains:
Write your wish on a sheet of paper and tie it to the tree. Take one wish off the tree and do your best to grant it. When you have granted the wish, bury the paper in the park.
The papers are biodegradable and filled with seeds. There are no rules for wishing, but you are encouraged to wish for something vague enough that it can be interpreted in many ways so that it can be granted; you do not write your name on it, but it is encouraged to write something that doesn't wish for self gain, but rather something that can make the world a better place. Some wishes dangling from the tree already include things like 'I wish there wasn't so much litter in the park,' 'I wish someone would clean the graffiti off the old historic buildings', and 'I wish there were more volunteers at the shelter.'
If you choose to use the Wishing Tree, what do you wish for? If your wish is private, you may write it on the paper and choose a spot in the park and bury it yourself instead of hanging it on the tree.
Write your wish on a sheet of paper and tie it to the tree. Take one wish off the tree and do your best to grant it. When you have granted the wish, bury the paper in the park.
The papers are biodegradable and filled with seeds. There are no rules for wishing, but you are encouraged to wish for something vague enough that it can be interpreted in many ways so that it can be granted; you do not write your name on it, but it is encouraged to write something that doesn't wish for self gain, but rather something that can make the world a better place. Some wishes dangling from the tree already include things like 'I wish there wasn't so much litter in the park,' 'I wish someone would clean the graffiti off the old historic buildings', and 'I wish there were more volunteers at the shelter.'
If you choose to use the Wishing Tree, what do you wish for? If your wish is private, you may write it on the paper and choose a spot in the park and bury it yourself instead of hanging it on the tree.
Generally, when Jackson went to the Star Festival, he always participated in the wishing tree, both the wishing and the granting part. Most of the time, he would wander around the festival, eat some food, play some games, buy a few things, and what not while he had an idea for a wish percolating in the back of his mind. When he first arrived to the festival on the evening of the first night, he had grabbed a wish he thought was pretty doable to grant off the tree, stuck it in his pocket to figure out fully later, and started to wander around the festival.
Honestly, it was always a struggle to figure out a wish that was vague enough for someone to grant anonymously, something that someone could actually do, but also something that he truly cared about. While there were always some wishes that were more or less true wishes that would need some kind of divine intervention to grant, Jackson felt that the spirit of the thing was to have community members doing something for the community or merely another person purely out of trying to be a good person. The anonymity was important and the ability to be anonymous when granting the wish was important. Also, the general intention. You weren't supposed to pick a wish to grant so someone could see you doing it.
So, Jackson did quite a lot of wandering around the festival and thinking of his wish. Admittedly, he also didn't want to make the same wish as previous years, but he was kind of running out of things that mattered to him. Music and art and there were only so many manageable wishes he could make about music and art. Maybe, he was just making a simple thing way too complicated. He was rather prone to do that. Did any of the way he saw this activity matter? Did anyone else think about this way too hard like he did? Really, probably not, but that was how Jackson and his brain worked and he really didn't see any reason to change that. It wasn't like there was anything wrong in over thinking a simple thing like this and adding more meaning to it. Especially if he didn't necessarily put his own standards on other people.
After passing the lantern booth and deciding that that was definitely his next stop, Jackson headed back over to the magnificent wishing tree. He really needing to come by and paint the tree one day. The curious purple flowers, the decorative stars, and the lights made it seem like a tree that came down from space to him, rather than a tree grown up from the ground. There was a small line of people who were waiting to grab a piece of paper and write down their wish, so Jackson waited patiently while still admiring the tree until the crowd around the table was a little smaller.
Once he had paper and a pen in hand, he wrote, "I wish there was more music and art around the city" and use the twine provided to hang it on a slightly taller branch of the tree. He was rather tall and wanted people shorter than him to be able to more easily attach their wishes. As he did so, an amber star charm dropped out of the tree.
Only he was walking away did he realize that someone might have a problem retrieving his wish. Oh well. It was there now.
Word Count
573
