Make Believe was a rare fae business located in a human realm. Most humans who noticed it at all thought it was the headquarters for a toy maker. Make Believe actually dealt with the occasional magic humans faced in their otherwise mundane (though exciting) world. The fae handled things like imagination, dreams, and wishes.
They also assigned the rare Fairy Godmother to those with some fae blood. They provided an occasional hedge witch or wizard for exceptional cases.
Once a year, they dealt with the usual plague of Resolutions. For the last few days of the year, Make Believe was overrun with this specific, and sometimes tricky, magic. Most of the company dealt with the standard resolution problems -- too big, too small, unsuited to the person, etc.
Tan got the exceptional cases.
"Late as usual, I see," Ireka said as she paused by Tan's desk on her way out of the office.
Tan looked up from his work and managed not to snarl. The stacks of paper covered his desk, color-coded for easy reference. Purple was for people still deciding, blue for those who had apparently chosen, green for fun resolutions, pink for repeated resolutions, and white for the inevitable last-minute change. As he watched, four of them switched piles. He thought one of them had finally nested for good. Five more soon followed.
"Tan?"
He looked up, surprised to find Ireka still there.
"It is that time of year," he reminded her. "Resolutions have to be filed, or nothing counts. And once again, I've been assigned the Problem Keepers."
"Don't you mean --"
"Problem Keepers. Every year, they face a 'big' problem. Lose weight, stop smoking, get a better job, etc. But after a few years of those same resolutions, they get bored and decide to jump to something different. Something fun. Vacation in Maui, pottery lessons, book clubs."
"And that's bad?"
"It would be wonderful if the resolutions even made it to New Year's. But every year, right around midnight on New Year's Eve, they commit to the problem rather than the fun. And then they feel guilty all year for not following through on the big problem since it always fails anyway."
Ireka looked surprisingly interested. All the rest of the fae in the office knew she paid little to no attention to humans. Why now?
"I've been asking around the office, and people are telling me that you pretty much set the rules for this section, right?" she asked.
"Ummm, yes."
She leaned across the desk and looked him in the eyes. Hers were emerald green and feline in shape, and she smelled of vanilla --
"Are you crazy?" she demanded.
"It's been suggested."
She nodded. "I have a question. Does allowing them to change at the last moment affect anything later? No? It always goes the same way? Let me tell you this quaint human adage: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result."
"Is that for them or for me?"
"Both. You made the rules. You need to change them. Why not give them random resolutions? With a check for appropriateness."
"Random," he said with a slight shiver. "That might be fun for us --"
"Good."
Ireka reached over, grabbed up all the piles of neatly stacked paper, and threw them in the air. She added a whirlwind for good effect.
"AAAIIIIEEE," Tan said, watching as they twirled in the air and changed color. He couldn't even grab any.
"This will be fun, like the lottery. Some people will get very lucky, though they never planned on it. Let's go have dinner."
Some papers still fluttered around. The rest had fallen into piles of who knew what? None of them were just one color. They'd become rainbows of lines, squares, circles, and squiggles. Tan could make no sense of them.
So he went to dinner and then to a party and didn't return to his desk for two days.
The piles had sorted themselves out. Tan decided to treat this like he did each year and run a quick check on the resolutions.
Amazingly happy people out there.
Over the next year, Eva stopped worrying about a new job and started frequenting the company's exercise room. She was surprised to find it most often occupied by other women, including Heron, the head of the top-floor professional assistant pool. When she had an opening, Eva got a new job.
Eva thought it was like winning the lottery.
Albert took up knitting. He was so abysmally bad at it that some women at their lunch break started teaching him techniques. He told them about his wife knitting and how he wanted to remember her better that way.
They formed a club and met at his house on Saturday afternoons. He gave away most of Emily's old craft stuff, knowing he would never do more than knit.
But it was like having a family again.
And so the lottery method trickled through the resolutions. A few people got double problems, but most took it as a challenge and did well enough. Others who got double good spread their luck and good cheer to others.
And Tan?
He and Ireka did the 'toss for luck' every year afterward. They also had a traditional dinner and a New Year's Eve party. They even did it thirty years later after they'd lived together for twenty-five of those years. The fae thought they were crazy. They thought they won the lottery.
