"One moment, please," the man said as she walked past him and started to cross the street. "I'll grant you one wish. Anything you want. Anything at all. Believe me when I say I can do this, and make your wish."
She was overcome by a sudden dark fear of the man, because, somehow, she did believe him. He reached out for her, and she was gripped by an overwhelming panic, and said to him without really knowing what she was saying: "I wish you had never been here." And the next moment the man was gone.
Felicia was confused. There was a brief, a fleeting memory fragment; something about a man in a dark suit. But then the memory faded to nothing, and she asked herself: "What man?" and stepped down onto the crosswalk and hurried along her way back to her apartment.