Friday 19 August 2011

Friday Flash Fiction - Be Careful What You Wish For

I was cleaning out my grandpa's attic one time and found an old oil lamp. Naturally, I tried polishing it up, because are you going to not try to summon the genie on the off chance that you'll only end up with a shiny lamp? I was naturally shocked to be confronted by an actual genie in the end, though he was less helpful than I expected. Also, he looked kind of like Billy Idol for some reason.

At first I tried that trick from Aladdin. "What? You're not a genie. How could you be? I bet you can't even make a huge pile of gold right here."

I shouldn't have been surprised at the result. "Hey, who's giving out the wishes here, pal? You think you can trick me into giving you stuff for free? If I want to quit, I'm gone, and to hell with three wishes."

"Okay, okay, I wish I had a huge pile of gold."

Out of thin air appeared three gold bars. They hung there for a second - long enough for me to read "US Mint" and serial numbers on the side, then they crashed through the floor.

"Couldn't you have stacked them neatly?" I asked, with a little timidity.

"You get what I give you. There's not a thing you can do about it. Now out with it. Two more and let me get my sleep."

I thought for a second. Beyond money, I hadn't really thought about this. Then something came to me. "Oh, I know! I wish I could understand every language in the world!"

The genie raised his eyebrows, then whump! there appeared an enormous bookshelf stacked with black and yellow books. I picked one up.

"Italian for Dummies?"

"Better get started. One left, and make it good."

I heard some faint sirens in the distance, getting a little louder.

"What's that sound?"

"I expect it's the police. I had to leave an IOU for the gold bars, and moving them here might have set off the bank alarm."

"WHAT?!"

"Well, come on! You've got one left, and if you don't use it quick, I might get bored and leave."

"Uh ... okay ... I wish ... I wish ... I wish the police could never catch me!"

It was a mistake. I knew as soon as I said it. With a twinkle in his eyes the genie vanished and I was left exactly where I was, but the book fell through my hands. That mischevious djinn had made me immaterial so, sure enough, when the police arrived, they absolutely couldn't catch me. They couldn't cuff me either, or take me away in the squad car. I was, for all intents and purposes, a ghost, and they really had no choice but to either ask me nicely or leave me be. In the end, they took the gold and said they'd be back.

That was two days ago, and in the meantime, I've grown very, very hungry.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I wanted something besides sci-fi this week.
PPS - Hope you like it.

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