Genies are notorious tricksters. They always have been depicted and portrayed as entities that will deceive and half truth in ways that alter the meanings of your words to give you the opposite of what you wished for. Or, at least that’s what I recalled when I picked up the lamp.

I had been doing an archaeological dig with my cohorts in a small village when we came across the lamp. We decided that it would be best to call it in before we messed with it, as these kinds of things are taken very seriously within my team. One of our guys just had to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark last summer and ever since he got the boss so hyperactive about the worries of artifacts harming us. And honestly, I thought about showing them the Last Crusade, the chalice scene would make them flip!

The boss shows about an hour later, and insists we hand it over. When I go to reach for it, however, my untied shoelace catches me by surprise and I begin to fall face first towards the dig table. Just then, the ground around us began to shake. Smoke started billowing out of the spout, and just then, the genie shouts: “HAHAHAHA! At last I am released! Tell me, boy, what can I do for you?”

Reasonably, the boss is pissed. “I TOLD YOU NOT TO MESS WITH IT!” As soon as he finishes, the genie snaps, and his mouth is gone! The boss falls to the floor in fear, writhing and grunting reasonably. “SILENCE! My master has the floor.”

I figured that must be me.

“H-hello m-mister genie sir. How- how do you do?” I gulped.

The genie looks at me and laughs a hearty laugh, once again rumbling the floor. “How do I do? How do I DO? I do fantastic! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve conversed with your kind? Do you know the power I wield? I can make any of your wildest wishes come true! You can trust me, after all, I’m in no position to lie.”

And he was right, he was in no position to lie. I was his master. Or, was he? I thought for a moment, looking around at my team as if to say “anyone wanna help here?” They all just shrugged, or shivered at the potential mistakes we would make. Ultimately it was going to be up to me.

“That’s uh, that’s swell mister genie. Say, can I wish for my bosses mouth back?”

Your wish is my command, I heard in my head as my boss began to scream, seems as though he got his mouth back.

“Scott! Stop this at once! Wish for him to go back in the bottle! Wish for no more wishes! Do not do business with that thing!”

My boss had a point, I was lucky that one wish went over so well. I had to think, either I could solve the worlds problems, or they would be spun in a way that it could only cause more. And, what of my job? This was all an accident after all, I had no reason to get myself fired.

“Alright, g-genie!” I swallowed, and tugged at my collar. I needed to calm down. I was overplaying this in my head.

Then it hit me. What would the genie do? Maybe it wanted things I wanted from the world.

“I have two wishes genie! You are mine! And as my advisor, I want to wish for advice for my last wish!”

Suddenly my mind was filled with hundreds of dialogues all speaking over themselves. I realized I only had one wish left, and thousands of wishes were filling my head. I couldn’t dream of fixing all of these at once, could I? I was getting overwhelmed, my forehead brimming with sweat.

“STOP THIS! I asked for advice! What is this?”

“That, my boy, is every unwished demand from peers before. The things their hearts wanted. Do you hear them? They let their minds get in the way and solved their desires. Not their needs. Not the worlds needs. Isn’t that sad, boy?”

This could have been my chance, I thought. I CAN solve all the problems!

“Alright, genie. I accept. I wish that all the unfulfilled wishes you’ve seen through were granted.”

The genie grinned. I shivered. I knew I had done something horribly wrong. And then he snapped his fingers.