The Genie and the Girl

The breeze was cold for summer. It had a chill only recognized by wintery melancholy and a sun only recognized by summer exultant. A girl barely under 20 with rigid curly hair and deep cobalt eyes. Stared at the sky with clouds slowing moving around the world, ready to cover the sun. Though she often pondered what she may look like with less potent features, she felt no strain in her attributes. She looked to the ground with nothing on her mind; she walked on a broken concrete path with partially overgrown flowers and weeds bending through all the tiny cracks.

She hated this town she called home, the one she grew up in, and the one she felt such a powerful disdain against. The city was covered in small mold-filled buildings and streets filled with pot-holes, malnourished animals, and litter next to the trash cans.

Looking around her home, she knew nothing but anger; it wasn't normal. It wasn't something simple; no, she could feel the anger in her heart and soul, in her mind, and, when it was cold, in her bones. Her fury preached on her shoulders as a curse seemingly there but obscure to sight. She knew nothing of happiness and laughter like the car blaring music that had just passed her. She knew only of broken, thin walls and coffins filled with needles and books. She knew books; she delved into the pages that hid her from her arduous mind. The sun spotted her through the clouds, creating a halo effect; most days, she felt like the sun had avoided her, but not today.

She stumbled, picking up a bottle with lavish interior palettes of clothing and blankets: red, blue, and orange. There were so many more colors to see.

Of all things, this bottle made her forget where she was and forget the animosity she held against her family and her home. Her family told her day in and day out how her struggles made her great. She did not believe this; she thought her struggles made her less than tremendous, but instead, they scared her and deprived her of feeling like she may be truly fulfilled. She knew the truth about struggles. No matter what she goes through, as long as she survives, that is all anybody will see. She pitted herself for her endeavors. Her mother would say that her hate for herself helps keep her in her lackluster position.

The bottle dropped to her side, and she continued to walk around her home. Behind her appeared a man looking around the world he had just been welcomed to. His lavish outfit was as colorful as a bottle, but the girl did not see him. She kept her face forward, not considering what stood beside or behind her. He smiled, stretching his arms from the years of solitude. He began to pursue her. He wondered about the girl looking down, who had a soft demur aura about her, and what she might wish. A smile formed on his lips, thinking of all the wishes he granted, though none panned out for the fellows who made them; he got to see different aspects of the world. Once, a man with green eyes wished for love, and as others loved him, he loved no one. While a woman with striking white hair asked for health, she was given every remedy the world had to offer, with no thought of how to use it. She died not too many weeks later; her grandaughter became a doctor and healed many sicknesses. He shook his head, dispelling the thoughts of the past. Looking at the sky with a crisp breeze, he loved the earth but was trapped in a plastic bottle for his eternity of life. He remembered his old man who would be in the sky now with his mother and how he believed all were predestined and we could only oblige or deny. The Gnie loves humans. They are all wonders of joy and/or envy; some wish for something ordinary people should not obtain. Such as money, as there were three wishes to be bestowed, but most only made it to their first as they used the Genie as a thing and not as a friend. Many men and women were in prison for a burglary they did not commit.

It was sad to the Genie that humans didn't realize what they had. They didn't understand the beauty in the clouds, gray and white, not the sun when it was covered or bright. They didn't respect the untouchable things; instead, they envied those who could touch them. Humans wished for everything they didn't have, even if it would kill them. They didn't understand the beauty of age, the one thing so tangible that they loathe it. As some have tried to wish for immortality, a curse that comes with a child's skin, in truth, immortality only exists in death. The Geine's father believed these things are the bane of existence as they create something that doesn't suit well for living at all. But no matter, they always find something to want. The moon is not enough when currency is divided around the world.

The Genie knew all about human wants and the devilish desire of the mind. As he was human so many years ago, he, like this Girl, was once a boy. A boy who had wished upon the night sky with the moon and stars looming above him. The stars spoke to him that night in the desert, with the sand whipping around him. He had cushions all around him, every color of the rainbow. He listened to the stars and wished he could stop someone's pain. A simple auspicious wish was not so specific. Later, after his walk back home, his mother lay limp without her medicine. She had skin frail and purple, covered in scars from a long life. She didn't even remember him when he came to visit. With a raged breath, his mother grabbed him. A bottle beside her bed covered in rags, she wished to succumb to the price of life, and so she did. His heart stuttered as her pulse dissipated, his belongings disappeared, and his body shrank into the bottle next to his mother's bed. He could not see how his bottle ended up here with this girl, but he no longer wished to know that which wasn't for him.

Finally, as the sun set, he caught up to the Girl's side and had to stop her before she noticed him. Just as the Genie reached her, rain shed from the sky. Whereas the Girl saw desperation from the Earth, the Genie saw fuel for the Earth. A smile wide on his face as the rain dripped. "You have three wishes; nothing is obstructed from your grasp, but nothing is without consequence." The Girl stares at him, curiosity running through her, a chance at a better life. Her face lightens to Genie's surprise; he thought she might always look so gloomy, but she seemed happy even as the rain drips through her eyelashes. "Three?" She questioned the Genie nods. "Can I ask? That none of my wishes be givin' until all are said." With glee, the Genie accepts the odd request. She was a rather interesting human.

"An odd request." She smiled.

"But necessary." He began decoding her emotions as she spoke her three wishes. "One, I wish you were free of your duties as a genie." He stopped and looked at the Girl. "Two, I wish you to fall in love so deeply that you can never question if it was love at all." With another heart palpation, the Genie leaned forward. Unable to stop her before her third. "Three, I wish for peace and only peace, I don't want ups and downs I just want tranquity." The wishes were enacted as soon as she spoke them all, and she was gone from his sight. The Genie stood in the rain with nowhere to go. With no ability to stop the inevitable. Before he knew what days passed, he stood in the back of a hall lined with chairs. Now empty, he stood afar from the casket of the woman he without a doubt loved. He smiled, looking down at the Girl who set him free, the girl who was finally at peace.