Genie back up

  Ahhh My Genie

   "You have freed me from my prison, as per the customs of my kind I shall grant you all the wishes you so desire."

   -back up a page here-

    It all begins not in some ancient tomb, forgotten crypt, or enchanted cave. No, our tale of magic and adventure begins in an inauspicious home on a street that could be almost anywhere in any town in North America. There on that street sits a simple two story house, three bedrooms two baths; one of which is located in the master bedroom; so the kids that grew up here had to fight over the other one. Here is where Ralph Taylor and his wife Samantha Taylor raised two boys and a girl; and god knows how many dogs, cats, and unfortunate hamsters; along with the turtles, bullfrogs, and whatever else those boys would drag into the house for a few weeks every summer. In time those children grew up, moved out, Ralph and Samantha grew old; and as one does over time, accumulated tons of stuff. Older stuff being shoved into boxes in the corners of the basement, closets, attic; and even the unused rooms. As they bought the house so long ago they've managed to avoid inflating home prices; but as they've grown so much older they've wandered about the worseing economy for their children and grandchildren. So it was in this scheme of (maybe we have more valuable antics than we know), Ralph and Samantha have over a visitor helping clean out the attic; their grandson Eric.

   The honest truth is Eric is not poor; however from the perspective of his grandparents he looks poor. He has a two bedroom house he got pretty cheap thanks to it being something of a "fixer upper", not to mention forclosed on the previous owners. He is 29 years old and not married; with no intentions of ever being married; with an okay paying job. It pays the bills and what little luxuries he wants like his video games, computer, and other various entertainment items like movies. Not a bad life, but again to his grandparents and in general how their generation grew up this looks poor even if the amount of money he makes back in their day easily could have paid for all the stuff they had; but that is inflation in a stubborn pay raise economy. But it is all he knew so he is this day more or less just humoring his grand parents, and viewing this more as helping clear junk out of an attic than looking for any lost treasure.

  ******

   "Hey gramps!" yells down Eric finding  UPS package mostly sealed save for one flap, "what's with this?"

   "Huh?" says the old man looking up the fold out steps to the attic, "Oh...um...oh right, I remember that. Showed up on our door step, addressed to me and your grandma years ago, checked out the return address, some perfume company. Your grandma had me dump it in the attic, she was going to give out those bottles in it as christmas gifts as she doesn't care for perfumes ya'know; but we just forgot out about."

   "Huh," says Eric setting the box aside as he goes back to rummaging, before long his grandpa calls up saying he has to run an errand; and if he's not back in time before Eric leaves to just text him and make sure to lock up.

   A few minutes later as Eric is looking through some old vinyle records a rattling sound gets his attention, behind him by the exit from the attic is the UPS box; "Did I set it right on the edge?" he asks himself as he walks over, the box hanging partway over the side. He carries it back over by the records, scratches his chin, and opens the flap. Inside there are five unmarked opaque crystal bodies, blue, red, green, purple, and pink suttubg atop the straw which looks to take up most of the package. He lifts the blue crystal bottle, the top is sealed with a cork and a piece of paper glued down over it and glued to the bottle.

   "Kanji?" he says aloud, not able to read the symbol on the paper, which could from anywhere, but as the hard lines often seen in East Asian languages. He *sniffs* the bottle and *shrugs*, there is no hint of a scent.

   "Gramps sure this was perfume?" He looks around and gently peels the paper loose and off the cork, a few quick tugs and an explosion of blue smoke. He stumbles backwards, but stops as he hears the attic stairs fly up and close behind him.

   The smoke spirals into a six foot tall cyclone in the middle of the room, a pair of bright glowing light blue eyes appear in the smoke. Eric feels dizzy for a moment, a pain in the right side of his head that fades quickly. The smoke collects into a shape, that of a five and a half foot tall blue skinned belly dancer wearing darker blue pants with a black hem at her waist, deep blue slipper like shoes, a dark blue top with poofy should wraps; her hair is high off her head and swoops down over her back in a sort of pony tail.

  "You have freed me from my prison, as per the customs of my kind I shall grant you all the wishes you so desire."

 Eric is dumbfounded, blinking, not sure how to react.

  The woman floats in a cross legged sitting position, "Mortal of this Earth, okaaay, sooo, to be less as you say, intimidating."

   She floats down and stands by the box, glancing down at it and back at Eric, "I am Shanna the blue genie, it is the custom of my kind to reward those who have freed us from imprisonment with wishes until they no longer desire to have their wishes granted."

   Eric snaps back, "Is this a dream,"

  "No," she says, "let's make this more magical okay."

  She does a spinning dance, shakes her hips, waves her arms, and they are transported from the attic to a large room with blue cushions eveywhere. Eric's brow does raise noticing the box with the crystal bottles came with them.

  "There we go," she says, "Proof I am magic, aside from appearing from a bottle I should say, speaking of which."

   She *snaps* her fingers and the blue bottle turns to dust that vanishes into blue sparkles in the air.

  "I am Shanna the blue genie, as I said I am by the custom of my people obligated to reward the one who freed me with all the wishes they so desire. However I will be upfront with you, there are limits and rules to these wishes."

   She rubs her hands and does an odd motion passing her palms over each other without touching and makes a circular window appear that floats up, "Firstly, I am neither omnicient nor omnipotent; however I do have abilities that allow me to acquire all the information I would need to grant most wishes; such as the skill I used to learn your language; for I have been imprisoned for centuries."

   She points at the floating clear disc as it spins and shows the world, "My range of wish granting is limited, by my own power; although far more vast than a mortal can properly understand, by my own knowledge as I said, and by these rules. First I will grant no wish that I view will debase or humiliate me. Second I will grant no wish intended to attempt harm to myself. Third I cannot alter the past of your own timeline to make a wish come true in the present; although I can change the chaotic course of current events to make something happen later for your benefit. Fourth if you try to make a wish whose sole purpose is to confuse me with no desired gain on your part I will not consider it a wish at all. Aside from the timeline one those other three are the big no noes, try one of them five times and our contract is ended; and there is no statuet of limitations on these strikes."

   "Okay," says Eric, "wish granting genie, not playing games, so no wishes intended to humiliate or harm you, and no wishes meant to confuse you. Got it, I've seen people play the wish game online as a though experiment and end up trying to make wishes that are just trying to prevent any loop holes...but arn't really wishes; got it. I think I got it..."

   He is looking around, "I am way too calm,"

   "To prevent...term not found...supernatural exposure psychotic breakdown...that will do. I have eased your mind. Makes this process so much easier when the new wish asker...grantee...whatever, isn't on the floor constantly screaming this isn't real or clawing at the walls in a blind panic for some reason. Humans react oddly to the supernatural sometimes. So what do you wish."

   "So I'm your master?" asks Eric.

   "No," says Shanna, "This is not a matter of master and slave, it is a custom of my people, hence the rules."

  "Got it, that's cool, that's cool, and being calm is kinda freaking me out a little. So those rules are pretty different than the one's I heard before; which were not able to kill anyone, not raise the head, and not make anyone fall in love with anyone else."

   Shanna points the tips of her index fingers together in a triangle and sways a bit, her eyes glowing, "Ah, I see, a story, a...movie. Fascinating advancement. But, no, I am not limited in such aways. Wish a death, wish a resurecction, wish a love..." she has a disturbing smile and glow in her eyes, "to fall for you, and so shall it be."

   "No," says Eric, "Just to be clear, this isn't just three wishes?"

  "Correct," says Shanna, "you get as many wishes as you desire, until you verbally express to me a desire to recieve no more wishes."

   Eric pauses there was something in her voice, as he tries to remember actual stories of the Djinn, demons, faeries, and other wish granting beings in folklore.

   "Okay," says Eric, "I guess, I wish we were back in my grandfather's attic where we before you brought us here."

   "Granted," she spins around a few times and everything blurs, they are back.

  "Quick question," asks Eric seeing the box back too, "Those bottles...are there genies in those too?"

  "Yes," answers Shanna, "five of my sisters,"

   Eric only sees four bottles, "Five?"

   "The other is buried in the straw" she reaches down but stops, "right."

   "I cannot free them myself,"

   "Um..." says Eric, "Okay, better now than later...but why were you imprisoned?"

   "It is a tale I cannot fully explain," she says, "but the summarized version is jelous gods and angry wizards teamed up together to banish us six genies into these bottles as no one would fear and worship them while we were there providing the mortal village with all it needed and protected them."

   Shanna *smiles*, "In fact each of us is better at granting specific kinds of wishes than the others. I specialize in matters of nature, my red sister in matters of combat, my green sister in matters of finances, my purple sister in matters of spirituality, and my pink sister in matters of romance. We can all do the same things of course; we just specialized in those back then; they are not true limitations."

   "Wait," says Eric, "that's five...what about,"

   He reaches into the straw and feels something bigger on the bottom, like a flask. He pulls out a black crystal flask with strange symbols on it.

   "Matters," says Shanna, "of greater importance."

   Her words seemed stern when she spoke just then and Eric sat the black crystal flask down with the other four crystal bottles.

  "You can't open these can you?" asks Eric

  "Indeed that is true," she says, "I will not ask that you free my sisters, after all we are not limited in number and each of us has the same powers as the others..." she pauses, her gaze falling on the black crystal flask, "for the most part, a little better at this or that does not matter. You can decide for yourself if you'd rather have an expert in any particular avenue than I and free them. But I assue you I will grant the wishes to the best of my abilities."

   "I..." starts Eric, stopping as he looks at the box, "I will have to think about this; but in the meantime are you able to hide yourself somehow till I want a wish granted? I mean so as not to freak anyone else out; and I have time to get home and think over what I want?"

  "Of course," says Shanna, doing a little dance and vanishing into thin air.

  He leaves the attic empty handed, texting his grandpa he didn't find anything but cleared some walk space. Halfway home down the road at a stop sign he hears a bunch of clattering in the backseat. Wide eyed he looks back, the box with the crystal bottles, and the sudden stop made the box slide forward. He remembers the attic door, the how the genie destroyed the bottle she came from after being freed.

   He slowly turns into a parkinglot and secures the box in a seatbelt, "if broken by accident," he says aloud, "That wouldn't count as me letting them out...so...shit."

   He paces, "Six spirits, genies, fairies, ancient pagan gods or whatever, let loose on the modern world with no...restrictions...except one...but not the others..."

   He whispers, "Shanna..."

   Her voice can be heard and her likeness in his review mirror, "You desire a wish morta....Eric." she stops and smiles.

   "Other than the five strikes and me not wanting anymore is there another condition for this whole wish granting thing to end?"

   "But of course," says Shanna, "your death. Which cannot be caused by a wish, so do not fear I cannot try to kill you while indepted to you."

   Eric looks away at the back seat, "If they broke by accident that wouldn't cause them to be indepted and..."

   "Naturally," says Shanna, "they'd wish their sister free to join them."

  "Fine," says Eric, "when I get home I'll let them all out."



  *****

  A few hours later in Eric's living room.