One Wish

This was a from a writing prompt from my friend Amber "You are a genie, as is the custom, after the 10,000th wish granted you are free, but the final wish is one that is completely unexpected."

One Wish

It's difficult to describe the way time exists for us.  Imagine with every blink the world changes around you.  Someone is talking to you, and a beautiful, expansive lake is behind them.  You blink, and it's a different person, in strange clothes, in an expanse of desert.  You blink again, and they're someone new, and you're in a building that smells like smoke and sweat.  And you just have to carry on, and you do, because it's normal.

But it's also always kind of familiar.  You know how it will go: recovering shock at your presence, going over the rules, one wish, blink, shock, rules, wish, blink.  And then, after only 10,000 blinks, we're free.  Free to wander the world, not mortal, but not what we were, either.  Just weird whispers behind the back of rational thought, slipping into legend and fairy tale in a world passing us by.

We're not legend, though, we're just rare.  And when someone does stumble on us, who would believe their story? Most of us stay with one family for generations, our anchors passed down to children and grandchildren.  Dynasties seem rarer these days, but those powerful families whose continued success that seems too good to be true?  Someone looking might spot an anchor in one of their beautiful homes: a homely old oil lamp, a battered nicknack box, a dusty jar, empty but sealed tight; ugly little containers that you wouldn't look twice at but that if you think about it, seem out of place on that rich wood shelf, in that decadent home.

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw no trace of the line I'd been a part of in the face of the man standing in front of me now.

"What is your wish?" I asked.  I'd long since dispensed of any sort of preamble.

"I've found one. After all this time," he laughed, and there was a strange age behind it, something much older than his youthful appearance would suggest.

"I take it you know what it is you've stumbled upon?" I crossed my arms. "Wonderful, so which of your disgusting hungers will we be sating?  Sex?  Money?  Perhaps you'd like to spend the rest of your days in a room of whatever narcotic is in fashion now?"

He smiled again, that grating, sad smile.  "Nothing like that, I'm afraid." He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.  "I want you to kill me."

I laughed at that, "I'm sure you can arrange that without me," I gestured widely at him, "Or again, room of narcotics..."

"NO," he interrupted. "No.  Look at me, that's not possible."  He stared at me in a way no one ever had.  "Look at me," he said again, almost inaudibly.

"...You're a Djinn..." I whispered, the realization making my head swim.

"A free one. Yes."

"Why...why would you seek me out to wish...a thing like that?"  I tried to focus.

"You dream of freedom, don't you?" he spat.  "To make your own way, pursue your own desires, wish your own wishes?"

I nodded, I couldn't help it.

"Forever?  To live like one of them, always among them, never aging, adrift in a sea of...emotion, drowning in love and being...powerless to keep them by your side? Watching them rattle and fall and die like leaves in winter?" He wiped spit away from his mouth and took a calming breath. "Free.  I've been free for centuries, and I've had my fill."

I didn't know what else to say, "You know how you have to phrase it," I mumble.

"I wish to die," he said, closing his eyes.

And just like that, I reached into reality, tugging a string here, knotting one there, reshaping it instinctually and trancelike, guided by the same ancient magic we were a part of.  I think I was crying.

When it was done, I looked down at his body, still youthful.  I stayed there, looking at his peaceful face for a long time, before I realized everything was the same.  There was no new face staring at me, I was in the same dark room I'd been in for...well, a while.  I was free. I didn't even realize.  No one counts their blinks.