Pop-up Wish

Pop-up wish

Fadzlishah Johanabas Rosli

(816 words)

Prompt:A genie pops out of your magic bottle and says that because Writing.com is having its ninth birthday this week, instead of the usual three wishes, you get nine. Only there are some additional rules.... What are the rules? What happens?



         It was a quiet Sunday morning. The rain had just settled, and heavy clouds still blanketed the sky. I could make out a weak mew from the stray kitten at the back of the house, probably looking for its mother.

         Inside, I was snug within the cocoon of my down blanket, staring into the white glow of my 22-inch LCD monitor. I had finished reading a young adult novel - about a vampire, no less - and I was out of reading materials. To quench my thirst I browsed through stories posted at Writing.com. The amount of talent, of different stories told, impressed me to no end. If only I had the knack for telling stories, for writing tales. I sighed at the thought; I could not even write a straightforward report at my workplace without screwing up.

         I was about to click a 5.0 rating on one amazing story about two brothers finding each other when a pop-up ad appeared with a Woody Woodpecker laugh. Odd, I thought. I remembered disabling all pop-ups. I closed the intruding ad without looking at its content. The pop-up appeared again. I closed. Appeared. Closed. Appeared. I sighed.

         I looked at the ad. It was a silly vector of an oil lamp with a hand cursor whenever I rolled the mouse over the window. There was a big ‘Rub Me’ under the lamp. No ‘Congratulations, you’re our lucky winner!’ Just a ‘Rub Me.’ I held the left button pressed and rubbed the lamp with a vengeance.

         “Ahem,” came a baritone voice from behind me. “You called?”

         I jerked backward so fast my neck hurt. Sitting on the black two-seater sofa with a yellowed newspaper in his hands was a large man with curly hair and thick mustache. Hair bristled out of his buttoned-down checkered shirt. A cherry wood pipe hung from the right corner of his mouth, making a lazy trail of smoke. In my air-conditioned room.

         “Hey, who the heck are you?”

         “They get more rude each century,” he said without looking up. “I am the genie of the lamp. You rubbed, I came.”

         I turned back to look at my monitor. The lid on the lamp was opened. I turned back at him, my mouth still agape. “Aren’t you supposed to be…blue?”

         “Trust Disney to mess things up. If I had blue skin, I have to change my entire wardrobe!” The genie snapped his newspaper shut. “Since it’s Writing.com’s ninth birthday, the Powers Above told me to grant you nine wishes. Not three, but nine.”

         “Why?”

         “Something about people there writing good stuff about the Powers Above. They’ve been following the website since it started.”

         “You’ve got internet connection up there?”

         “Wireless.”

         “Nice.”

         “Now about your wishes.”

         I held my left hand out to him in a stop sign. “Let me guess. No wishing for more wishes, no wishing to resurrect the dead, no wishing for the impossible.”

         The genie sat up straighter. “Well at least Disney got that part right.”

         “You also want the last wish to be for your freedom.”

         “And fend for myself out there? This century is harsh. No thank you.” He leaned forward, closing the gap between his face and mine. The smoke from the pipe wafted into my nose. It didn’t smell awful, just old. I sneezed.

         “Can you please put that away?”

         “Is that a wish?”

         “No!”

         “Then live with it.”

         I leaned back and crossed my arms. This genie was not how people generally portrayed genies.

         “Look, kid -”

         “I’m nearing 30.”

         “I’m over 3000. You’re a kid to me. Look, since I like you, I’m going to let you in on a secret. You can have that nine wishes, but I will grant them in a way that you’ll wish you’ve never asked for them in the first place.”

         “Why?”

         “To teach people a lesson for wanting things the easy way.”

         “Fair enough.”

         He nodded. “You can have those and risk the consequence, or you can choose for me to grant one wish, no tricks, no strings attached.” His face was serious. “One,” he added, emphasizing the O with his mouth.

         “Well,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “I’ve always wanted to know how it feels to be able to write. To write a story, and have people reading it. Liking it, even. I wish to have a story published in Writing.com, please.”

         “Done.”

         “Serious?”

         “I’ve registered your account and posted a story for The Writer’s Cramp competition. And since I like you, I’m giving you a bonus. Try writing more stories. You’ll be surprised at what you can do.” With a wink, he disappeared, just like that. No puff of smoke, no beam of light, nada.

         I scrambled to check out the story the genie promised. And found our entire conversation written in this story.

         I found myself gaping even as I read this sentence.