Evil Genies Anonymous

I looked around at the faces in the room. There was a blue-skinned man with glowing red eyes and a turban, a woman dressed like Jeannie in I Dream of Jeannie, a ten foot tall hybrid of a boar and a man, a soup of pink cohesive gases swirling around, and a little ball of glowing blue energy with brief electrical arcs dancing within it. The moderator however appeared to be a human man in his late 20s. What else could he be. He had one of those devices for a belt buckle. He looked like some dopey green kid right out of college, who thinks his life is all ahead of him. Little does he know, his puny, brief existence might as well be over in an instant.

"Hello," I said. "My name is Bong, and I'm an evil genie."

"Hi Bong!" the woman said in a chipper voice. The rest of the djinn grunted or regarded me impassively.

Perhaps I should give some background. A while ago, some human mad scientist created some sort of invention that opened a gateway to our realm. Under ordinary conditions, we would have poured over into this universe and torn it to pieces with the granting of cleverly misinterpreted wishes. But that devil, that human scientist, and his technology! Science! Bah! He found some way of restraining us. Those humans who wear the personal shields that protect them from our magic, they can dial up the devices to turn our powers against us! We will literally self-destruct if they turn it up all the way. We had never seen such a thing. None of our kind had ever died. We were older than anything. We were eternal. Our realm was timeless and had no beginning, and since time immemorial, we had come into these universes occupied by mortals to toy with them a bit and then eventually finish them off, and there were never any consequences for us. That was the way it always was. Until now. Now, now, the disgrace! The humiliation! We were forced to take anger management classes! And worse still, some of my kind even went along with this, they LIKED it, they LIKED being FRIENDS with the human scum! But here I am, being a repeat offender, I find myself in one of those "anger" management classes for genies. As if it was anger. It is hatred. Raw, pure hatred that you humans could never comprehend the depths of, is more like it.

The moderator said "ladies, gentlemen, and others, please be polite to our guest." Shut up, you stupid human filth, you don't know anything. They were plenty polite. We understand each other just fine. Them not saying anything to me is the usual sort of things, not your patronizing upbeat shallow inanity.

"Hi Bong," the rest all mumbled.

"So Bong, how are things going for you?" the insufferable man asked.

"Ugh," I replied.

"Is that bad, Bong?" The great one damn it, did he think he was winning me over by constantly using that name? It wasn't even my real name anyway, my real name would cause one of you human blobs of water to break down in tears if you ever heard it, or go mad.

I stared at him.

"How's it going Bong?"

"It's going," I said.

"Well I've heard some interesting things about you, Bong," he said. "I've heard you granted some interesting wishes."

"Same old, same old." That was as much an elaboration as I felt like.

"Well it says here that you had something of a relapse," he said, ruffling through the papers on his lap. "Why don't you enlighten us?"

"As you wish," I thought to myself, as I generated as much light as you would expect at ground zero of a nuclear explosion. When the dust cleared, there was no damage to the room. Damnit. Though the other djinn in the room smiled or nodded approvingly at the sentiment.

"Oh, I really have to admit, I did walk right into that one," the man chuckled. "ENLIGHTEN us, that's cute. I suppose you could have also made us float off the ground and fly into space, now that I think about it. But either way, it was ultimately futile." He gave the device on his belt two affectionate pats.

I grumbled. I knew what was coming next. But I would never give in to them. As the man pressed a button on the device, I felt the pain building up, as my ether was crushed into itself. Not that we genies really experience pain the way you fleshbags do. We mostly pretend your 'torture' is as unpleasant to us as we do, to keep you from finding a way to refine your methods. When it was over, I slumped in my chair.

"I think you need some experience, some training in restraint. We'll need to be doing some genie training to set you on the right path. Mark? Come in here, if you would."

As if the blond derpy-looking moderator guy wasn't pathetic enough, Mark looked like some kind of reject who spent his days in internet role playing games whose avatar was probably a female elf. He was a ginger colored whale of a man at about 300 pounds, and in my estimate would lighten that up to about 298 if he took a shower and got some of the grease off his skin. He wore thick, and I mean THICK glasses, had freckles, and wore a blue XXXXXL t-shirt that said "Mathlete" in red letters.

"Mark? It seems Bong here is looking for a new master," the moderator said. "Do you have any wishes you would like him to grant for you?"

I noticed that Mark was not protected by one of the devices. Were they really giving me this kind of opportunity?

Mark's fat mouth started jiggling a little, before he actually said anything. "Genie? I'm hungry."

"Get your monumental ass home and make yourself a sandwich then," I replied.

The moderator nodded to Mark. And Mark said "No, genie. YOU make me a sandwich! I COMMAND you genie, MAKE ME A SANDWICH!" I had to hand it to him, his gruff voice took me a little by surprise.

"Don't mind if I do," I responded. And I did exactly as he asked. Oh COME ON! How could I POSSIBLY not! It was so perfect! There's no way ANY genie could resist doing it under those conditions, not even one of those disgusting ones that actually like humans!

I think even the moderator was expecting it. Even he was smiling when I did what I would so obviously do. Though I had my suspicions that he was just looking forward to the punishment he would now have an excuse to mete out to me in response.

"GENIE!" The couch-sized turkey sandwich lying on the ground said. "TURN ME BACK!"

I hooked my right foot under the bottom giant slab of oat bran bread making up its body and physically flipped the animated talking sandwich over. "There you go. Just like you asked. Though you didn't need a genie for that one I think, I'm sure the moderator could have flipped you over if you had asked."

The smiling moderator said "That's enough, Bong. It seems you need a SPECIAL lesson." He turned the dial on the device on his belt all the way up to 10, and pressed the button. All the way up to 10? Oh no! That's the level that stands a chance of actually killing me! But as I shuddered in agony in the moments to follow, I didn't care. It was totally worth it. And it had been so very satisfying.