GENIE

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I always loved the concepts of genies, efreets, and djinns. I�ve read Arabian Nights in a couple forms, and read many retellings of Aladdin to fully appreciate their place. I had a play produced about somebody who wants to have his wishes granted. I always see myself as the genie.

It�s true, I grant people wishes. Or rather, I granted them. My line used to be that, "Hey I have no life, I�ll serve somebody else for a while." Call me Percy Ross, without the monstrous ego.

But, the more I think about it, the more I think that I really do consider myself a genie. Take example A. My old dreams of magical powers. I used to dream of psychic powers; a way to differentiate me from other people, I mean, why else, I reasoned, should, I or be picked, or could I be picked over another kid. After I saw a movie, I had those powers. I had the Force, I had the ship from Flight of the Navigator, I had the power of persuasion, and the ability to cheat from The Sting, I could sword fight like that guy from Willow all the magical televational, telekenetic, and teletransportic powers of Tony and T�a from Escape to Witch Mountain, all of those became mine. I could hypnotize, infiltrate, confuse, sword fight, con, lockpick, and pickpocket, all as a master, so that I could get all that those protagonists got. In life I learned to hypnotize, infiltrate, confuse, swordfight, con, lockpick, pickpocket, so that I could get all that those protagonists got.

At the same time, you still have to be moral. For all that I know, a free genie might in fact control fate, but to be a lesser genie, and manipulate the populace, for your own benefit, is quite boring and wasteful. Batman and Spiderman could rob any bank in the world. But the fact that they really have to defeat somebody, and that in the process, they do The Right Thing, they garnish our sympathy and become Heroes. The villains they decide to set themselves upon needn�t be a supervillain. The Shadow�s villains were generally morons. So were the idiots in the old George Reeves�s Superman.

I�ve got to stop rambling about TV and movies. The point is that I saw myself as possessing powers, so as to give my puny self a miserable excuse for existence.

But in truth, it is more than that. The symbolization of the genie, that is. Everybody�s dreamed about magical powers. Three stories stand out from 1001 that really though, lead me to this conclusion. The first one I can�t remember its title. But, apparently, a man walked into an underground lair, and he was for some reason not all too surprised to see his sister�s now lifeless body, burned, so that it appeared to be an African. The brother tells the story that the reason his sister has been crisped was that she had taken up with a genie, and since she engaged in a sexual relationship with a being on a different metaphysical level (AKA, since she screwed a genie) she immediately was singed. Kind of apropos, I�m afraid that the girl will get burned.

In the second story, which is near the end, "The City of Brass," the king basically forces a lesser genie to fall in love with him. Eventually everybody concedes and agrees, and the plot really lacks on this story, but the genie�s family gives him, a king, a huge dowry, that let�s just say, well is not all that strange, seeing as how it�s a fairy tale, but the point is that everybody comes out ahead, when he marries a genie.

That�s the key. He married a female genie. Whatever it is that makes me a genie, had I been a female, would be ideal, and give me the ultimate fairy tale reward, the rich king. (This story even had "and they lived happily ever after," for an ending, for crying out loud.) A female genie will get the pot, while the male gets the ashes.

The third story happened in the beginning. I don�t remember the story, because, well it really wasn�t one of Shaharazad�s story�s. It was one of the tales within a tale within a tale that populate the book. Apparently, somebody was unlucky enough to find a djinn in a bottle. I say unlucky, because as soon as the djinn was released, he told the arab that he would die. This was an unusual reaction, and the Arab asks, "Hey jerk, haven�t you read Ale� Din? Don�t I get a prize for rescuing you?" or something like that.

So the Genie explains that he�s been in the bottle a while, and had long been in need of rescue. He explains that the first thousand years, he would have been the servant of his rescuer. After the second thousand years, decided he�d give three wishes, then two, then one, declining each millenium he remained trapped. He got down to happiness, wealth, beautiful wife, etc, but he was still waiting in the bottle. Eventually, this declining led to negative aspects towards the rescuer, and the rescuer finally came when he was at the mindset of eating the rescuer.

The rescuer escapes, using a "Puss in Boots" trick. (=There�s no way you could have fit in that bottle.=

=Could too.=

=Could not,=

=Could so,=

=OK, Prove it.=) Genie goes back in the bottle, and the Arab seals up the bottle. Cute.

All right maybe the quotes aren�t exact, but that�s the gist of it. I�m just worried that I�ll turn into the genie. If in some unforeseen way, I got a girl at this juncture, she would be put on a monumentous pedestal, but what if I start to decline?

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Get me outa here!!!

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Michael Kadish
"Ha, ha, ha!" William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus Act III scene i
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