Jagger lingered behind, staying in the treasure barn of the Sect of Many Guts while Kalon enjoyed a thorough training session with the Bodiceattva. Kind chatter drifted in through the broken window, whose glass had shattered in pattern that reminded Jagger of a hedgehog, or maybe to a grumpy Rottweiler puppy.
“Release of the Forgotten Phocid: Arsemageddon!”
A splattering sound. A blood curling scream. An annoyed yet accepting “Guh, my arm!”
“You will grow another one!”
Jagger yawned. Kalon losing an extremity during training was hitherto unheard of, but nevertheless an often theorized possibility. It was high time for the boy to suffer an amputation, as it was said to build character[1]. Mainly in Mary Shelley novels; or, in modern starfish fiction. Yes, the punctuation is part of the joke.
Jagger stretched his neck to take in his surroundings. Glass shards under his paws. Blood on his fur, familiar. And the glass cases with valuable relics all around him. Whoever had decided to build the bases of the vitrines with dung had been a visionary, and most likely not an olfactionary. The closest vitrine, one of the numerous cases that lined the left wall, contained the Sacred Bullshoes of Helium Hooves. Forged in times gone by people in possession of bones, these artifacts where rumored to allow their bearer to levitate. Jagger knew it because he was able to read the paper label attached to the pedestal of baked shit.
The pup began checking every vitrine. One contained a cloud that fed on methane. He wouldn’t touch that one. One contained a pair of googles that allowed cultivators to see Muay Thai. Sacrilegious, he decided. And one contained a lamp with a purported genie. He raised upon his hind legs and scratched the base of the case, removing pieces of dry dung until he reached the lamp.
He gave three ceremonious licks to the golden tea implement, and from its beak a white miasma began pouring out. It piled to a side, revealing a hunched figure, and then coalescing into a mirthful, legless man of the plump persuasion. He had chair breaking hips, and a face so round that it scared flat-cabaretters. He used these stereotypical genie drapes that flowed around his body like smoke, including baggy pants (slung over his shoulder) and some horrible bracelets. Somebody had sacrificed one of their wishes to make sure this man was a crime against fashion, and Jagger respected that.
“Salutations, mortal, you have released me from the lamp, and in exchange, I shall grant you three wishes. No more, no less. Three. Before making your first wish, do you need me to state the rules?”
“I am a talking puppy,” Jagger informed, confused at the fact that the genie had made no comment about it.
“Yes, so it seems. Do you need me to explain the rules?”
“Please do.”
The genie crossed his arms over his ethereal manboobs and nodded. “Rule 1: no wishing for more wishes. Rule two: no wishing for more genies. Rule III: no commenting on the numbering of the rules. Rule cuatro: no wish may result in the direct or indirect death of any sentient creature. Rule 5: No wishing to lay me. Rule six: No wishing for a bucket of mercury, seventy chickens, superglue and three accountants. Rule seven: no wishing to know why the previous rules were instated. Rule eight: No wishing for me to sit on your face, nor wishing for you to sit on my face. Rule nine: no wishing anyone to fall in love or hate. Rule ten: no wishing Pokémon or knockoffs thereof to be real and legally non-animals. Rule eleven: No wishing for an honest politician. Rule twelve: No wishing for me to repeat the rules more than once. Rule Thirteen: No wishing for me to go to therapy again. Rule fourteen: no wishing for libertarian or communist utopias. Rule fifteen: no wishing for more rules. Rule sixteen: No wishing to fuck the rules, neither literally nor metaphorically. Rule seventeen: No wishing to sate the hunger of any Labrador. Rule eighteen: no wishing for less rules. Rule nineteen: no wishing for a girlfriend, a boyfriend, or any variation thereof. Rule twenty: No wishing for twenty-five hour days. Rule twenty-one: no wishing for a shorter November. Rule twenty-two: No wishing to erase progressive speed metal from existence. Rule twenty-three: No wishing for me to shut up about the rules. Rule twenty-four: No wishing for me to get bad reviews on YourRulesomeDjinndotcom. Rule twenty-five: To be added. Rule twenty-six: No wishing for an invisibility coat and a dimension made solely of women toilets. Rule twenty-seven: no wishing for me to get cancer. Rule 28: No wishing to bring back the dead. Understood?”
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
“Not even crab-shaped cancer?” Jagger asked, eyes big and begging.
“No.”
“Intercourse!”
Jagger massaged his head with both paws as he brained a way to screw the genie over. “Okay, first, I wish that any human or bovine that wants to be granted wishes by your person is required to have intercourse with you.”
The genie’s smile turned to a frown as he rubbed his fat hands. “…Why do I feel you will be the fifth creature making the list of motherfuckers that I had to add rules for?”
“Because I am determined to— wait, only fifth?”
“Never underestimate the amount of bullshit some degenerates are able to cram into a single wish.”
“You know what? Screw my original plan, I want to change my first wish. For a pretty alyrical one.”
The genie scratched a chin. It was Jagger’s. “Okay, this will probably benefit me, so shoot, puppy.”
“I want to erase anticonvulsants from existence.”
“Why? I can cure you from allergies to the drugs if need be.”
Jagger’s little paw shoot forward, stiff as a cadaver. “I just hate them irrationally, do it!”
A blood curling scream entered the room, pulled an invisible chair, and sat by Jagger. “Is this yelps anonymous?” It asked.
Jagger shook his head, and the genie did the same.
The scream put on his hat once more and left by the same window he had come in.
The Genie snapped his finger, and millions got deprived of the drug they needed to face their chronic pains and/or epileptic crises.
“Done. Something else just as evil, little canid cunt?”
Jagger smiled with all his little teeth as he stared into the Genies eyes and nodded. The legless magical entity took a step back.
“I wish you to get fibromyalgia,” said the little Rottweiler.
Kalon’s amputated and crushed arm flew in through the window and landed upon a frail scroll, destroying a thousand years of carefully recorded cow history.”Great, dinner is served.”
Jagger stopped paying attention to the Genie and ran to fetch the mangled extremity.
“Wait, what’s your third wish?”
“I have no third wish, keep the change,” The little dog winked, and the genie reluctantly snapped his fingers. Immediately the demons of fatigue, back pain, and tender spots descended upon him, chewing on his ethereal body, making him almost wish to be dead. “I’ll have my revenge, Jagger.”
Jagger swallowed a ribbon of flesh like a Velociraptor from Jurassic Park.
“You, and what anticonvulsant?”
The Genie’s hand cupped his mouth as he thought. “You son of a bitch.”
Jagger blinked twice. “Aha. Yes. Correct.” And then he kept on eating like there was no tomorrow.
And that was how the genie learned the true meaning of Christmas: excruciating, constant pain, sleeping troubles, and a really weird refusal of specialists to diagnose him because he was male and males “do not get fibro”. A happy ending for him, pinned on a wheel of eternal torment… and also inside a lamp.
----------------------------------------
[1] For the love of the God I don’t believe in, please, I have written this sentence THRICE due to power outages. PLEASE STAY. DON’T JUMP, LITTLE LEVER OF DOOM.