After a
long day at work, the last thing Irene wants to do when she gets home is deal
with the Djinni in her shopping bag, but she also has little choice in the
matter. With a sigh she sits in her still packed bedroom and closed the door.
Placing the lamp on the floor in front of her, she observes the object for
several minutes before slowly sliding onto the floor to sit before it. It was
still just a tarnished brass lamp, discoloured with age and mistreatment, Irene
contemplated cleaning it, but was not sure if the smell would bother Aasifa.
Thinking
of Aasifa she sighs and reaches forward to rub the lamp the world lurches as
before, small sounds she had not even noticed until the disappeared ceased in
an instant, the colors of the room became distant, some fade and appear more
muted while others jump to seem more jarring. Any motion of her head creates an
effect like paint being dragged across a picture or spinning around quickly in
a circle. A small puddle of mist leaks from every part of the lamp and shapes
itself into Aasifa.
"Hello
Lady, so good to see you again." He proclaims giving Irene the impression
of a relieved smile.
"You
didn't think I would summon you again?" She asks him.
"One
never knows. Wishes don't always work out as the wisher intends, it takes some
practice from the wisher I believe to phrase them just so, and I never know if
it will go horribly wrong until you summon me again." Aasifa says with a
hint of a bow.
"Horribly
wrong? Even from one little shopping bag?" Irene exclaims, the only thing
that went wrong with her was Emma's suspicions, which was easily soothed.
Aasifa
shrugs without moving his ephemeral form, "I never know."
"I
would like to take this opportunity to practice my wishing skills." Irene
declares, "My first wish is for you to make me feel fresh, like I felt
immediately after I woke up."
"You
have used your forth wish to feel as you did immediately after you woke up
today, you now have unlimited wishes." As Aasifa declares this, Irene
feels a grogginess settle over her, the aches in her feet and back disappear,
but are replaced with a stabbing pain in her right shoulder and neck. A desire
to curl up in her bed and go back to sleep seeps through her body and Irene
studies her bed longingly.
"I
wish to be mentally alert and to reduce the pain in my neck." Irene
re-actively wishes to change what she has created.
"You
have used your fifth wish to become mentally alert and reduce the pain in your
neck, you now have unlimited wishes." Before Aasifa's announcement is complete,
Irene feels awake as if she has drunk four cups of coffee and the pains in her
body have decreased away, however, her desire to crawl back into bed has not
diminished.
With a
sigh she changes tactics, "I wish for you to put me back in the physical and
mental state I was in when I summoned you."
"You
have used your sixth wish to be restored to your previous state, you now have
unlimited wishes." Irene feels her daily aches and mental fatigue
returning and sighs.
"How
do I get the wishes right? Everything does not work as I imagine it will."
"Language
is an imprecise thing and I cannot read your mind. You must find a way to more
precisely communicate your intentions to me, but do not despair, humans are
never very good at this." Irene glares at the Djinni after this comment,
but sits in silent contemplation for a few minutes debating her course of
action. She should simply wish for him to take his lamp and turn himself in to
ITG, but the allure of the wishes as the challenge of phrasing them just so that
they will create in the real world what she imagines in her head is
overwhelming. Such an invigorating prospect that she skips ahead of herself and
plans a wish for something bigger.
"I
wish the boxes containing my possessions were unpacked, the furniture put
together, and the contents and furniture organized as they were in my previous
apartment. I realize that the place has a different layout and space, put the
items in the room which they would correlate to in my previous apartment and if
things do not have a space based on this plan, do not place them, leave them
and ask me where they ought to go.” Irene thought she must have covered
everything with that.
"You
have used your seventh wish to have your belongings to be unpacked and placed
as they were in your previous residence, you have unlimited wishes
remaining." As Aasifa speaks, several of the items from Irene's boxes and
furniture rearrange themselves, but about half of the items stay where they
are.
"Okay,
that sort of worked." Irene observed and Aasifa chuckles at her until she
glares at him causing him to cut off and seem to shrug.
"I
could have told you it wouldn't really work." Aasifa comments in response.
"What's
in the rest of these boxes?" Irene asks him and Aasifa lists off their contents
and why they were not put away based on the previous wish. Irene uses several
more wishes to unpack everything before realizing that it probably would have
taken less time and energy to just unpack manually, but at least she now has
more experience phrasing wishes for the Djinni. Okay, she thinks, I can do
this. Make a wish that will benefit the hospital without resulting in
completely unintended consequences.
"I
wish you would restock the medical supply closet on the third floor, north wing
of South Shore medial hospital with exactly one identical item for every item
already in the closet. Place the items next to their twin, the new item should
be full, even if the currently stocked item is almost empty." Irene
rattles off, hoping the wish will be specific enough to garner the intended
result.
"You
have used your twenty-first wish to wish for an identical, but unused, item to
be placed in the third floor medical supply closet of South Shore Hospital, you
have unlimited wishes remaining." Aasifa announces as always.
Irene
cannot see the immediate effect of her wish, but knows this is the floor and
wing were Rita is working tonight and sets about making some dinner for herself
(with wishes) to wait for her roommate to return. Any totally unintended consequences
should be reported back to her in about two hours. After making an eatable
dinner through wishes alone Irene sits down to wait for Rita and notices
another unintended consequence of having the Djinni around. From the time she
returned home until the time she dismisses the Djinni and sits down for dinner
only five minutes have passed.
She
mules over the Djinni's warning that spending too much time in his world can be
bad for her as she considers the benefits of having her own ability to stop
time. She could save lives, Irene realizes, in those moments at the hospital
when seconds count, she could step in and ultimately save a human life.
Delusions of grandeur begin to spin around Irene's head, if only she can get
the wishes to come out right, she will be able to change the world.
After
eating, Irene sits down to type of a report to Amy McAdams, the paranormal
chronicler at ITG, but deletes the report a few paragraphs in. Irene desires to
spend more time the Djinni herself and besides, she rationalizes, her report is
not due for a few more days anyway and she might learn a bunch more useful
stuff about the Djinni and how to control him. She contemplates bringing him
back out to talk with, but concludes it will be better to simply let time flow
normally and wait for Rita, so Irene does the dishes by hand and sits down to
watch TV.
Rita
returns home an hour late and collapses into a nearby armchair, "I've had
the most awful day." She complains without provocation.
"Oh?"
Irene asks a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, "What
happened?"
Rita
throws her arms up in exasperation, "I can't even tell you rightly, you'll
think I'm completely insane. One of the supply closets is... broken. I don't
know how else to explain it. Someone found it over flowing with stuff like someone
had grossly overstocked it and anytime you took anything out a new thing would
appear and you didn't even have to take the item out, it could just fall out
and a new thing would appear. Anyway there's no way to keep track of all those
medical supplies, they had to put someone to guard it. It was half way through
the shift before someone thought about guarding the guard, who it turns out had
swiped about twenty bottles of Vicodin, and no one would have noticed them
missing if we hadn't set a nurse to check in on him and she happened to see him
pulling one out."
Irene
felt like a deflated inner tube, her wish had gone wrong and even though her
intentions were good the potential for miss-use of the end result was so
glaring she wondered how she didn't see it in the first place. Immediately she
began contemplating an exit from her conversation with Rita to return to the
lamp and set things right with the Djinni. Rita was in such a foul mood that
she barely even registered Irene excusing herself hastily.
Once
inside her room, Irene summoned Aasifa, "I wish to undo my previous wish
and to return the supply cabinet to its prior state." She commanded.
"You
have used your twenty-second wish to undo your twenty-first wish, you have
unlimited wishes remaining." Aasifa announced before Irene dismissed him
back into his lamp. At least it had only been a few hours she thought, the
damage must be minimal.
The next
day at work, however, Irene learned differently. Even such a small interference
had led to disastrous results. Her twenty-second wish had resulted in the
materials from the supply closet being mysteriously recalled as if they had
never existed in the first place. This meant that any medicine which had been
administered to the patient was removed from their system and caused massive
disturbances and was implicated in at least one death.
Irene
finally decided she could not control the Djinni or wield the wishes to do her
will and turned the lamp over to ITG later that day.
