I looked at my Master, appraisingly. Their first Wish intrigued me – it’s rare, that they would Wish to solicit my advice, instead of jumping straight into dicking around with powers they can’t possibly comprehend.
“Wish to expend your last two Wishes, and walk away.” I said, at last.
My master blinked. “What?”
“Say ‘I Wish to expend my Wish’, say that same thing again, then just put down the lamp,” I explained, then turned my hand and moved my index and middle fingers as though they were little legs walking. “And walk away. You Wished to know what I would counsel you to do, and that’s my recommendation.”
He nodded, slowly. “So, you’re saying that no matter what I wish, it will go terribly wrong?”
“No, I’m saying the thing I just said, and you are somehow hearing something different.”
I wasn’t trying to be difficult, you understand. Well, not really. It’s just that there are rules I have to follow. I can’t just volunteer things.
Had my latest Master been someone else, someone with a different temperament, I might have advised him to Wish for a moderate amount of wealth, health, and general good fortune.
Small Wishes like those fall within the Universe’s margin for error, because they’re not too improbable and they potentially could have happened whether they were Wished for or not. Therefore, Wishes of that sort don’t usually cause the kind of equal-and-opposite reaction from the cosmos that makes people erroneously assume that we genies are maliciously “twisting” the Wishes that we grant. We don’t do anything of the sort, of course. As I’ve said before, it’s just the elasticity of reality: push the Universe too far, and it will push back.
My Master frowned, thoughtfully, considering my words. But I knew he wasn’t going to go for it. He was going to push.
You might wonder, given what I said about not having any desire for my Master’s Wishes to go awry, why I didn’t advise him differently. After all, he did wish for my advice, and doing so does relax most of the mystical laws that normally prevent me from explaining myself.
The answer is that what advice I would choose to offer in any given situation depends heavily on how I expect that advice to be received. I was certain he would ignore my advice to make two small, judicious Wishes to improve his own life, and only mostly certain he would ignore my advice to Wish for nothing and go away.
How could I know that? Well, I believe it was Malcolm Gladwell who said it takes 10,000 hours of practice – that’s about a year of actual, active work – to become a true expert in something. I’ve been offering Wishes to people from different eras and cultures for 2,000 years. Even if you don’t count a few centuries here and there when my lamp was buried in the desert, or hidden in someone’s tomb, I’ve got a lot more than 10 thousand hours of studying human psychology under my belt, at this point.
“I think I get it.” he said, at last.
Oh if only he’d wished for understanding, instead of advice.
“You don’t think I’m capable of making a wish that won’t turn back on me,” he said, “Because you assume I’m going to Wish for something selfish, right?”
I sighed, and shook my head. Unfortunately, I’d read him right.
“I get it, you can’t elaborate unless I Wish it. But then I’d been down another Wish.” he mused. “And that would limit the good I could do with my Wishes.”
Ah, there it was. I gritted my teeth.
“I’m not going to ask for wealth, or power, or anything like that.” he said, lifting his chin. “And I’m not even going to ask for peace on Earth – I saw that one episode of the X-files. I just wish that humans would stop being cruel to each other.”
“Granted.” I sighed.
He thanked me, I rolled my eyes, and then sat down cross-legged as he buggered off to see the new world he’d created. Despite knowing where to find me, it took him several weeks to find his way back.
This is probably because, during that time, a species of amoeba called naegleria fowleri that lives in warm, fresh water underwent a spontaneous mutation, and became able to survive in any body of water on earth.
The infection caused by this tiny single-celled horror movie is usually fatal and incurable, but the mutant version behaved differently. Rather than entering the brain via nerves in the nasal passages like its ancestor and causing lethal encephalitis, the new bug secreted an anti-inflammatory enzyme that prevented the host’s brain from swelling up while the amoeba happily munched away on it, until eventually the brain’s frontal lobe resembled a beehive sculpted out of hamburger.
It’s an interesting thing about cruelty – you only find it in creatures of high intelligence. Tigers aren’t cruel, for example – they’re just hungry, or horny, or the other things animals are. Chimpanzees, now, those are some cruel bastards. And dolphins? Don’t get me started on them, swimming around in pods like “Hey look guys, it’s a porpoise! It looks just like a cute little baby version of us! Let’s torture it to death!” And of course, humans. Humans can be very cruel.
The Universe, as always, takes the path of least resistance. Changing complex social behaviors driven by base animal instincts? That’s hard, and complicated, and messy. Random mutations, on the other hand? Those happen all the time.
My Master staggered up to me, filthy and haggard looking. “Everyone…everyone…nah…not…”
“Everyone’s stupid? Yes, even more than usual, I’m afraid. That part of your brains that got eaten is one you use quite a bit.” I said, drily.
“Whah…why…why do…why this?” he stammered, struggling to focus what remained of his mind.
“Because it’s what you Wished for, in the way that fit most easily into reality. If only someone had warned you.”
“Want…want it not!” he pleaded.
That didn’t work – syntax is important with me. But obviously, you wouldn’t be reading this if he hadn’t gotten it right eventually. I won’t bore you with the events of the next several days, which is how long it took him to finally, almost by pure luck, Wish to undo his previous Wish.
So ends yet another cautionary tale, offered by one humble genie, for no other reason than that someone once offhandedly Wished that I’d chronicle my experiences – though they never got to read them, as they forgot to specify how or when.
If you’ve read more than one of my little adventures, and wonder how it could be that no one in all these years has ever screwed up their final Wish, and thereby screwed your world over in a more permanent fashion, well…look around you.
What makes you think they haven’t?