Rajah's Curse

Chapter 46: Wishful Thinking

"In a small Kurdish village, there was an old fisherman named Siad Qadim. He and his wife, Eden lived alone and childless in a small hut right up against the small village lake.

One day, Siad was in his small boat fishing on that lake. He did this every day, but rather than catching his usual haul of small tasteless fish, on this day Siad caught something extraordinary. He just didn't know it yet.

When his net produced a large green bottle with a cork stopper, Siad was disappointed. Even Siad knew that you couldn't eat a bottle. The fisherman sighed, bemoaned his misfortune, and was about to throw the bottle back when an idea wiggled into his head. Siad shook the bottle and heard a welcomed sloshing sound.

Siad grinned with all 14 of his teeth. For you see, Siad was quite sure the bottle had liquor in it. Siad had not had alcohol in ages. It was bad for his constitution, so his wife kept it away from him.

Now feeling two decades younger, Siad began an intense battle against the bottle. It was hard. Siad's fingers were wet. His hands weren't as strong and nimble as they used to be and to cap it off, the stopper was on there tight as anything, but lucky for Siad, time was on his side. After several minutes of fiddling and swearing, the fisherman managed to pry the stopper off with a loud pop!

It was a great victory for Siad, but he barely got a chance to celebrate because smoke immediately started to billow out of the bottle. The stuff rose up in the air to form..."

A genie.

"A large green floating fish."

What? I blinked. Multiple times.

The sultan's eyes twinkled. "The Jinni fish spoke, 'I am the Jinni of the bottle. Tell me what you wish and it is yours.'

Siad was overwhelmed by the oddness of all this, so he blurted out the first thing that came into his head. 'I wish I had caught a normal fish.'

As this was a time before wishes had rules, the genie granted the wish without fuss or guile. The fisherman's small net was filled with one seemingly normal fish which was several sizes larger than Siad's usual catch.

Siad's eyes too grew large at the sight of this miracle and he wasted no time wishing for more things."

The sultan paused. "This part goes on for a while so I'll summarize. Siad wished for everything he could think of. He eventually became a young and hardy sultan with a palace filled with countless servants and treasures, more food and liquor than anyone could ever consume, a son perfect in every way that mattered, and his wife restored to her former maidenly beauty.

The Jinni fish gave Siad all this and more. Yet no matter what our newly minted sultan wished for, he was left feeling hollow and quite unhappy.

On the seventh day of this, Siad's wife, Eden, asked him if she might suggest a wish. Siad had ignored her requests before, too intent on his own desires, but as he was tired and thoroughly stumped, he finally decided to listen to her.

Siad said, 'Of course, wife,' like this was the first and not the fortieth time she had made this request. 'What do you wish?' Siad asked.

Eden had seen her husband over the course of the week making wish after wish and she had watched the genie carefully. She understood the difference between the real things the genie stole from elsewhere and the things the genie made from pure magic. She saw that most of their new land, wealth, servants, and even Siad's beloved son were not natural but things of sand, glass, and fire.

How she knew this is a question up for debate. It is actually quite..."

At this point, Sultan Hamed went on an extended dissertation on the many theories, but at last, he said, "Regardless of the reason, Eden understood things better than her poor husband and was able to make a wish that was so simple and fundamental that it is honestly still one of the best wishes a person can make..."