Everybody’s looking for something.

It is sunny. The golden light hits my face with full force, and I know it to be midsummer. Overhead, oaks and elms whisper to each other, wind and birdsong and the hum of cicadas filtering down through their broad, green leaves.

I think I miss green most of all when I’m away.

I look around me and see I am in a cemetery, a sea of overgrown stone markers and wilting flower arrangements becalmed before my feet. Ah, yes. I am quite familiar with cemeteries, you see. It is the nature of my business, the business of my nature, that has brought me to gravesides and stone tombs on many an occasion. They are places of death, to be sure, but also of reflection and honesty. They are no place for me. If I should ever die, bury my soul beneath the ash, the oak, the elm, far from any stone marker. A resting place green and pensive, finally forgotten.

I digress. Time affects us all, mortal and immortal alike, and I have found myself slipping into reverie more often than usual. Apologies.

You may inquire, then, what is my business? My nature? Call me djinn or genie, angel or demon, for I have no name that I can recall. I reside in magic lamps or coins, wayside trees and silver flutes or, once, inside a shriveled monkey’s paw. It matters not to me. I am who I am, so to speak, and nothing more.

You humans are always looking for something, but I am content with what I have.

#

Hakata Bay, Japan.

A young man stands at the crest of a ridge, overlooking a windswept bay. Evergreen trees whisper around him as he stares out into a sea of wooden masts and crowded sails. Thousands of ships lay at anchor, Mongols attempting once again to invade his island home. Although at this distance they are little more than toy boats, they will succeed.

The man holds a small silver bowl in his hands, filled with water and juniper needles. “I call on the Divine Wind to come once more to protect me and my people,” the man cries, tossing the bowl’s contents out over the bay. His arms spread wide as his eyes close in prayer. Tears fall freely down his cheeks.

I oblige.

The wind stirs, leaps and, within moments, becomes a powerful gale. A typhoon rages suddenly across the water, and the toy boats crash into each other. Timber splits, sails rend, men cry out, and the whole fleet is blasted out to sea. In moments, nothing remains but the gleam of jumping fish in the fading sun.

#

“Are you a genie?” The small voice startles me out of my thoughts, and I look down. A human child, aged six or twelve or twenty. Black and brown curls bounce upon her shoulders, and dark eyes rest under dark lashes. I suppose she is beautiful. She looks at me expectantly for a long moment before I remember she has asked me a question.

“You may call me that,” I hedge, puffing my chest and staring down my nose. Humans expect a certain amount of bravado and mystery from me, and so I provide.

“So it did work!” she squeaks, holding up a golden coin. It must be my vessel this time. “Father told me stories of a great genie inside, but I didn’t believe him.” She looks down at her shoes. A small inchworm has settled on her left toes, sallying forth to reach the laces. We sit for a bit, both of us soaking in the sunshine and our situation.

“How come you’re not in a lamp?” she asks suddenly. The inchworm stops; he wants to know, too.

“I suppose the Universe just didn’t fancy it this time.”

“Oh,” she says, as if that had made any sense to her at all.

#

Edinburgh, Scotland.

“Please, please, make her love me.” 

“Is that your wish? True love?” The woman looks up at me in surprise. Her dark auburn hair rolls down to nearly her calves, loose and shining in the firelight. The silver mirror she had been cradling in her hands lies loosely in her lap now.

“You can do that? Make another love me?” The woman pauses, musing. “That seems to me too powerful a wish to grant.”

“Of course,” I answer, a bit insulted that she thinks my powers have limits. The woman she yearns for is betrothed to her brother instead. Granting her wish will cause a rift in the family, likely leading to exile, hunger, and poverty for the two of them. But this is what she wants, and I cannot refuse such a selfish wish.

#

“I wish you had your freedom!” The girl’s brown eyes shine with triumph.  Her sudden pronouncement is so full of pride and bravery that I feel terrible when a laugh escapes me.

“My freedom?” I manage, wheezing. The girl wilts a bit, sitting back down beside me on the stone bench. “My freedom. Child, I don’t know what stories you’ve been told, but there are only two rules for my wishes.”

I hold up my fingers, so long and golden compared to hers. “One, you only get one. Two, it must be used for you. As touching as your sentiments are, you cannot wish me my freedom. That ship has long sailed.”

The girl looks dejected, but she perks her dark eyebrows upward at my last statement. “What do you mean? Did you have your freedom before? Or have you always been a genie?”

“Ancient history, my dear,” I say, shaking my head. “Let’s not dwell on the past.”

“But don’t you want to be free? To see the world, instead of coming whenever you’re called?”

I pause for a moment. No more centuries stuffed in darkness, aching for a bit of blue or green to pierce the endless gray. Going where I wish, when I wish. “Yes,” I admit slowly, “yes, I would like that. But that is not my lot in life.” She waits for me to continue, but I refuse to say more.

#

Nairobi, Kenya.

I am recognized as I emerge. “A genie indeed,” the man mumbles, placing a golden lamp on the bed beside him. The light filtering through the windows has the expectant quality of a day awaiting an afternoon rainstorm. Colorful buildings crowd around the view outside, and in the distance lies a verdant swath of trees. The room is quite warm and smells of vomit, and his deeply lined face belies a deep pain.

Before I can speak, the man bombards me with a dozen wavering questions about my nature, my history, and all my previous summoners. His voice is thin. Surprised at his fervor, I answer as best I can. I can’t remember the last time I stayed for so long, or so enjoyed a conversation. I find a rare smile split my face, and a laugh escapes my lips.

We talk for hours—days?—before I reluctantly offer him a wish. I could give him health, return his youth, take away his pain.

“No, no, I don’t need a wish,” the man says, waving a dark hand scattered with liver spots and wrinkles. “They always come with trouble, you know.”

“Not mine,” I insist, and it’s true. I only give them what they ask for. It’s not my fault if what humans seek is not what they need.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” he answers, sighing. “I am an old man, too tired of being tricked. Please, sir, I only wish for a glass of water and to be left alone to die.”

I wave my hands—though this is only for show—and a glass of cold water appears at his bedside, beads trickling down steadily in the hot, sticky air. “No tricks,” he says, and I nod. The man smiles and pats my hand. Reluctant, for once, I return to my slumber, and he to his.

#

“I’ve thought of my wish, Genie,” the girl says after a time. She kicks her foot against a stone marker, dislodging the inchworm into the unkempt grass. The sun is lower now, and some early katydids and crickets have started to tune their instruments.

I nod knowingly. Of course. Of the thousands of times I have been summoned to a graveside, how many of those have been the exact same, predictable request? The resurrection of a loved one is a prize that humans can’t seem to resist.

“So, you want me to raise them from the dead? It’s a simple enough task, I’ve done it before,” I add, though I don’t mention how often the wish has been immediately regretted. It is nigh impossible to fully recover from hours or years of grief, of moving on.

The girl’s hand grips mine with a sudden, surprising force. “No!” she squeaks, panic coloring her young voice. “No. I miss them. I think I miss them. I should miss them. But mummy and daddy... they were...” Here, her wide brown eyes lock with mine, before her gaze pulls mine to the fading green bruises, so like fingerprints, that ring her upper arm.
“So what is it you want? What have you summoned me for?”

The girl falls silent. Her hand drops from mine and we sit, listening to the quiet pips of birds snatching an evening meal, the orchestra warming up in the bushes, the wind in the trees. The girl turns my coin over and over, worrying the soft gold metal with her petite fingers, nails lacquered with cracked pink polish. Then she speaks, so softly I almost miss it.

“I just wish to have a friend. Would you be mine?”

I can’t speak. I have been a servant to kings, a confidante of great thinkers, a god among men. A passionate lover, on many an occasion. But never, in all my years, have I been called friend. It’s such a ridiculous notion that I am stunned to silence. 

She looks at me with worry, misunderstanding. “I can’t wish you your freedom, but you could go where you like. See the world, travel. Just be my friend and come tell me of all your adventures when you have the time.” 

I overcome my shock, fully intending to refuse. Is this really a wish for herself? But as I ask the question, I find I know the answer. Her past flashes before me. A lonely girl, raised by self-centered and angry people. Cut off from children her age, moving constantly from town to town. No friends to speak of. Yes, this is a wish for herself as much as it is for me.

“Yes.” I surprise even myself, sometimes. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

Her face splits into a warm, crooked-toothed smile as she pulls me into a deep hug. I don’t try to stop a grin of my own from forming as well. 

“I’ve never had a friend before,” she whispers. 

Me neither.

Humans are always looking for something. I suppose I was, too.