The Council of Ambiguous Genie Wishes

The Council of Ambiguous Genie Wishes was a cavernous expanse, adorned with opulent, albeit a little tacky, furnishings. At the long, marble table sat a dozen genies, their bodies shimmering with an ethereal glow. They were currently debating the merits of turning a man into a goldfish after he wished for "a change of pace.”

It took me out for a second—first the glow flickering from my body, then the group of genies humorously ruining a living man’s life for making a wish. They all looked human, just like me, but didn’t sound like it by the way they spoke about this man. I was also slightly disappointed that no one was blue or giant-sized or Will Smith.

“Uh, hello?”

They didn’t hear my whispers, it seemed. One of them, who had long brown hair and piercing hazel eyes, pulled the silk hose from the hookah she was smoking away from her face and coughed. “Can we move on to the next one? We all agreed on goldfish.”

“You’re always rushing these things,” another one said. He had a long mustache and half as many teeth as I did. What he lacked in fangs, this genie more than made up for with an obnoxious voice and a beer in his hand that reminded me of my drunk father. “We can’t rush these decisions, Soumaya, especially not on someone who is only on their first wish! This could come back to bite us.”

“What’s he gonna do, swim back to shore to talk to the genie lamp for his second wish? Good luck not getting any turned heads for that.”

The genie on the far right spoke up, their thick cigar dangling between their moving lips as stiff smoke covered their face. “That’s not the point, Soumaya, and you know it. The point is—there’s someone new.”

Oh, they meant me.

A lump formed at the back of my throat as a dozen shimmering faces turned and looked at me. I felt like I was back in seventh grade again, performing at my school theatre with a shiny, bright light in my eyes and a few dozen bodies staring right at me. I froze then, as I did now, but at least back then, it was all a performance. It was one night and it would all be over. I would be back at my normal life the very next morning, doing normal-life things, with the people I loved.

That wasn’t true here.

“You.” Soumaya pointed her hookah hose towards me like a shotgun aimed at an enemy across battle lines. Who was the hero and who was the villain?

“Y-y-yes. I am me.”

“What’s your name and do you have any wishes left?” She asked immediately.

“Ahmad. And no.”

They all pondered like I’d asked a true or false question. A few of them had gotten up now, but despite still being a good distance away I could smell some of their smoky breaths. It’s wild that there was no smoking-designated areas in the genie council chambers. HR was going to hear from me later.

“So, you wished to become a genie, heh?” The one with the mustache stated.

“Something like that, I suppose.”

They all laughed and we shook hands like gentlemen going through an Arab funeral. The mustached genie, official name Farouk, showed me around the chamber premises afterwards.

There were 12 of them, all tasked with making ambiguous genie wishes come true in some form or another. None of them—well, us—were appointed by some magical genie council or anything of that sort. Instead, everyone in the Council of Ambiguous Genie Wishes had unironically gotten here by using one of three wishes at Naher El Kalb to become a genie.

“This council,” Farouk recounted as we continued my tour of the place, “has been in desperate need of some fresh blood for ages. We just run out of funky ideas sometimes and that’s where you, habibi, come in! Oop, don’t mind the pots and pans.”

Lamps scattered around the golden-ceiled room like bees in a hive. “Some of us have gone a little crazy in the 200+ years we’ve been stuck here,” he continued. “It’s only natural that we try to make our own genie lamps, but alas—we’ve all used our three wishes. And all these lamps do is…provide light—well, except maybe for that one.”

I eyed the lamp while Farouk laughed and his belly jiggled. “Being out here has its perks too, though. Once, we got a little girl who wished her parents would stop fighting all the time. Ironically, her parents had both made wishes at some point in the past that the other person in the marriage would initiate a divorce. Clearly, we were at a loss on how to deal with that one, as you’d imagine! Oh—and that’s Haitham, one of the best cooks you’ll find here.”

Haitham, the one with the cigar who was first to notice me from the council table earlier, was now seated behind an oven stove, pulling out manakeesh that smelled like heaven. He smiled and waved at us. I waved back and tried to hide the gurgles my stomach was making.

“So, what did you all decide?” I asked, trying to make sense of the context switching that was happening every 5 seconds.

“Hmm?”

“For the girl’s wish, with the parents and the divorce.”

“Oh, right. That!” Farouk chuckled, pointing towards a separate room to continue our tour. “We gave the girl amnesia.”

I stopped in my tracks, completely frozen. He had to be kidding. “What?!”

“Yeah,” he doubled down. “We gave her amnesia, the parents still got divorce, she never remembered a thing. It was perfect, everybody wins!” Farouk nodded at another passer-by. “Hey, Christelle, how’s it going ya amar?”

“I-I’m sorry. I can’t-I can’t be here. This must be a mistake or a sick joke or something. You can’t go messing around with people’s lives like that!” I was rambling and, by the confused look on Farouk’s face, I wasn’t making any sense. “People trust you—they trust genies to be able to grant them wishes! The discovery, it changed Lebanon, it changed our world! Tourism sky-rocketed beyond expectations after the news broke out globally. Arab nations have never seen this much growth economically, financially and whatnot. We’ve had more stability in the Middle East than we could’ve ever possibly imagined, and it’s all thanks to the genie lamp that is supposed to be helping people, not ruining lives! If people found out—“

“No one would care,” he interrupted.

His words hit me like a heart attack. Was he lying? Was he being pessimistic about life because he’d been stuck as a genie for ambiguous wishes for a very long time? It couldn’t be. None of this could be true. I was surely about to wake up in bed with my husband any second now.

“And besides,” Farouk continued, “people need to stop being vague wishes. It’s insane how ridiculous some of these wishes are, Ahmad, you’ll see. One time, a finance bro asked for endless amounts of money.”

“We gave him Monopoly money!” shouted another genie that was leaving a room with a door that said ‘FILES’ on it. Talk about ambiguous.

“That’s right, Monopoly money!” Farouk cracked up laughing again.

I was horrified, to say the least. This isn’t the kind of life I thought I was getting by wishing to become a genie. This was cruel and selfish and abhorrent on so many levels. Human rights associations were going to have a field day with this one once I figured out how to tell them or…leave this place.

I was washed by a surplus of sadness I could not have anticipated. What if I could never leave again? What if I was stuck here, with these awful genies making terrible wishes come true, for the rest of my miserable life? What if I never saw Elias again? What if our last words to each other truly were just us fighting, saying horrible things to each other? What if I never remembered when was the last time I told him I loved him.

“And it’s funny coming from you,” Soumaya joined us now with a bunch of files in her hands, which I assumed she got from the ‘FILES’ room. “This holier-than-thou attitude you have, Ahmad, considering your past.”

A lump formed in my throat. “My…p-past?”

“Well, surely you know that here at the Council of Ambiguous Genie Wishes, we have records.”

“Files on every human that makes a wish,” Farouk continued.

They both seemed to turn into video game bosses all of a sudden. Any minute now, I was sure they would have a Phase 2 and a health bar.

Soumaya approached, her eyes still entranced by my files and her voice growing stronger and angrier. “And according to your files, you’ve been a selfish little human, haven’t ya?”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I denied, taking a step back.

“You’ve had a fraught relationship with your partner Elias.” She started pacing back and forth, looking up at my frightened reactions every now and then. “You two were constantly fighting—bickering, even. Such a shame, but very common among high school sweethearts, believe it or not. Especially for a couple that holds such…conflicting values and beliefs.”

She was onto me. This whole thing was about to blow over and I need to find an escape, an exit plan, and I had to find it seconds ago.

“You started the research on the Genie Lamp in Lebanon, did you not?” Soumaya asked, though I doubted she was looking for confirmation from me. “You kickstarted the whole movement about the importance of the lamp and how the world needed to adopt it. Three Wishes, Infinite Possibilities, you called it.”

I cringed just hearing that. My entire cover was blown and I was stuck here between her and Farouk, both of whom were physically bigger than me.

“Wow, so we have you to thank for all the business we’ve been getting all these years?” Farouk chuckled, revealing the gaps in his teeth.

“But then Elias, Allah yehmi,” continued Soumaya, “was on the opposite end of that spectrum. He wanted laws and regulations on wishes. He had seen what it was doing to some people, particularly those dumb ones that were ending up in our hands because of their ambiguous wishes. Elias formed An Empirical Study of the Psychological and Sociological Impacts of Wish Fulfillment. Phew, that’s a mouthful.”

The problem was, I knew exactly where she was going next after that. It was reveal after reveal for her and Farouk and the ten other genies that had all gotten closer now, forming a circle around us. I wasn’t entirely prepared for this scenario—only slightly. But it was happening so soon. I needed more time. I needed more time.

“So what, these guys got into a fight?” She snickered, putting the files down on the marble table and facing the rest of the genie council. “A disagreement over how to deal with the lamp so Ahmad, the selfish person that he is, decides to wish to become a genie. Payback over your hubby not agreeing with you? You wanted to start granting wishes so you could win a fight maybe? Or mess up his wishes?”

Farouk had walked over to the table and started sifting through my files as Soumaya kept going with her endless speech. His eyes grew a couple of inches wider with every passing word he read as I swallowed my throat and prepared for the worst.

“It’s a little more complicated than you’re making it sound,” I lied. It had dawned on me that I was quiet for the past 5 minutes and I needed to say something to calm everyone’s nerves; otherwise, I’d be dead in seconds. “Yes, I researched genies and lamps and wishes for a living. But I did it because I was fascinated by this concept of-of freedom in wishing for something without having to work for it. I come from a family and a place where dreams don’t just drop on your doorstep, magically out of the blue.”

“That clearly conflicts with Elias’ thoughts and feelings about genies.” Someone else had spoken, whose name I didn’t catch. They were standing next to Haitham and Christelle in what I was assuming was a throuple. “Didn’t he want to regulate us?”

“Yes, but that has nothing to do with my wish to become a genie! I’ve genuinely been obsessed with genies ever since they turned out to be real.” For once, I wasn’t lying anymore. All cards were out and I had all hearts in my deck. “The existence of the genies changed the course of history! It’s a marvel, and to be able to study the lamp and the genies behind the lamp—the ambiguous and the non-ambiguous ones—is an honor and a privilege.”

“You’re sucking up to us, aren’t you?” Farouk turned to Soumaya and the others. “He’s sucking up to us, isn’t he?”

They all nod and I feel my palms sweating.

Desperation surged through me as I scanned the room, my eyes landing on the lamps scattered around. One, in particular, caught my attention—the one Farouk had mentioned as a failed experiment.

With a surge of adrenaline, I dashed towards it, my heart pounding in my ears. Grabbing it, I rubbed it frantically, my mind racing. What to wish for? Escape, definitely. But how? I couldn’t wish to return home directly. That would raise too many questions. I couldn’t wish to get rid of the entire council—I liked genies and I was obsessed with them, but at what cost?

“I wish for the Council of Ambiguous Genie Wishes to dissolve,” I breathed out, my voice barely audible over the pounding in my ears. A blinding light enveloped me, and then, nothing.

When my vision cleared, I found myself in my own bedroom with Elias. The soft morning light filtering through the curtains was a stark contrast to the gaudy opulence of the genie council. I was back.

Disorientation washed over me. Had it all been a dream? A particularly vivid and terrifying one? I looked around, searching for any sign of the surreal experience I had just endured. I cuddled with my husband and we talked for hours about my whereabouts. Then, my eyes landed on the bedside table. There, sitting innocently, was a small, bronze lamp.

My heart skipped a beat. It was the lamp I used to escape the council.

A news report caught my attention at the same time. The TV was on, and the anchor was speaking calmly yet excitedly. "In a groundbreaking development, a local couple, Elias and Ahmad, have successfully advocated for new regulations governing the use of genie lamps. The new laws aim to ensure responsible and ethical wish fulfillment, protecting Lebanese and tourist wish-makers from unintended consequences. As a result, the process of making a wish will be slightly different from now on. Let’s take a deeper dive into what that might mean for you…”

Relief washed over me. I was safe, and the genie council was gone. Yet, as I gazed out the window at the ordinary world, a strange sense of unease crept in. Dissolving the council was the right decision, I knew it was.

Though a part of me couldn't stop wondering whatever happened to Soumaya, Farouk, Christelle, Haitham and all the other ones. Did they end up back with their loved ones like I did? How was that received for those that had been away for many, many years?

So many questions, but for now I was going to stop obsessing over the genies and the lamp and the world. I was going to go back to sleep and cuddle with Elias for as long as I can.