Shiyam and the Genie

Another 500 words, written in an hour. The prompt, 'a girl finds a magic lamp and the genie is contrary', is provided by Ashley C, one of the many excellent Ashleys I know.

You rub the lamp, a genie wafts out, and he grants you three wishes. That’s how it was supposed to go, as everyone agreed. Shiyam, however, was faced with the distinct possibility that ‘everyone’ was talking out of their asses.

The genie – huge, hirsute, so blue he was nigh black, and smelling faintly of something later generations would know as ‘coffee’ – bent double so that he could glare at Shiyam in her eyes. Each of his own golden eyes was larger than her head. “I do so apologise,” he said, the bass of his words so pronounced that they made Shiyam’s bones vibrate. “Perhaps my hearing is diminishing. What do you want me to do?”

Shiyam did not turn and flee, partly on account of the cave wall at her back and partly because she was as stubborn as a goat. She crossed her arms and leaned her head forward until her nose and the genie’s nose were nigh touching. “It’s the rules. Now that I’ve summoned you out of there, you’ve got to grant me the three wishes or you’re just making a mockery of the whole of tradition.”

“No soul informed myself about this so-called ‘tradition’ of yours.”

“Nevertheless, I shall humour you for a spell.” He brought himself up to his full height, which the cave somehow managed to accommodate. Or perhaps he embiggened the cave with his magic to do so? “Mortal! What is your command! I shall grant you three wishes, only the three, and you damn your soul forever if you cannot face their consequences!”

The girl took her time and considered this thoughtfully. She was a peasant, descended from a long line of goat herders, and therefore was exceptionally practical in certain respects. It got to the point where the genie would be tapping his foot on the ground if he had feet and instead settled with tapping his fingers.

Nevertheless, Shiyam came to a decision. “I wish for my sisters to all find kindly, wealthy and intelligent husbands by the time the year is out. They can’t be younger than twenty or older than thirty-five, nor can they drop dead of any injury or malady before my sisters are provided with all the children that my sisters hope for.”

The genie frowned at her. “That hardly gives me much in the way of creative interpretation, does it? Shiyam said nothing, but frowned right back. A sigh, like the voice of an earthquake, rumbled out. “Granted. Next?”

“I wish to know the languages of every land, to the point where I can speak, write, listen and read in any of them with fluency.”

“Granted…”

Shiyam felt her mind fill up with so many strange words and concepts that she felt tingly. She began to speak of her third and final wish.

“I am tired from all this wish granting,” said the genie. “I need a rest.” He retreated back into his lamp.

Shiyam waited. She eventually had to get him out with tweezers.