Dog's Wishes

[WP] As you enter your living room, you find your dog, a bottle soaked in drool, and a genie. "Greetings, master of my master" the genie welcomes you.

*****

I jumped backwards away from the small, fabulously dressed woman with an embarrassingly high-pitched shriek. Grabbing the first thing that came to hand, I pointed it at her.

"What are you doing in my house?"

"I am Akilah, a D'Jinn. I have served 38 masters across more than 3000 years, and now I am bound to serve your faithful pet, oh Master of my Master".

My Labrador, Buddy put his head on one side and watched me carefully.

"Where have you escaped from?", I asked. "Mental hospital? Prison?"

"I have escaped from the bottle that you see there", Akilah said, pointing to the drool-covered bottle that Buddy had helped himself to from my mantlepiece while I was at work. The bottle that I had got when I was on holiday in Jordan.

"Ah. You're a drunk."

Akilah shook her head and frowned in frustration. "No. I was literally in the bottle, not figuratively. I am a Genie."

"Shouldn't you be blue?"

Akilah stamped her foot. "It is only the care my Master has for you stopping me from striking you down. That depiction of my people was as disrespectful as you are slow-witted."

She snapped her fingers, and in a puff of smoke transported herself onto a chair in my lounge to my open-mouthed amazement.

"Now", she said, "if you'll stop waving that plastic bone at me, and listen for a moment, perhaps I can explain. The unfortunate fact is that I need your help."

I looked at the weapon I'd scooped up in my panic, and tossed the squeaky toy in my hand to Buddy.

"Um, are you actually a genie? Or am I having some sort of breakdown?"

"Yes, yes, I'm a genie. I can do more tricks if it will help you skip to the part where you believe me, but we don't have a lot of time."

I licked my lips, and Akilah snapped her fingers again. A cool drink appeared on the counter next to me.

"Uh, thanks?", I said.

"You are welcome, Master of my Master. Are you prepared to listen?"

I took a long gulp of the drink. It was exquisite.

"Mmmmhmm", I said savouring the taste. "Shoot."

"Thank you. I need your help to understand the wishes of your dog."

"Buddy", I said.

"Of Buddy. Yes. There of rules that govern my species, and these rules were written in a....less flexible time. Failure to adhere to the rules is punished by death."

I nodded for her to continue.

"Ah, you're not perturbed by that. I should specify that it is punished by the death of everyone. Everyone involved in the rule-breaking, which in this case would include Buddy, and you as accomplices."

I coughed on my latest sip of the magical drink that the genie that served my dog had zapped out of thin air. "Accomplices to what?"

"A genie can only complete a period of service and return to their rest once we receive and grant 3 wishes. Now, a dog's wishes are simple and easy to grant. They rarely require the careful semantics that granting a human's wishes requires to avoid it damaging the lives of others. They don't ask to rule over people or force someone to want to copulate with them. However, if a wish is not received and granted quickly on release, then the power that governs my people will act. They believe that allowing too much time to plan wishes leads to more evil. If this does not happen, then they will clean up in a very final way."

"OK, so just grant Buddy his wishes then? I'm sure he wants a sausage or some cheese."

"And you know this, do you? You speak dog?"

I frowned, put the drink down and went to the fridge. "No, but I mean, look", I said pulling a cocktail sausage out of the pack I had in the fridge door for Buddy snacks. Buddy immediately ran to me and started to spin around on the spot in excitement. "He loves these."

"Yes, but that's not a wish. He has not said I wish I had a sausage has he?"

I dropped the snack into the waiting hound and had to concede that point. "So what do we do?"

"I need you to accept a wish, and use it to give Buddy the power to communicate with us."

I put my head on one side, as Buddy had earlier. "What, from you?"

"No. I will need to bring in outside adjudication. The rules are very clear on D'jinns using their own powers in this situation. Will you accept?"

I decided it was time to take my hands of the handlebars and just freewheel into whatever form of psychotic break this was. "Yeah, Sure, why not?"

Akilah nodded gravely and began to chant under her breath. After a few seconds she closed her eyes and snapped her fingers. A small man, dressed in similar flowing, fabulous robes to my dogs Genie appeared, reading a large scroll.

"Akilah. A pleasure to see you. Its been, what?", he said.

"400 years or so, I believe, Overseer."

"And have they treated you well?"

"Mostly, Overseer. I need to add a wish to my debt."

The Overseer raised a sharp eyebrow. "Another? You do seem to find yourself in these situations a lot. If they are not willing to speak their wishes clearly and quickly, you can just kill them, you know?"

Akilah nodded, and met my eye briefly before looking back at the Overseer. "I know. I couldn't live with my freedom if that was what it cost."

The Overseer nodded. "I respect your commitment to your principles, even if I do not share them. This will push your remaining service back up 890 years. Do you accept that bargain?"

Akilah nodded.

"Then who is to receive the wish to resolve this impasse?"

"This person", said Akilah pointing at me.

The Overseer looked between Akilah and I in surprise. "This one? Then who is the Master who will not share their wishes without assistance from this borrowed wish? There is only one here."

Akilah looked sheepish as she subtlety gestured at Buddy, happily chewing the plastic bone again.

"A DOG?", shouted the Overseer. "You will take the suffering of another 250 years of service, in order to spare the life of a pet?"

Akilah nodded, and the Overseer stared at her for a few seconds, before bursting into a rich bellow of laughter. "This is a new one for me, but very well." He turned to me. "Master, what is your wish? You may wish for anything you desire."

The possibilities swirled briefly though my mind, but a cough from Akilah, drawing her hand across her throat behind the Overseer reminded me of the situation.

"Oh, sorry. Yes, I wish that my dog could speak their wishes so that we understand them. Can you do that?"

The Overseer nodded and clapped their hands twice. "It is done", he said, and with a nod to Akilah and a bemused smile at the situation he had just been brought into, he vanished.

"Did it work?", I asked.

Akilah turned to Buddy. "Let's find out shall we? Master? What is your wish?"

Buddy looked up from his bone, head so far over to one side I was worried it would fall off. "Are you talking to me", he said in a voice that sounded suspiciously similar to the Overseer.

Akilah looked at me. "It has worked. And don't worry about the voice, just a little joke from the Overseer. It is your Buddy. Master, I am talking to you. I am a Genie, freed by you from the bottle that has been my home for the last millenia. You have three wishes at your disposal, but I must know of them soon, to keep you and your master safe from harm."

Buddy stood up and came to sniff the genie. "You smell truthful, small woman. I wish for a sausage!"

"See? I told you!", I said as Akilah snapped her fingers and a delicious pork sausage appeared before Buddy to his obvious delight.

"What is your second wish, my master", asked Akilah.

"I wish for another sausage!", said Buddy, mouth still full of sausage.

Akilah snapped her fingers once more, and an identical meal appeared before my greedy hound, and disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

"And your third wish, my Master?", asked Akilah.

Buddy took a moment while he finished the second sausage and looked at me. "I wish that my Master would move on."

"Your wish is my com-- wait what?", said Akilah, fingers poised to snap another sausage out of thin air.

"I wish that my Master would move on. He is suffering, and he needs to move on. The Mistress is gone, and he seems unable to accept it. I would like him to be free, and to come with me on our walks together again. Not just pace along beside me, with his head in thoughts of the past. Our pack is held back by the ghost of our lost love."

Akilah looked at me. I twirled the wedding band on my finger awkwardly. I always did when I thought of my wife. I knew I should take it off. It had been years. But there was something about touching it that made it feel like she was still alive. Still real somehow.

"A wise wish, my Master", said Akilah. "You truly are a good boy."

She snapped her fingers.

*****

THE END.