Chapter 4

The Genie of the Ring

At about the time Justin was exploring the fabulous Golden Waste, Brian was having an interview with the Ryder Ad Agency. At the same time, Michael was having an interview in the underground complex underneath the Q-Mart.

Jack had spoiled Brian and indulged Michael (for some reason, he couldn't really pinpoint why.) It was funny really, every time he thought about it, another thought would push in, or he'd give his head a shake as if he'd blanked (blacked) out for a few minutes and sometimes he actually had.

Anyway, after home high school was done, Jack gave Brian a choice: get a job or online college. Brian chose the latter. Michael was free to come and be friends but he had to start his life as well some way. Michael, whose family was running the diner couldn't afford college so Michael entered the family business. He started work at the diner and in evenings hung out with and onto every word of his Uncle Vic who was the mayor's assistant and advisor.

A few years later, Brian had graduated with majors in business and advertising and Michael had graduated the diner. He had played out almost every role there and had taken to none of them but having none of the education Brian had the luxury of, his job prospects were... lower in stature.

And so it was, time and tide had deposited these two men in two very different offices and different destinies as fate is wont to do.

And by the time Justin was sent screaming to his death a day or so later, both men had their jobs; Brian was a junior ad exec., and Michael was set loose in the Q-Mart stockroom which was a misnomer really as it was two miles square, windowless and cut into criss-crossing sections by floor to ceiling shelves filled with stuff. It was lit only by the fluorescent lighting so in the event of a power outage it could be a very scary place. Anyway, what was my point? I forget.

Brian was 22. He was a virgin. He had never been in love and didn't really care about that at this point. Two things that Michael was painfully aware of and cared most about at this point.

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So I expect you want to know what happened with Justin.

What?? That much!? Heavens, put down those torches and pitchforks already! Goodness, if I'd known you were this antsy in the pantsy I wouldn't have gone on about Brian's job prospects in such detail.

So...anyway...Justin.

Justin screamed until his lungs gave out as he was plunged into a shaft that was so deep it made the Kola Borehole seem like a pothole in the road. Finally he stopped screaming and just waited for the end. The wind rushing against his face was terrible.

And then...suddenly...it wasn't.

Well, what I mean the wind became less and less and less and then suddenly stopped. He had stopped falling and had the terrible sensation of hovering for no reason in midair.

This was even more disturbing.

Finally, he opened his eyes, opened his hand and let the ring shine in the dark as was its function.

Well, of course what had happened was this. Justin had fallen quite a bit, and as he did, the carpet had wrested himself loose. Speeding faster than gravity downward, he had got underneath Justin and unfurled. Still moving downward, he had let Justin catch up to him and then slowed down and then stopped. As Justin could now see by the sick green light of the ring, the carpet was keeping itself perfectly flat and was slowly descending like an elevator.

Justin slumped over in relief and just let the carpet take him where it willed. If his...if HE had dropped him down into this hell, he very much doubted he was going to keep the stone entrance open. He had been buried alive.

Maybe he could get the blue fairy to help out. Maybe...

That idea was quashed when they finally got to the bottom. The doors were gone. The passage to the doors was gone. He was in a stone cylinder that was miles deep. The only light was from his ring.

It was cold. Justin rubbed his arms, his hands. In doing so, he rubbed the green ring.

The ring glowed brighter and then brighter still. An orb or green light formed and detached. No longer sickly, the green was warm and verdant and reminded one of being in the filtered sunlight of a deep forest.

There was a really bright flash and in the place of the orb was a man with skin as dark as a dark tan and a green turban and silk pants. In spite of it being pitch black, Justin could see him perfectly.

The man bowed. "Hail Master! I am the slave of the ring and the one who wears my ring. Command me and it shall be done."

"Command...ring...slave...what...master???...." Needless to say, it was not Justin's finest moment.

The man said nothing in return but just stood there bent at an angle with his palms together. Justin said nothing but kept flapping his mouth open and closed like a fish out of water.

After about a minute of quiet, the man raised up slightly and murmured gently, "Perhaps...Master needs a minute to decide?"

"I - I -_I'm your...master? You're a slave? But what are you?" Justin finally got out.

"I am the slave of the ring...You know....a genie....with magic..." he supplied helpfully.

"But...but...but I don't want a slave!" Justin blurted.

"But...but...why not? What have I done? Have I displeased you in some way? What can I do to earn your favor?" asked the genie in distress, missing the point entirely. "After all, you wear the ring." He added.

"Oh. I was using it for light. And...I was told there was a protection spell on it," Justin said.

The genie toed the ground shyly with bejeweled slippers. "Ahh yes...Well that'd be me," he said shyly, "As my master, I'd let nothing harm thee."

"Oh. Well, anyway, I just meant, I don't want any slave. I don't want to own anyone! Not like this! Slavery was abolished a long time ago in my country."

"Impossible! Is there no one in your country who serves and takes away? Who builds things? Who fixes things? Isn't there anybody compelled to do thing they may not want to do by a stronger, more powerful or richer person?"

Justin thought immediately of Debbie, little Jason, Fagin and then even himself regarding the odious gang leader and the even more odious Twelve.

"Well...yeeesss..." he was forced to answer, "but nobody owns anyone anymore and if someone is a servant of some sort they get paid."

"Pawwwww-eeeeeeedd??" the genie said as if the very word had never been heard of. "What is paw-eed?"

"Wages...a salary...you know."

"Oh yes! A mixture of fresh vegetables usually with lettuce as the base and drizzled with a dressing of some sort. Many ring bearers have requested this. They even let me taste some. It was delicious."

"That's a salad," Justin said saladly...uhhhh....sadly.

"Ahh yes, salad. Very delicious. Would you care for some salad, Master?"

"No! I meant salary. You know..."

"The genie blinked and waited. He did not know.

"A salary...You know...you do something for me...I give you something valuable in exchange...like money."

"Mawww-neeeee..."

Justin sighed. "Gold? A jewel?

"Ohhhh....Like trade! The market! Merchants!"

"Yes!"

"Ahhh! The ring was worn by a great merchant once. His name was Sinbad. His merchandise crossed seven seas in his heyday."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. He grew very rich. He had many slaves, of which I was one. Also many harem girls...and a few boys."

Justin held his head. Back to square one.

"Well, let me try and show you. You said I get a wish, right?"

Yes Master! Anything you desire. Salad?"

Justin pinched the bridge of his nose. "No. What I most desire right now is for me and all my belongings including this carpet to be outside and out of this pit."

"Oh Master, that's so easy! Child's play!"

The genie snapped his fingers. It was as if someone had turned on a light switch. It went from deepest black to bright sunshine in one second and Justin was sitting on his carpet on the sands of the desert. His backpack was beside him. It had turned over and a quantity of gold and jewels had spilled out onto the carpet.

Justin picked out a pebble sized emerald and gave it to the genie. "Now, in return, I'll give you this. And any time you do something for me, I'll give you something in return. That's a salary. Get it?"

"The genie shook his head. "Not really. But my slipper has been missing a jewel for 2000 years. This will do nicely."

He snapped his fingers and the emerald disappeared and reappeared on his slipper in the proper place. "Thank you, Master."

"Thank you! I thought I'd never see the sun again."

"It is the sun who should desire to shine upon you. You are most beautiful. And kind. I think I can trust you to take care of me and be a good Master."

"Oh, but..."

"Now...if you need anything else...Just rub the ring again. Farewell Master." The genie glowed, turned back into green light and lasered back into the ring.

"Oh dear..." sighed Justin, "I do believe I didn't get through to him at all."

He looked around. He saw a campfire, abandoned. He was probably right above the stone entrance.

He sighed, scooped up the spillage and asked the carpet. "Please... take me home? I'll show you the way."

The carpet eagerly rose and flew away. Justin could feel his joy at having open air to fly around in, not just a giant cave but real and endless blue sky. They flew higher and higher and always toward the smudge on the horizon that was New Liberty.

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It was just over an hour later when Carpet made the final circling check over Justin's neighborhood, made sure no one was watching, and then quickly landed on the doorstop.

Justin jumped up and glanced furtively around as he folded up the carpet and went inside with it and the rest of his belongings. Fortunately, he did not have a Cravit as a neighbor.

"Mom! I'm home! I'm sorry it took me so long but I'm home!"

Jennifer appeared from somewhere. "Oh hello, dear. Did you have fun at your sleepover?" One eye rolled lazily around.

"What?? Mom, I've been gone for days! I'm not sure how long! I wasn't at a sleepover! Mom, you have to wake up! We can bring Molly home now! But you have to snap out of this!" He shook her and gave her a light slap. "WAKE UP, WAKE UPWAKEUP!!!!!"

Jennifer sucked in a deep breath and gave herself a shake. Her eyes snapped back into focus.

"Jus---Justin?? What happened? Where am I? Where's Molly and your father?"

"Geez, Mom, how long have you been out? Molly is safe at Uncle Andy's. She's been living there because we were so poor. Craig had a heart condition. He died a few weeks ago. We JUST went to his funeral. Remember?"

Yes. I think so. I---I remember a man in black, a lot of orchids and a teak box."

"That would have been the priest. The teak box was the cheapest thing we could get for his ashes. It's on the mantelpiece.

Jennifer went over to look as if she'd never seen it before. "Oh my God...Craig..." After weeping softly for a few moments for a man who had long been dead to Justin...she turned around.

"What - what's been happening to me? I feel so disconnected. Like I've been asleep for a long time. But with vivid dreams. Justin...was there another MAN living with us for a while?"

"Yes. He claimed he was my uncle on Dad's side..."

"Oh no, your dad didn't have any siblings."

"I know that...now. I suspected it and kept an eye out but he showed up at a dark hour. Mom, there was no money left. I couldn't get anything more. And he...just showed up after dad died and...helped out. He paid off a lot of the bills. He bought me a coffee shop so we could earn some real income. But it was all to achieve something else."

"What?" asked Jennifer. God, she just wanted to sleep. But she was too curious about Justin's story. And what had he said about Molly...She couldn't remember....

"Mom!" Justin yelled. He snapped his fingers in her face sharply and she jolted awake again. "This is important. Try and stay awake for me!"

"All right Justin...What were you saying?"

"Uncle Duke...well that's what I'll call him...wanted me to go on a treasure hunt with him. And treasure we found! Look at this!" And he overturned the backpack on the living room floor and dumped out the gold, jewels, and monies.

Jennifer's eyes bugged out. "He wanted you to find all this? Then where is he? Wouldn't he want it for himself? I mean, some of this stuff looks....priceless...amazing." She let some ancient gold coins sift through her fingers.

"That's just it. He didn't want any of this. He wanted one object. For some reason he was unable to retrieve it himself and needed a...well, needed me to get it. He wanted....this." He pulled out and held up the lamp.

There was an anticlimactic silence. At home, in the light of day, the lamp looked even more unimpressive. It was just a brass oil lamp out of Aladdin, moreover it seemed dirty and Justin swore it had a few dents in it since he put it in the back back...Maybe all the weight...?

"What? That?" Jennifer was incredulous. She took it from Justin to look closer "Why this? It looks like a knockoff from a dollar store! And it's dirty...Well...maybe you can get a few bucks for it at the pawn shop, Justin. If we can get this dirt off..."

She rubbed the lamp on her sleeve. "Oh! Ow!" she cried and dropped the lamp. "It shocked me!"

The lamp glowed like dazzling gold and thick white smoke began to gush out of the spout. There was a rumbling as there was a small earthquake.

More and more smoke gushed out. It filled the room but the room never seemed to contain it.

"It's on fire!" shrieked Jennifer.

"But it s not hot!" exclaimed Justin, touching, then picking it up. "It's just...just..."

But he had to leave off because of course he had no idea what it was doing

The smoke was coalescing into the form of a man. It became like cotton candy. It solidified. A man stepped out of it and the last of the smoke became his foot. But the man was 20 feet tall! And hugely muscled. And the living room was somehow 50 feet high and richly furnished to contain him.

The huge man had 20" biceps (proportionally) with a chest to match. His face melted into new and different forms all with a terrible scowl. He went from Arabic to black to white to Asian to white to Arabic and back to... He wore a turban.

On and on this went till it made Justin dizzy.

"What wouldst thou have!? I am ready to---" the man boomed in a terrible voice like thunder.

Jennifer screamed and fainted.

TBC