Visualise this: You’re walking in a park when you stub your toe on a teapot that’s poking out of the dirt. Weird, you think. Maybe someone left it here after a picnic?
You pick it up and notice that it’s not a normal teapot. It looks like it’s made of brass but in certain angles you can almost see inside it. It has a long sprout and a chain going from the handle to a lid that is rusted and clogged with dirt.
It’s a lamp, you think. A magic lamp…? What the? Wanting to see it more clearly you wipe off some more dirt. The lamp heats up and shines brightly. Argh! you say and you drop it in shock. After watching it a while to see if something crawls out, you pick it up again. Gently wiping more dirt from it so you don’t cause anything else weird to happen you notice that it has a label on the side. It reads:
This magic lamp contains one genie with the power to grant Wishes in Bundles of Three. For your own safety please read the following Terms and Conditions:
All Wishes are non-refundable. The return of any faulty Wishes supplied by The Genie must be accompanied by a valid receipt and a valid explanation for the return of the Wish. All such returns will be at The Wishee’s cost and risk.
These Conditions of Wish Granting are the only terms and conditions on which The Genie will accept. The Genie may, at its absolute discretion, accept or reject any such offers to purchase The Three Wishes.
The Wishee acknowledges that the confirmation by The Genie of an Order of Wish Granting constitutes acceptance of the offer to purchase The Three Wishes by The Wishee and creates a binding contract between them for the sale of The Three Wishes.
No Wish may be cancelled or varied by The Wishee without the express written agreement of The Genie. The Genie reserves absolute discretion to allocate supplies of The Three Wishes between Wishees. Orders for The Three Wishes intended for private use by the Granted Wishee and not a third party.
The Genie reserves the right to withhold the despatch of The Three Wishes until such time as The Wishee has paid in full the Contract price for The Three Wishes.
Phew, you think. That was a long label. So when did genie’s get all legal, you wonder? But then this is 2009, the age of paranoia and lawsuits. Gone are the days when genies dole out wishes wily-nily, obviously.
You take a moment to digest the warning and think, ‘I really, really want to make a wish.’ But you’re just not sure. Is this a good genie or an evil genie? You carefully carry the lamp home and Google ‘Genie’ and learn that in Roman mythology the word ‘genie’ meant “guardian spirit, wit, talent” then later it came to mean “person of natural intelligence or talent”. In Arabian folklore, a genie is a supernatural creature which possesses free will. They can be either good or evil. In some cases, evil genies can lead humans astray.
Hmm… So if a genie is a supernatural creature possessing free will that has natural intelligence and is either good or bad, I’d better be careful if I let him out of that lamp, you think wisely.
Even so, you really, really want those wishes and you’re prepared to take the risk but there’s another problem. You don’t know what he wants for payment. Surely money’s no good to a supernatural being that lives in a lamp? There’s only one way you’re going to find out.
You hold the lamp up to the light, you shine a torch at it, but all you can see is a hint of something dark and swirling. You’ve got two choices: 1) you put the lamp somewhere safe and forget about it and get on with your life, or 2) you get the lid off and see how deep the rabbit-hole goes (sorry, matrix moment).
Bugger it, you think. You only live once. So you rub some solvent on the lid, twist and pull…–
Stay tuned for Part Two, folks…
Tracey
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