"Whoa! Look at this! It looks like a genie lamp!” Luke is shouting excitedly and laughing in wonderment all at once as we’re headed back inside the house from our little “camping trip” in the backyard. Which was really just a tent filled with pillows, snacks, and Nintendo games for our 3DS...so not a camping trip at all.

I grab it out of his hands, which stops his laughter instantly, “Hey! I found it, so I got dibs on it.”

“Oh, whatever. It’s not like it’s going to work anyway. It’s just a decoration, and it’s not like you’re gonna use it, it’s too girly.”

“So? I found it. So it’s mine now.” I don’t care if he is a child of nine, his childish arguing gets on my nerves, but if he wants to argue childishly, so be it.

“Luke, just shut up! I’m older, so I make the decisions.”

“Fine...but can I at least rub it to see if a genie will come out?” and cue the puppy-face technique, that doesn’t actually work on me, but I feel guilty for shouting at him so I toss it to him as I roll my eyes.

The excitement returns and lights up his wide gray eyes while his lips curve up to form a smile so broad he is actually showing his braces, which he constantly tries to hide, as he grabs the genie lamp, balances it on his right hand, and lifts his left hand to rub the bejeweled surface of the lamp.

But then nothing. Nothing happens…

“Aww…” Luke whimpers, “I really thought it would work.” This time nearly starting to sob.

“Luke...I to—”

“You called?” It is a woman’s voice. For a second I think it is mom but I don’t recognize the voice. She sounds bored and asks the question in mid-yawn. Luke jumps.

I can’t help but wonder...if maybe, just maybe it was possible for the genie lamp to actually have worked, so I ask the unseen lady, wherever she is, “Are you—are you the genie?”

Then suddenly she materializes before my brother and me, no legs, just the iconic smoke tail like Genie from Aladdin, looking down on us with a scowl, “I am. You,” she points at my brother, “are the one who awakened me, you may call me Amani.” She speaks her own name with a gleam in her eye and a certain expression that I can’t decide whether it is a menacing look or a friendly one. “You my dear, have six wishes. Wish wisely.” Luke is immobile and silent, such a rare sight. I nudge his arm in hopes of reviving him.

“I have six wishes? I thought it was three. That’s...awesome!” I have to stop myself from slapping my face, or better yet, slapping his, for his being amazed at getting three more wishes and not the fact that a genie actually came out of the lamp! But then again, we didn’t actually see her come out of the lamp...

“Uhhh, for my first wish I want...uhh, I want a puppy! But not just any puppy! A Mudi puppy!”

“Luke!” I yell at him in frustration, he is going to waste his wishes on stupid things!

“Done.” Yawns Amani.

Poof! A cute black, curly haired, and spotted puppy appears from nowhere and starts half running and half hopping with its partially standing, partially folded over ears toward Luke! I gasp. I want to believe she is real, while at the same time not believe in it, because it is magic, and there’s no scientific explanation for magic, but here’s the proof...she actually made a dog appear! But...it could just be a coincidence, couldn’t it? I mean who knows if a dog escaped someone’s backyard and somehow found itself in ours...am I right?

“Woooah!!!” Luke screeches in joy. “I wish I had a never ending supply of oreos!” He claps his hands together and giggles.

“Done. The cookie jar hidden behind the cereal boxes above the refrigerator in your kitchen, will supply you with oreos, forever.”

“Ooh! Ooh! I wish I was tall so I could ride that roller coaster at the fair every year!”

“Luke no!”

“Done.” She says. I look at Luke to see if he has changed, the first thing I notice is that I was no longer looking down at Luke’s head but looking straight at his elbow! He really has grown taller, but it’s too much! He’s several feet taller.

“Luke! Wish to undo your last wish! Right now! You could grow tall later on! Don’t make yourself tall now! Mom is going to get mad at me.”

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes in annoyance, “I wish I hadn’t wished for my last wish…” I watch as he shrinks down several feet, and I feel relief wash over me.

“Don’t spend your wishes on stupid things.” I groan.

“You have two wishes left.” She laughs, “You spent one, on reversing your other wish.”

“I wish for umm…I wish…for my sister to get the last wish.” I can’t hide my surprise, Luke is actually sharing, a wish of all things, and the last one too…

At that Amani turns to face me, almost mechanically, and annoyed, “And what do you wish for?”

I can’t bite down the curiosity growing within me “Amani, how long have you been in that lamp?” 

“I’m fairly young, so about a thousand years.” She says it in almost a bragging manner. Like being trapped in something so tiny, was something to boast about.

“Don’t you ever wish you were free?” From the second I saw her smoke tail I couldn’t help but think back to the Genie of my childhood, and how he simply wanted to be free.

“Free? Well…” Her face goes through several phases of various facial expressions and then finally settles on a bleak one. An emotionless and apathetic one.

“I wish you were free.”

Almost instantly her face contorts into a pained and serious expression as she yells “No! NO! I was going to say NO! I was safe in my lamp! I was safe!” She begins to grow, taller and wider, and her skin, her glowing and golden skin, begins to yellow and turns orange, until it finally turns red and enraged, smoke is flowing out from her, almost like she is on fire! “I was safe in my lamp! I only had to worry about granting wishes! Now what will I do?! My gods will bring me to them and force me into a mortal life!” And then suddenly she blasts into the sky, like she’s being pulled by an unseen force. “Nooooooooo! I don’t want to be free! I want to be saaaaaaaaaff—” she cuts off and vanishes before she can finish her sentence.

She’d rather stay trapped in her lamp, than to be free? Why? All because she was “safe”? But I thought…— Is a sense of security far more important than to be free? Is being free, not actual freedom?