joshslater
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Genie in a Lamp
🕑 Added 2024-03-03 02:05:28 +0000 UTC
I would say it's trite. I paid almost nothing for a prepacked bag of junk at a garage sale where they'd put a few old vinyls in as well. That's not the trite part, though I can't tell you how much I hate that gimmick to make me pay them to take out their trash. Back home I unpacked the entire bag in case there was something else in it remotely useful, and somewhere halfway towards the bottom was an oil lamp in a dull metal that looked like a prop from an Aladdin play. In a sudden moment of silliness I rubbed the lamp. It's a trite, overused cliché, but a genie appeared in front of me.
I shrieked and fumbled backward until I tripped on something and fell against the couch, ass on the floor and my head bouncing against the seat cushion. The genie looked solid. A muscular 30-ish Arab man wearing something like a toga. A long piece of dark purple cloth wrapped around him, tight in some places, loose in others. Black leather belts and golden brooches kept everything in place. The thing that set him apart from someone doing a Prince of Persia cosplay was the shimmer of purple light around him. He chuckled, apparently finding my panicked reaction humorous. "You've never seen a genie before?"
"No," I faintly answered, still wide-eyed with my heart beating faster than when I did cardio the last time. "Well," he said and did the shifting back and forth meaning "sorry, but was it really my fault" body language.
"You're a real genie," I said redundantly, more as a statement than a question.
"Yep," he said, again doing the "sorry, but here we are" body langauge," awkward smile and head tilt and all.
"...granting wishes?" I continued.
"Yeah, that's how it works."
"Three wishes?" I continued, having calmed my nerves somewhat. There was still a possibility I was having a stroke though.
"Nah. What else have I going on? Whenever you need some wishing granted, just rub one out," he said, nodding toward the lamp where I dropped it. "And you're not having a stroke." The genie sat down in the recline opposite to where I was sitting on the floor.
Suddenly greed was flowing through my mind. A million in the bank? A billion in the bank? "You're going to screw me over aren't you?"
"Probably. You've read about all the lottery winners who regret winning. Why would it be any different when it isn't just money but literally anything you want. And it's not like wishing to reverse a wish is going to be any different. If it's completely reversed you'll just make the same wish again."
"Because you won't remember you made the wish if it is completely reversed."
"Bingo! And then I have to alter it ever so slightly so we don't get stuck in a time loop."
Perhaps the winning strategy was micro-targeting. Don't ask for a million in the bank. Ask for a toaster. Then do that for everything wrong in life. But some things would have to be bigger asks. A new house, somehow.
Then I realized I had been staring at the genie for a little while. That tan, muscled body. Handsome face, perfect skin. There was so much more you could do than asking for wealth. Why not a new body? And why micro-targeting when you can just go through many different bodies to try them out.
"I want to feel what it feels like to have a huge body." I immediately caught myself, hearing the many ways that could be taken the wrong way. "Wait! I don't mean abnormally large. I mean big like an existing big human. And by feel I mean I want to be a big bodybuilder." More thoughts. I could see how these things would be twisted. "No, I want my body to be that of a big bodybuilder. I still want to be me, living here, with my mind. Nothing else changed, just the body."
"Relax. I don't want to go through hundreds of needless revisions. You want like a six foot six body with a competitive bodybuilding physique. The big chest, wide shoulders, big delts, big biceps look with killer abs, but also strong forearms, strong back, and well developed legs."
"Yes," I said to his description which matched pretty much what I had thought.
"Same face, but altered to fit the lower body fat. Tan, but not competition day bronzed. Vascular, but not so low body fat that you look too striated.
"Yeah" Of course! He had already shown he could read minds, so I could probably just have made an image in my head and asked for that.
"Ok, your wish is granted."
Turns out there are a lot of things to not like, despite looking exactly as I wanted to try out. My metabolism is off the charts while having an eating schedule like a toddler. I can only eat like half a portion before I'm completely full, but then I'm starving again an hour later. I can see how eating quickly becomes a chore, especially when your body gets upset if the macros are too off. And it turns out the body fat is there for a reason. I'm fucking cold all the time when I'm not working out or in the sauna or shower. I can put on more clothes, but my thermal management is wrecked and I soon start sweating.
But that brings us to clothes. There's nothing but hats, socks, and underwear I can buy in regular shops, and even there it's a literal stretch given how large my feet and thighs are. The dick and balls didn't change size, but compared to the rest of the body they look tiny. Even worse since all hair below the nose is gone. Everything else I wear has to come from specialty online shops or be tailor made, and let me tell you there isn't a big variety of styles available to someone of this physique. They kind of assume you want to brag, intimidate, or be seen, usually all three.
Those are solvable problems though. The more annoying ones are the limitations such a body places on you. I can't reach most of my back with my arms. My own muscles are blocking me. I can't even wipe my ass without putting one foot up on a chair. The first morning I thought I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. I used to sleep on my side, but that's literally impossible now. I would just fall over. I woke up lying on my back, pretty far down into the bed that wasn't at all ready for someone of my weight lying in one spot the entire night. Agile as a brick I tried and failed multiple times to roll out of bed, until I realized that I'm really good at crunches. Really, really good, so that was how I was able to get out of bed.
As for multiple wishes I'm sure that is true. It's just that as soon as the genie granted my wish he and the lamp disappeared, probably into a different garage sale bag somewhere. A trite cliché, as I said.
