Shelly set the lamp down on the little table she’d set up in her hotel room, then removed her gloves. She’d been careful not to touch it directly since she’d bought it, not wanting to accidentally rub it, heeding the words of the elderly shopkeeper. She stared at her prize, it’s dull brass in desperate need of polishing, but the ornate etchings in its sides, depicting ancient arabic kings surrounded by all sorts of worldly wealth, hinted toward its true nature.
‘What you HOPE is its true nature,’ her inner critic corrected. ‘Do you really think, if this was some fantastical magical item with ‘incomprehensible power’ it’d be sold for less than forty dollars? Your little brother’s video games cost more than that!’
Shelly sighed. It was hard to deny that she’d probably just wasted several hours pay on what was most likely a scam. But ever since she was young, she’d wanted to believe in magic. So much so that she’d fallen for prank after prank, and scam after scam, each time, knowing better in her head, but letting her heart lead her astray.
At least once she’d started college, maintaining her scholarship and her part-time job had kept her too busy to get into her old habits. But, come summer break, it seemed she was getting right back into them, if her most recent purchase was any indication.
She was originally planning on waiting for the friends she was traveling with, Vivian and June, to come back to her room, so she could polish it off in safety… but realizing she had likely just wasted her money on little more than a tacky souvenir, she figured she might as well give it some polish.
She reached out to grab it…
And stopped as she heard the door opening, her friends walking in.
“Hey Shelly,” said the short, slightly overweight young redhead, June. “Doing good?”
“Yeah,” Shelly said, “how was the museum?”
“Not great,” the tall, green-eyed brunette Vivian sighed. “I wanted to see all the paintings of artists who’d inspired me since I was a kid. So of COURSE the one week we visited, they happen to be focused entirely on modern art; it was all abstract garbage scattered everywhere, ‘cept for one or two statues that had been left in there. I tried to throw away my drink in one of the wastebaskets, and got told off by security for ‘vandalising the Society’s Repose.’” She glanced down at the coffee table. “What have you got there?”
“Oh, this? This is just a little souvenir I picked up while I was out. I liked the look of those old oil lamps, and this one was cheap.”
“And you were hoping to find a genie in it?” June teased.
Shelly tried not to show her annoyance. June was always the rational type. It helped her a lot in her pursuit of her engineering degree, but it also meant that when she’d found out about Shelly’s old habits, she couldn’t resist prodding her friend about it every now and again.
“No. But the guy who sold it to me said after I bought it, that I should be careful. That the first person to rub it would get turned into a genie, and sent into the lamp until the next person rubbed it. Then the genie’d come out to grant three wishes for whoever rubbed it, and after that, they’d go back to being human again.”
“So of course you believed him, and are scared to touch it,” June said with a smirk.
“Oh, don’t be that way June!” Vivian chided.
“As a matter of fact, no,” Shelly huffed. “I was just about to polish it before you came in! Maybe you’d like to do it instead, thought?”
“Heh, if she doesn’t want to, I’d volunteer,” Vivian said. “No harm in trying, right?”