Tumour-Djinn

TUMOUR-DJINN

I ORDER A magic lamp from the internet. According to the seller, it is good as new, and after rubbing the thing, a djinn will come out and give me three wishes. A few days pass, and the package arrives. A sign on the lamp’s side informs me that the product is not suitable for children under the age of three, because they can swallow the small pieces. I don't know what tiny parts a genie could possibly have, but nowadays they write this warning to everything.

I begin to rub the lamp, but what comes out fails to meet even my lowest expectations. Along with some dark smoke a thin, bald guy crawls out. His skin is all grey, the eyes are colorless pebbles. He hands me his medical charts, like it was a business card or something, which reads: Stage 4 Lung Cancer.

"I never smoked one cigarette in my life!" adds the genie, and begins to cough.

I don't know what to do with my new cancerous djinn. I keep telling him my wishes, but he just stares in silence, or talks about nonsense.

"I want a tree which grows money as leaves!" I command him.

"I never realized, life can be so short. We are just putting the bricks, one into another, then we try to climb over the wall that we created. But it is so big. It covers the sun." he mutters, drawing in the air with his pencil-like fingers.

"I want a sports car!" I try again, but he just looks out in the window, gazing the clouds, telling me: "Can cancer grow in birds? Does it kill owls in the forest, or eagles in the mountains? The deer maybe? The giant fish on the bottom of the sea?"

With a desperate look I say: "I want a swimming pool."

But the djinn begins to cough up blood, and it is damned sure, I won’t get any swimming pool today.