The Genies’ three desires Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013

The Genies’ three desires

Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013- Taken from Our lives as Fiction

Three vagrants sat in their own filth by the slums of civilisation, trying to heat they’re hands against a blazing fire off the wreak of a burnt car and these three figures, looked doleful enough because they were just sitting in the normal apocalyptic setting of another modern city. These men had nothing but their desires, for they were men and men only have their desires in the end, when you break them down from all the pleasantries and graces we bestow on others for our own social appearances. But deep down we are all vagrants, us men, tramps, wanderers, destitute delinquents and beggars of warmth, happiness and yes, desire, we all crave the unquestionable stimuli fed us by our body, brain and soul.

                                                       These men were astonished one day to see their own train of thought disrupted by the sudden, appearance of a blue and grey smiley faced genie that came, like a puff of cloud off the back of the moving east winds that came to blow out their desperately needed fire. The men looked stunned to see this apparition in their midst and a great feeling of dread gripped each man simultaneously as they looked into the deep green eyes of the genie.

“Gentlemen I have been summoned from the underworld to go and grant you you’re three deepest and greatest desires”, said the genie smiling as he floated all before the withering sight of the three fearful vagrants.

“I don’t understand this, did we set you free, somehow?” Said the first of the three vagrants who was a rather plump and short man, a balding man of fifty who wore a filthy matching pair of stained overalls and was crowned with an old khaki and grey fisherman’s hat.

“Yes you did indeed, I came from that old apparently worthless piece of crockery that you hold in you’re hand. You said the magic words aloud and that was the sign that triggered my release from my prison which I have been detained in for over three thousand years”, said the genie while inspecting the awe and sheer incredulity on the faces of these restless tramps.

“Well what were the words?” Said the second vagrant, who was a skinny, anorexic, anaemic, dirty bearded, vile, bag of bones that sat with his knees crossed, while trying to scrounge for the wasted butt of a cigarette.

“Holy smoke! Which can be spoken in any tongue, whether it derives from antiquated cultures or languages or modern speechless garbage, it makes no difference for we immortals speak all languages and jargons, every tongue and song we know off by heart, for all languages are the same, you use the same words and you express your own base instincts through you’re desires”, said the genie in a bout of laughter,

“Desires, what would you know of them and what interest does an immortal want with us? We just want to get shitless, that’s all we ever want to do, so go and find someone else because we’re not interested in anything you have to say. You are nothing real to us, you are a phantom apparition, or a whiskey apparition that has come after the night of a bad bender”, said the third vagrant who was the more dogmatic and sceptical of the three men and who sat slouched with his back against a wheelie bin. This man was neither thin nor plump in size but a big, broad man with a series of scars running all along his face, like as though the needles off a sowing machine had stitched his face and left the apparent red marks and scars all around the circumference of his left cheek and around the width of his chin. His eyes were not deep, but completely hollow with their grey, sterile globes of austerity, sorrow and aggression that bore out, in a statement that made the man look empty, restless and almost expressionless past all the menacing high browed glances that he made to every common pedestrian and passing policeman that he encountered.

“You should never doubt my existence or the existence of the immortal dimensions, for they are as real as you’re eyes can see and they are as real as you’re heart can beat and as real as the power of you’re perception which is the door to all facets of understanding. Now I don’t want you to doubt anymore otherwise I will leave you all back to whatever you three bums were doing and I will never return and I will go and grant three desires for some underprivileged orphan at the orphanage up the road, if you don’t stop this nonsense and belief with you’re heart that I am real, for otherwise how could you see me? Who says that you are dreaming, or that you’re vile liquor has created me as some drunken apparition and who says that you are mad, for who is to put the boundary and place the limits on what exists and what doesn’t exist? It is the greatest egomaniac of our times that renders a man insane by the wealth of vision he possesses over others. You should never doubt the possibility of something new taking place within you’re world and you’re material realm”, said the genie who grew enraged by the insolence and impertinence shown by third vagrant whose face transformed into a sight of fear and dread once again.

“No don’t leave”, said the first plump vagrant.

“Stay, we want our desires granted, please!” Said the second anorexic vagrant.

“Yes stay, please, I am sorry for insulting you, I am a true believer in the power of the underworld, please stay”, said the third grimy vagrant who had finally capitulated in his own emotional stance and his belief, that he now wanted the genie to stay very desperately.

“Oh all right I will stay, because I must, but as penalty for you’re ignorance, I will only grant one desire per man, so you better make it good and you better make it the greatest desire that you’re swelling heart can contain, otherwise you will have wasted the well of want within you and you’re spirit shall be tarnished and torn forever”, said the genie vehemently as he floated all before the three kneeling vagrants that had crawled forward before the presence of the genie.

“Well”, said the first vagrant that plump, balding man with the khaki and grey fisherman’s hat. “I know what I want, I want a marriage, a good wife is what I have always wanted, a fine shapely, finely curved woman, with a fine pair of bosoms and with such stunning beauty that could kill a man with a single drunken glare, That’s the woman I want, because I have never known what it is like to be with a woman, since I am the plainest, most unattractive man you could ever see.”

“Well”, said the genie, if that is you’re hearts greatest desire for life, then it shall be granted on the first thread of dawn tomorrow”, said the genie smiling to the little content man that squatted by the very presence of the genie.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when the sun rises, first thing tomorrow, you’re desire shall be granted and the power of the unseen world shall come into force.”

“What about you?” Said the genie as he turned his attention to the second vagrant that sat to the immediate right of the genie’s great and powerful presence. “What desire sets itself over the whole of you’re heart?”

“Well I have always wanted my own mountain of gold, where I could just climb up and gaze out onto the whole length and breadth of our great city, and I could laugh at the beggars below and I could sit and dream and sell my gold when I wanted to. I have always been a poor man, stingy and mean with what crumbs I have had, feckless, meagre and a man paltry ambitions and goals and with my mountain I would set things straight, make things anew in the power that I would exert over the people that once made fun of me for my pettiness in life and with this new found prosperity I would buy each and every share in all the major companies and businesses within the city. This is my desire”, said the skinny, anorexic, ragged, bandy legged man whose face look swollen from the lack of food and his high alcohol intake, consumed on a daily basis.

“You’re desire shall be granted, at the first fibre of the setting sun, when twilight has consumed the sky, you shall find you’re mountain of gold, under the setting sun and it shall appear before you’re own very eyes under the veils of the neighbouring allotments beside these very slums”, said the genie whose command resonated like a role of thunder before the watchful gaze of the three eager and hungry vagrants.

When the time had come for the third vagrant to make a wish, there was nothing but an empty solitary silence to be found in the presence of the genie, as the third surly faced vagrant merely sat slouched, in a self made distraction from the very awe and power of the genie. The third vagrant now began to lie on his side, as if in preparation for his bedtime ritual of sleeping under the roof of an old car park, with his blanket carefully tucked in under his flimsy foam mattress that he had found in a nearby rubbish dump.

                      “Hey what desire fills you’re heart and makes you want to become a new man, born completely anew?” Asked the genie as he bellowed out his voice across to the third vagrant that lay resting with his eyes completely shut and when he did this the other two vagrants turned round from their spots and moved and paced forward towards the car park where the third vagrant slept.

“I’m not sleeping, I’m merely resting”, said the copper skinned vagrant with the scars that ran across his jaw line. “I heard you’re proposition, but I haven’t heard what you want exactly from all these desires which you are delivering for me and the boys over there.”

“I receive my long awaited freedom, after many millennia of slavery within the confines of the crockery and that is worth anything to me, with my freedom, I will be able to move beyond this realm unto the immortal dimensions themselves. But first I must deliver three desires for three kings of the under world and I must see which one shall be true to his own desires and shall not squander nor make a wish in the lust of want and the vanity of pride and power. I must do this in order to counteract the spell and the curse put on me by an old evil sorcerer of the ancient Milesians long ago”, said the genie standing before the third vagrant who now gave him his undivided attention and sat squatting before the genie that floated and hovered above all three tramps.

“Well I have one desire which has never been fulfilled, I wish for the simple and yet the great desire of happiness, which can make a man an immortal in a day or make a man devil of depravity in an hour. I have always wanted to find an immense source of joy in life and when I had such joy I would let my spirit lift me off my feet and I would go and search for my one and only daughter Nora, who lives somewhere in the city, off far, far away beyond the meeting points of this cities’ twisting labyrinth and I would apologise and I would give her the last remains of my fathers’ old possessions, his diary, his clothes and the key to his old bedroom locker which he kept all his precious gemstones and belongings away from the hands of the world to steal”, said the third vagrant that now began to look quite different when his eyes beamed with a sense of enraptured joy and his face lit up like the sun shinning on the darkened rooftops of the cities skyline.

“Well I can do that, but why do you need happiness in the here and now, so to search for you’re estranged daughter, when you can just go and search for her anytime, with the power and resilience of human motivation?” Said the genie smiling with a golden contentment from the more uplifting desire revealed to him from all the three desires made from each vagrant.

“Well I haven’t the will to live any longer, my body is bruised and broken from all the hard drugs that I have done throughout my days and I haven’t the heart and the energy to even go and look for her, because I know that she would never want to speak with me again not since I left her mother when she was four”, said the tramp in lament.

“Well you’re desire is granted, but it will take time, when the doves feathers are flowing in the bosom of the Western wind, so you shall find you’re great hungry desire fulfilled and it will come upon you like the coming of the light of life, it has take you by surprise!” Said the genie that smiled and waved goodbye to the three men, as he lifted himself up into the stars and the carpets of the earth’s spheres above.

“Well boys I wonder whether we’ll ever see him again or not, perhaps this is all some big drink induced delusion or an epic hallucination, who knows”, said the third vagrant who returned to his mattress and waited for the veils of sleep to come dropping down ever so slowly, in the heated recess of the night and its vibrant activities.

The next day, the sun shone radiantly though the slums of the cities back streets and as the third vagrant was just beginning to wake up from his long slumbering hibernation at the back of the cark park he spotted the first vagrant, the balding plump man with the khaki and grey fisherman’s hat, coming towards him in full flight with a face of sheer delight and wonder on him and he was shouting to the third vagrant to try and wake him up.

“Seamus, Seamus, would you ever believe it! That damn genie is as good as his word. I got up early this morning, at the first fibre of dawn and waited by my sleeping bag and you will never believe want fell into my wheelbarrow? Go on guess”, said the plump, little, man.

“No I don’t know Mick, what did you find a chicken in you’re wheelbarrow”, said Seamus sarcastically.

“No, I found a woman, she fell from the heavens and she landed in my wheelbarrow. She’s got pigtails, a fine pair of bosoms, looks to die for and she sounds French, what more could a man want? A French busty babe, that comes from the heavens sounds good enough to me and guess what happened next.”

“What happened next?”

“She’s agreed to marry me, would you believe it, I the plainest man in the city asked her the golden idol of sultriness if she’d marry me and she said yes instantaneously on the spot. By the way were getting married next week at the local home and I want you to be my best man”, said the Mick feeling rather pleased with himself.

“That’s good, Mick, but I just want to get some sleep”, said Seamus rather wearily, without even thinking twice on what Mick had said to him.

“Hey don’t you have any interest in me at all?” Said Mick with a sullen look of disappointment.

“I do, I just think that maybe you might have drank to much last night, that’s all, just check that you’re not dreaming or that she’s not some bloody immigrant that’s been running and hiding from the authorities and has landed in you’re old rusty wheelbarrow by accident”, said Seamus in a sarcastic tone that seemed to belittle Mick’s discovery.

“Well come and see for you’re self”, said Mick who led Seamus to this mysterious woman and when Mick saw her, he knew all too well that she was the great desire of Mick’s heart and that she was given by the genie and was certainly no illusion, but all too real and all too beautiful and when Seamus had realised this as he fell down on the ground, praised God, cursed his ex-wife and made a vow not to give up on the new inconsolable search he had made for his long lost estranged daughter, whom he had not seen for more than fifteen years.

When the second vagrant had seen exactly what had happened he was filled with awe and wonder, with great immeasurable feelings of excitement and also anxiety for the great bounty he had longed for in his ultimate desire and request made to the genie. He longed ever more for his mountain of gold.

                                                                         When the sun began to sink in the west behind the deep enamoured image of a salmon tinged sky, the second vagrant came running back to the silver horse bridge where he found Seamus, the third vagrant lying completely obsolete and motionless, as he begged on the bridge, with his hand out for petty cash off tourists and Chinamen that passed him by.

“Seamus, Seamus, you’ll never guess what has happened? It’s like a dream come true; my very mountain itself has come to me, my mountain of gold. I found it concealed behind the hill at the far wall of the field opposite Mackerel Street, that is were I envisioned in my own lucid dream last that I saw the entire circumference of the sun sinking down over Mackerel Street and how right it was! Eyrie, enough as it is, it is still quite phenomenally brilliant, how man knows little of this immortal world of magic, genies, mountains of gold, beautiful busty Frenchies and of course dreams that are portals to our human, perhaps even super-human desires, now that’s shows what cold, sterile science while do for you, its all worthless for the great undesirables such as ourselves, it is reserved for the rich and the elite of society. But now finally I have my long desired mountain and I am going to guard it night and day, going to hire a team of the guards to watch it and with the gold I sell, I will invest, I will expand, I will buy and I will create my own memorandum of assets for my new company, once I have bought the one that sits me perfectly”, so said the second vagrant who laughed and hopped his way through the alleyway and out onto the main street so he could take a short cut back to his own precious mountain of gold.

                                                                                              Throughout each entire day, from dawn until dusk, Seamus waited patiently at his usual spot, he slept, he begged, he drank and he wept himself to sleep at night, because he had now started to believe that his simply almost petty consolation, wish and desire had not been granted but denied on account of his own feckless nature and his past failures as a father and a husband. It is true that this miscreant felt particularly bitter during the following week that commenced after the genie had appeared and he felt even worse when saw how the other two tramps were coming and going through the streets bearing great and prosperous news to Seamus. The first vagrant, Mick, that plump little man with the khaki and grey hat came laughing, to tell Seamus that he was moving into his own apartment with his darling new French wife, whom he had married only the day before, in a wonderful drunken ceremony which nobody could remember and he had placed an advance on a cheap council flat somewhere on the northside of the city and Mick seemed to be the happiest he had ever been in his whole life.

“Oh Seamus you need a woman, she’ll give you everything you desire, this French woman that dropped from the sky has helped me find employment, helped me find an apartment and she has made me, the plainest man in the city the happiest of all alcoholic tramps in this part of town. It’s a pity that you wasted you’re one and only desire on that petty idea of meeting up and reconciling you’re self with you’re long lost daughter”, said Mick standing over Seamus who sat begging at his usual spot at the corner of Fintan’s alley off the main street.

“You go on off and leave me alone, you’re disturbing my peace now. You’re not making things any easier for me. I trusted that genie and he let me down, he broke his promise, I have waited several weeks, just to see some sign or signal that I might meet my daughter, but nothing has appeared, nothing whatsoever. I am a simple man, with a simple life, I have never had it easy, I have lost a lot from my own accord, but this one simple, yet massive desire of mine is more important to me that you’re feckin French tart or Paddy’s mountain of gold. I actually am trying to do the selfless thing here and I am hoping to have a word with my daughter just to tell her that I love her”, said Seamus as he pulled and tugged at his sleeping bag trying to adjust the zip and the pockets while he took out a small paper cup to count his daily scrounges.

“Well I wish you well”, said Mick as he hopped and skipped his way off into the main street in a spell of ecstasy and sheer excitement and nearly knocked down an old woman while passing by and he was surprised to see that the old woman came after him with her black leather handbag and began to belt him with it.

                                                                                                        Right about the time when they hose down the tramps on Myers Lane- and this is new policy by the police so to keep prohibit and reprimand beggars and to prevent any more begging occurring within the epicentre of the great financial district of the city- the second vagrant, Paddy, the long, gangly anorexic companion of Seamus and Mick, came running round to Seamus at the corner of Fintans Alley where Seamus was begging and he came calling out to Seamus and he waved his arms frantically as he tried desperately to get Seamus’s attention.

“Hey Seamus, things have been going well these days, things have been going so good in fact that I have my investments have doubled and my companies annual intakes have made a profit already and that says something about the kind of luck I have had these days. My mountain has sunk in its original bulk but that was only in a couple of inches for the costs of the factories, the company, the staff, shares, shareholders and of course the equipment, the goods and the textiles compulsory for the job at hand and of course I have had to pay the full wages for my full team of guards to watch my mountain both day and night. Who would have thought that a genie could exist in this big bold rational world and who could have thought that he was imprisoned within that old worthless piece of crockery that we found by the dump that night!” Said Paddy who was clothed in a finely trim and tailored suit, with a dickey bow firmly at the collar, a pear of leather moccasin shoes and with his right hand he gripped a fine ivory cane and he was now crowned with a panama hat.

He seemed to walk with a swagger and there was a certain air of pomposity about him, for he had lost his old inner city accent and now he spoke in a certain dignified, high class, almost eloquent manner about himself.

“Oh I nearly forgot to inform you that there are certain job vacancies at the factory for specific manual labour work on the shop floor and I would like you to work for me. Have a think about it, while you’re just lying there scrounging for change and sleeping rough each evening, think about the basic wage you could earn and you might have the possibility of saving up enough of these earnings for you own flat. What do you think, Seamus? Would you be interested with my proposition?” Said Paddy before he swaggered off, occasionally tapping his finely constructed ivory cane against the pavement stones. “I am an important industrialist, I don’t have time for petty chitchat with you, time is money”, shouted Paddy back at a rather glum looking Seamus who just sunk beneath the cover of his sleeping bag and he waited, and drifted off into a drunken sleep with the cold winter air pressing its fists against him.

Months had passed in sequence and Seamus waited, biding his time begging, scrounging, making short trips to the local homeless centre and he would on occasion search through the rubble and the rubbish of the old scrap yard where he had laid his weary eyes on the genie that lost night of illusory desire, which he sought wholeheartedly to recapture. He called out to the genie.

“Genie, save me, genie help me, genie my problems are too much, everything is too much, genie the world doesn’t care, genie I cant get through another day like this, genie where are you, why do you never hear my cries, genie where is my daughter?”

He would sit and sob to himself while he reminisced on old memories and tomfoolery acted out jointly with his two companions who now at this stage rarely visited him and had become so attached to their own desires that they had practically in every sense of the word abandoned him. Seamus would shuffle up the centre of the high street through the moving mass of peoples, the tide, the bulging, swelling ranks of apathetic characters that filled up the growing numbers of what we call the “public”.

Seamus would search for some respite in his own life’s heart but could never resuscitate a day of happiness, hope or even desire worth living for.

One day as Seamus was resting on a park bench while inhaling the last stinking drags of a cigarette, he was surprised to see the first vagrant, Mick approach him and in an altered state of mood and demeanour. Mick the first vagrant, that plump, little, tomato red man in colour and tone, came wearing his stained work clothes from an office an he was bearing a heavy load as he frowned when he started to address Seamus.

“Ah Seamus, I have made the greatest mistake of my life, I have never known my own desires, I have only known the cheap pleasures of life and I regret having made the desire known to the genie. I am the plainest man, the blandest, most insipid man in appearance, quantity of leisure, interests, tastes and talent. I haven’t the ability to manage a marriage with an extremely attractive, devious, sumptuous, sensual, siren like her, I don’t know where she came from, but I have to state that we have fought and bemoaned our case to each other for far too long”, said Mick wearily as he crouched down beside Seamus and glared into his deep set eyes in a moment of absolute comprehension and regret.

“Well I could never have seen you with a woman and you have to realise that the differences in the sexes makes the passage to marriage a potentially fatal one and men can never see the future and we can never see whether it will work out, because all the responsibilities, the mature decision making, the constant kinship, the courtship, the financial grievances, the emotional upkeep of our relationship, the dedication, the selfless perfection of mutual understandings, these are all components in the ideal marriage and it rarely ever works out. I can vouch for that, not just on account of my own past experiences but because I see the queues of former lovers simply expanding by the year out of the family law courts, every one these days files for divorce under section 7 of the act and they all wrestle and tussle for ownership of every asset, chattel, possession and piece of property tied up in the couples name. All become divorcees in this dystopian society of ours and many will return to marriage only to become a divorcee once again. I am afraid the sexless one of our age, the dedicated man of plutonic love and simplicity, he remains completely unscathed from the wreak of easy virtue and madness. Very few relationships last and few are filled with true love that is the unalterable, timeless nature of man. Don’t chase the temptresses down the street for you will become the broken man you’re father once became, don’t succumb to the voices in you’re head, close you’re eyes to the beauties on the mainstreet, and you will remain the happiest man for miles. Leave fantasy to the imagination and fulfil reality by another means”, said Seamus smiling warmly and amiably to Mick who wept bitter tears of sorrow beside Seamus.

“Be careful with you’re desires, measure the wealth of human aspirations and see whether they really offer us as individuals any real hope or luxury at all, that is what I could have warned you about. I think you always wanted a woman’s love, simply because society never gave you a tupence of attention and so you wanted to just feel normal, to feel appreciated and to feel accepted amongst society’s beauty and glamour, but you forgot once again, that you are a different specimen of man than the kind that woes and flirts with the glamorous congregations of ladies we see on the high streets”, said Seamus as he offered a smoke to Mick who gratefully declined the offer and smiled as he sat and slouched beside the wall of the local car park, next to Seamus.

“Ah you are right Seamus, how I feel cheated and robbed of my dignity!”

“Oh you’re dreams must be attainable, they must more earthly than heavenly in their design and why set you’re self up for great expectations when you can have you’re favourite base desires and comforts here on earth, with what you gave and with what is going for you, even if it is almost miniscule in its size. We great men have seen the sun set on our civilisation and we are the only ones that have realised how perfectly human it is to know our own weaknesses, to be humble, even if we scrounge on the scraps of society and they are the one’s that think they are all important, and they are the one’s who think they have luxury, power, confidence, health and happiness, they know nothing of luxury, nor joy nor even life itself, because they take every crumb and morsel of life for granted, so we see the sun set while the deluge falls on the heads of the rich who walk above us by the beggars corner”, said Seamus smiling in a rather philosophical mood, since he was once a professor in philosophy at the old antiquated college up the very centre of the city.

“Well you are right, at least I have a good friend to turn to”, said Mick as he bent his knees, squatted and sat beside Seamus and produced a small bottle of scotch, which the two men preceded to drink together in large measures.

“Lets demolish the scotch together, get drunk, whistle, hoot and growl at beautiful young college girls and tell some stories”, said Mick rather wide eyed with a smile of gratitude on his face.

“All in good time, and well sing as well, for as long as the night can hold us”, said Seamus with a quick wink of devilry in his eye.

Then the scene of devilry, drunken folly, camaraderie and banter came to an end as confession time had emerged once more with the arrival of the broken, empty faced appearance of the second vagrant, Paddy, that anorexic industrialist with the desire for a great mountain of gold, who wept at the feet of Seamus and begged him to listen to his confession of disgrace and failure.

“Oh Seamus, you’ll never guess what has happened! My mountain of gold has gone, it sunk and sunk over the past month, until it was a bloody molehill, by thieves from the knackers yard, they came with wheelbarrows, trucks, cranes and bloody armed riffles and they stole from me, both day and night and night and day. My poor exhausted security men were working 12-hour shifts, and while my stock went down, my business work plummeted. My gold reserves were drained because every criminal and crook within the radius of the south city centre was informed on the whereabouts of my secret golden mountain”, said Paddy who sat down and knelt down beside the feet of the other two vagrants.

“Oh Paddy, poor men can never possess the soul of a rich man, we were not born to be like them, we have more integrity than those miscreants ever could have in a thousand lifetimes. Don’t you know that you only lusted after money and power because you have never known what it is like to have a wealth of happiness and an abundance of securable possessions, but the truth is that any man with a mountain of gold would lose his mountain, when the chasm of the heart is empty and no man can maintain control or manage the security over such a mythology, because every thief and morally reprehensible man within the city comes forward to steal everything he can take. You only desired what others wanted, because that is what society typically wants and I know you better than you know you’re self Paddy, because I know that you are a man of petty desires, not a financier, no entrepreneur of any sorts, not a affluent banker, tradesman or stockbroker, you are no man with a worldly position or power, with no great prestige from you’re peers and contemporaries. You’re heart did not truly desire a mountain of gold nor did it seek all the responsibilities that were apportioned to it, just to keep the mountain safe from the hands of thieving rogues. You wanted happiness, the state of mind, the feeling, the sense of security, the future sense of aspiration and the feeling of renewal you never wanted the attention that came from the discovery of the mountain, you wanted happiness for that is the end product and the goal of the human seeker. You stated that you wanted to laugh at the beggars below, but how could you smirk at the needy, when you are needy too, and you don’t even know you’re true desire, and you know that such accumulation does not bring you joy bur weighs you down and ties you down with great duties and jobs to fulfil”, said Seamus who offered the second vagrant, Paddy a cigarette while the three men slouched down and took long, deep breathes of air out of the brown and yellow body of the whiskey bottle, so to drown their sorrows, once again.

“Well I have lost the factory, the workers went on strike, they picketed the premises and the interlocutory injunction which I sought under equity was refused partly because it violated the rights of the workers”, said Paddy rather glumly.

“How so”, said Mick inquiring.

“Well, I hadn’t paid them for a couple of weeks, because of funding cut backs and I owed them several weeks of back pay. In the end I couldn’t even pay the workers the simple work wage and so I had breached the basic fundamental rights of the work, wage contract”, said paddy that sat lamenting with intensity for every moment that passed.

The three vagrants sat in their own grime by the wreak of civilisation, lamenting over their own fallen desires and dreams, expecting as if by some miracle’s chance to catch a glimpse of the genie that once offered to change their lives forever.

One day when Seamus went walking up the side of Harrows Lane, he wandered through the dark cobbled tunnel of the laneway and while he walked through unto the sign of the bleeding summer sun, he found himself surprised and comforted by the simple yet, naturally graceful apparition of a pair of doves flapping their wings as they lifted up their bodies and landed on the tiled edge of the city’s main cathedral and in their trace they dispersed their feathers from their fan like tails into the hands of the western wind. Seamus at that moment felt himself enlightened, comforted and intrigued at whether or not this could be the answer to the genies riddle, perhaps this was the summoning answer he had wanted to find as to whether his simple desire would be fulfilled or not. The feathers fell down and landed very carefully into his hands and this seemed to specifically speak to Seamus as an indication that his dreams and his greatest desire would be fulfilled, as if some silent, long lost, forgotten prophecy or abstract dream were to be fulfilled by the mercies of the unseen immortal dimension of the genie. Seamus wandered further into the unkempt heart of the city and he suddenly realised that he had been sidetracked from his original planned destination and had strayed further out from the shore of his refuge.

He stood without flinching beside the canal bank and watched so quietly to see that only the distant sound of the moving winds that whistled ever so faintly and the afternoon rancour of the traffic could be heard buzzing off in the foreground of the canal banks. Then Seamus caught sight of the genie that hovered above his head as if he were some drunken apparition from another dissolute night in his dissolute existence, he simultaneously felt stunned and joyful and he had only one thought and one desire to inquire on his own part to the genie.

“Why have you come so far into the heart of the metropolis, when all you’re searching has proved to be fruitless and aimless, with regards to you’re desire.

You’re request out of the three desires made, has to be without a doubt to be the purest, most selfless of all the desires given to me and that is essential for any

consideration made from an immortal to a mere mortal man that sucks on pleasure for his daily living and thrives on the giving of others. You had to wait so that I could measure you’re level of patience, you virtuosity with regards to your own true desires,

For you have searched you’re heart and wandered through the furthest enclaves of the city streets and have proved you’re dedication to the hours of work and want which you have given and so you shall find you’re long lost daughter as you desired, she works in the city’s central bank behind one of the cashier’s desks on the first floor, but she will probably not remember you, nor will she want to see you, since you have never been in her life in the first place. You have worked hard for you’re desires, now watch them fly before you’re eyes, for I am not the genie that grants life to petty men, but the genie that takes happiness and want from all those who make their frivolous requests known to me and you’re general lust in life has cost you everything and so let you’re desire take you’re heart, for I now own you, and you shall return to you’re squatters rest by the side of society, the streets of civilisation and the eyes of the indignant apathetic people and that is why the high king of this land imprisoned me under the enchanted songs of his druid, it was because I forbad him the great desire of Britannia to his own measly kingdom that he cursed me and I in turn curse men, through offering them false hopes, I may grant them their desires but I foreknow and I foresee which hopeless desire perfectly suits a hopeless man, so likewise I have given you the doves feathers of hope, just to come bearing the bad news that will set you down to rot. Now you can see why you’re two other companions were so foolish because their desires were not in check with their own situations. So I have seen many a man’s hope fly, like the ash and flame of a burnt out life, turn to cinder and destruction.”

The genie’s mask of mercy, his false offerings of commiseration and kindness, the offerings of desire and hope had been a trick from the underworld’s mightiest artificer, the Jinn or genies that had come upon the modern earth so to ruin the man of mighty hopes and desires and Seamus’s heart had sunk even further beneath the glass weight of his brown opaque bottle when he saw the genie’s tears of laughter and the sight of his two beloved companions being attacked by a host of cheeky marauding crows that swooped and scourged the men that rummaged for food in a couple of grimy wheelie bins, by the side of civilisation and the squalor of the times.