Your Wish is My Command

Cole: One Man's Trash 🚯

Flash forward about a week and the lamp sat in the garbage, half-buried under crumpled fast-food wrappers and a broken umbrella. A man named Cole had almost passed it by, but something about the ornate design caught his eye. He wasn't having a great day—laid off from work, a fight with his roommate—so why not?

"Maybe it's an antique," he muttered, pulling it free. He carried it home, wiped off the grime, and set it on his coffee table.

That night, curiosity got the better of him. As he sat in his apartment, he polished the lamp absentmindedly with a cloth. To his astonishment, golden smoke erupted from the spout, swirling into the shape of a striking woman with bronze skin, piercing golden eyes, and hair that flowed like liquid onyx.

"Another one?" the figure said, yawning dramatically. "Mortals and their lamps. All right, I'm Zahra, Genie of the Lamp. You've got three wishes—make them count."

Cole gawked at her. "You're real? Like, an actual genie?"

"Obviously," Zahra replied, inspecting her nails. "What do you want? Fame? Fortune? Love? I've heard it all."

He hesitated, his mind racing. If this was real, this was his chance. "Life has been kicking me down lately, and I'm tired of the same old thing," Cole said. "I want a new life. Something exciting and different."

Zahra's lips curled into a sly smile. "A new life? Got it. Let's make this interesting."