The Genie in the Merlot Bottle

Here we go again. Another date in this pandemic, another Zoom call from a swipe right. When will this pandemic be over? I finish applying mascara and slide on the basic black dress I ordered from Target a week ago, that barely covered my knees. I let down my black and blonde passion twists that I had in a bun on top of my head and check the time. It’s 8:55 pm, so I have 5 more minutes before I have to log onto the call.

I walk downstairs to the kitchen, smelling the aroma of the beef and broccoli takeout that finally got delivered 10 minutes ago. I grab my plate from the cupboard and place the food on it. Where’s my fortune cookie?! That’s the best part of ordering takeout! I grab a bottle of water and take my dinner to the grey, oval dining room table across the room, avoiding my two year old German shepherd, T’Challa, laying on the floor. 8:59, perfect, just in time.

I log on to the call. A semi attractive guy with short black hair and brown eyes answers the call. He looks like his profile picture, so that’s a plus. He has on a navy blue V-neck shirt and I can see that his physique isn’t too built.

“Hey beautiful!”

“Uh hey. How are you….” I look at the bottom of the screen so I can remember his name. “Ethan! How are you Ethan?” I really have to stop scheduling Zoom dates with so many people, but it is boring living on your own and being single, on top of being in a pandemic where everything is shut down. I try and talk to T’Challa when I’m bored, but he just looks at me like I’m crazy and walks away.

“I’m well. And you?”

“Fine.”

“So tell me, how old are you? What do you do?”

I internally sigh. Obviously he doesn’t read the profiles that he swipes right on. “Well as you know, my name is Cam and I am a 26 year old accountant. How about you? What do you do?”

He flashes a grin. “27, model, entrepreneur, and I’m getting into acting, or at least I was before the shutdown.”

“Ohhhh, very nice.”

“Yeah. I started when I was 6 when I was a kid. It all really happened by chance. I was with my…” he starts to go on.

I zone out and start eating. I’m not trying to be mean, but I just don’t seem to care about the personal spiel that he’s going on. This isn’t my first time swiping right on a model, and newsflash! They like to talk about themselves. The only bright side is that at least he’s appealing to look at. I gaze down at my Apple watch, 9:08 pm, this is going to be a long night. “Uhh Ethan,” I interrupt.

He looks a little surprised that I stopped the story of his life. “Yes?” he questions while raising his eyebrows.

“I’m just going to go get something stronger to drink, but continue talking, I can still hear you.” I can hear him mumbling something about a photo as I head over to the kitchen. I know I have some wine in the refrigerator from last night. I find the open bottle in the fridge, Bright Cellars Merlot, my favorite. I pour out the rest of the bottle into my wine glass and it barely fills it. This little bit obviously isn’t going to help me make it through the night. I look over to the left of the kitchen where the wine rack is. Only one bottle remains, a dusty bottle of some random wine my mother gave me when I turned 21. Her instructions, “Only drink when your luck is so down that the only place to go is up.” Single, 26, underappreciated accountant, again single, and feeling the effects of a pandemic, I’d say this is as rock bottom as I could get right now.

I grab the wine bottle and start to wipe off the dust. All of a sudden, the dust starts to increase and swirl into a person standing in front of me. T’Challa gets up and stands in front of me, growling about to attack the figure.

“Hello Camryn,” a British voice snarls at me. A 6 foot 8, possibly 7 foot male appears. He has on a well-tailored, black suit that fits his frame down to a T. His tall and dark features definitely fit the description of a straight off the runway model. He is gorgeous! “So are you going to keep looking at me with your mouth gaped open and drool coming out, or are you going to ask the usual “Who are you? What do you want? How did you get here type of questions? And get your dog before I turn him into a cat.”

“T’Challa, heel.” He goes to sit beside me as I wipe the little bit of drool off the side of mouth. “Ummm who are you?! How do you know my name?! How did you get in my house?!” I start yelling before I even realize.

“Um Cam?! Is everything okay over there?! I hear Ethan ask me from the computer.

Crap! Ethan!

“Oh yeah, she’s fine mate!” The British voice yells at the computer.

I quickly take a step forward, stand on my tiptoes and put my hands over his mouth. “Yeah Ethan. I’ll call you back later! You can hang up!” I look back up at this fine specimen in front of me. “Don’t say anything else until I check the computer to make sure he hung up,” I whisper to him with my eyebrows raised.

He grabs my wrists and moves my hands from his mouth. “Oh love, if I were concerned about humans, I’d actually care about my job.”

I roll my eyes and close my laptop. I turn back to him and see him leaning against the kitchen island. “So how did you get here? And who are you?” I ask him as I sit down at the table.

“I came out of the Merlot bottle that you wiped off. And the name’s Greyson,” he said while unbuttoning his suit jacket.

“Okayyyy, so you’re like a genie then?”

“Technically, yes Camryn, but not the stereotypical, movie genie,” he said while doing air quotes and rolling his eyes.

“Pause. Greyson, how did you know my name?”

“Oh! I’ve known you, your mother, grandmother, great grandmother, the grandmother before that, and the list goes on and on for more than a few centuries And besides, your mom used her wish when you were a little girl. Plus, I could hear you when you would talk standing close to the bottle.”

“Well, that’s not weird,” I say while rolling my eyes. “Sooo not a typical movie genie huh?” I ask while imitating his air quotes.

Greyson pushed off of the island and started walking towards me. “No. You don’t get three wishes, but one. You have until midnight tonight to make your wish, and then I go back into the bottle. You can wish for love, but it won’t succeed. I can bring people back from the dead, as long as they weren’t cremated, but their body will be how it looks post mortem. You can wish for money, but I can get it from anywhere…including someone using a printer for illegal money. Shall I go on?” He raised his right eyebrow.

I nodded. “Please do.”

“I cannot change history. After the wish is made, I go back into the bottle and you pass me down to your daughter when she turns 21, and she to her daughter after that, her daughter after that, etcetera. Genies stay with one family through all their generations and our existence isn’t discussed, not even amongst members of the same family.”

“But if your existence isn’t discussed, then how are there stories and myths that go back to the beginning of time?”

Greyson slowly sat down in the seat across from me at the table. “The start of our creation is tricky for humans to understand. So I won’t go explaining it to your puny mind. But the only reason why you foolish humans even remotely know about the idea of genies is because someone, who I’ll keep nameless, decided to make stories up about their genie millions of years ago.”

“Ahh so that’s how the stories started.” I started moving my head up and down slowly, processing what he was telling me.

“Yes, that’s how stories got started. Not even the truth. Leave it to dimwitted humans to make fictional nonsense.”

What is up with this guy insulting humans??? “What’s your deal with humans anyway?”

He started rubbing his temples before answering. “Your species is rude, ignorant, and stupid. And you don’t follow rules! Other powerful creatures have to stay in hiding because humans would dissect and experiment on them. You guys lie continuously and don’t care about anything or anyone except yourselves!” He banged the table.

I leaned back, surprised at Greyson’s anger. I hear T’Challa growling again and look over at him. “It’s okay buddy, stay.” I turn and look back at the model in front of me. “Not all of us are like that though Greyson. Not all of us are bad, plus! Times have changed. Society is way more accepting of things…not all things, or people, but times have changed since you were last out.”

He huffed. “Time have changed right?” He leaned on the table with his elbows. “If times have changed, how come there are still the same issues happening every time I come out of my bottle?”

I started rubbing my temple, making sure I didn’t look at Greyson because I could not come up with a response to his question that would’ve been true.

He sat back in the chair, smirking. Obviously content due to my lack of answering.

Taking a deep breath, I looked at Greyson. “Alright, soooo next topic. About my wish…” I started to trail off.

He checked the time. “It is 10:54 Camryn.” He put his right pointer finger up and moved it side to side. “Tick…tock.”

I looked up at the recess lighting. No pressure Cam. What is something I always wanted? I can’t ask for love because Greyson even said that it wouldn’t work out. I can’t ask for money because it could be illegal and I definitely wasn’t made to be someone’s prison buddy. As much as I would love to meet Michael Jackson, it’s been over 10 years since he passed, and the body would definitely give me the Thriller music video vibes. Uuuuhhhh what do I want? To feel appreciated at work would be nice. Or I could wish for a better house…

“Tick tock mate.” Greyson grinned, flashing his white toothed smile.

I rolled my eyes. “Can I think in peace please?!”

“I’m just reminding you.” He started tapping on the table with his finger. “One hour and five minutes from now, I go back in my bottle.”

I move my head back down to look at Greyson. “Thinking!”

“It’ll probably be something selfish. That’s the only thing humans are good at.”

Here he goes again with the issues about…hold up! I look over at Greyson with a devilish smirk on my face. “I have decided what my wish is going to be.”

He looked at me confused. “And your wish is?”

“A lesson.”

“You need to be more specific than just a lesson.” He responded, clearly vexed.

I laughed. “I wish you…human.”

His eyes opened wide, “YOU WHAT!?!”

The End