short story part 2
PART 2
It actually took Benjamin two days of careful thought before he came up with a wish that seemed meaningless enough to accomplish his ends. For the rest of that first day, he went walking in the woods behind his house and down along the stream's edge. It had been years since he'd visited it, but even though he could have allowed himself to feel nostalgia for his lost innocence, his thoughts and feelings remained fixed on the current situation. He knew that whatever small thing he might wish for had to take the genie completely by surprise. The genie had said he expected Benjamin to wish for something grandiose and self-serving. Benjamin's objective was to wish for something so pointless and miniscule that the genie could not re-interpret it and wreak havoc on Benjamin's life. By the end of his walk along the stream, Benjamin was no closer to coming up with something ultimately meaningless than he had ever been. For the first time in his life, everything seemed either too spiteful or too significant.
The next day, still immersed in his own thoughts, Benjamin cleaned out the garage without even noticing. His mother stood on the concrete steps in the doorway and gawked at the freshly cleaned space, but when she mouthed the words, "Thank you," her son didn't even seem to notice her. But that evening, as Benjamin stood staring blankly into the open refrigerator, a perfectly pointless thought finally came to him. With an exuberant yell, he slammed the fridge shut and reached for the kitchen phone to call up Robin.
"Benny!?" she screeched when she picked up and heard his ecstatic voice. "You idiot! You haven't phoned in two days. I've been calling you off the hook, going wild with worry. Did you make the wish? Without me?! You jerk, I can't believe you would do that!"
"No," Benjamin said calmly, not even noticing that she used his least favorite nickname, "I have a plan! And it's a good plan. Meet me out front of my house at nine o'clock sharp tomorrow morning." And with assertive confidence, Benjamin clicked the receiver back onto its cradle.
The next morning Robin was pacing anxiously outside Benjamin's house at eight thirty. She'd attempted to wait patiently but found she couldn't sleep any more. Robin was wearing an extra-bright yellow skirt and a deep purple top with lacing along the front of the bodice. She had on a large pair of military boots that made her feet look at least three sizes larger than usual. Her face was puffed into a tight little pout, her eyes blazing with fierce curiosity as Benjamin ambled out his doorstep and down the path toward her. She was really quite lovely with the sparks of excitement flaring in her eyes, but of course Benjamin failed once again to observe this.
"Ready?" he asked her, placidly.
"Ready?!" she responded. "Am I ever!"
Benjamin approached the enormous tree into which the Pyrex genie had disappeared the last time they'd seen him. Treating its steady trunk like a front door, he balled his fist and rapped mightily on it. "Hello?" he screamed. "Yo, genie-man, get your stupid face out here and show us what you're made of!" There was no response.
"Benjamin, be polite," suggested Robin.
"Ugh." Benjamin folded his arms across his chest. "I don't know if I trust this guy. He seems a bit self-absorbed. But whatever." He cleared his throat and put on a softer tone. "Excuse me, Sir Genie, won't you please grace us with your presence?" Still no response. Now Benjamin backed up three paces and then charged at the tree, giving it a mighty kick and causing a few bark chips to fly. "OW!" he exclaimed, rubbing his bruised toe through his sneaker tip.
Robin giggled slightly.
Just then a resounding and deep-bellied laugh could be heard to issue from the loaded trash can sitting on the curb. It shook a couple times and some sort of yellow slimy substance slid down its edge. With a great shudder, the mists began to swirl out of it, accompanied by a swarm of about twenty flies. And then the genie appeared, rubbing his eyes and chuckling to himself. "Oh-ho!" he exclaimed with glee. "So you've come up with your first wish, have you? That figures it would take you so long. You probably couldn't decide what first, world domination or a million trillion gold coins, eh?"
Benjamin narrowed his eyes at the genie, completely straight-faced. "You said you were going to dwell in the tree. What are you doing making a mess out of our garbage -- agh, you stink!"
"Did I say that? OH. Yes. I did. Well, no matter. I do whatever I want and say whatever I think. But this is neither here nor there. What is your wish, MASTER?" This last word was spoken, as you can imagine, with an enormously sarcastic sneer attached.
Robin cocked her head to the side and waited expectantly. But Benjamin was enjoying himself, sensing the genie's underlying eagerness to get the wishing underway. "First we gotta take a little field trip, Pyrex!" Grinning, Benjamin began to saunter down the street, snapping his fingers rudely over his shoulder at the genie. Robin gaped for a moment, then ran to catch up to Benjamin's long strides. The genie only followed because she turned to gaze imploringly back over her shoulder, and her sweet face was too much for him to resist. He trailed along behind them as they walked the nine blocks to the skating park where Benjamin and Robin often spent their summer afternoons, idly watching skateboarders and roller bladers attempt jumps and tricks to impress the onlookers.
Though it was still early in the day, the sun was already high overhead and they found themselves lightly perspiring in its warm bath. The hum of busy insects spun around them in the trees and grass as they arrived at the park. Benjamin walked directly to the usual bench and flopped onto it, propping his arms up along its back and spreading his feet out in a relaxed posture. Robin sat on the bench next to him, leaning carefully forward to avoid coming in any contact with Benjamin's inviting arms.
"Yes?" sighed the genie, as he came to rest directly beside Benjamin. "What's this about?"
Benjamin nodded and pointed at a tall lanky skater, probably in his early twenties. Everybody watched him silently for a few moments. He kept attempting the same jump off a ramp nearby but fell onto his behind every time. With the same dogged determination he would get up again and again, unflagging in his efforts, and try it and fail it.
"And?" demanded the genie, most impatiently.
"That's Reggie," said Benjamin. "See those shorts he's wearing? Those blue shorts? He wears those same shorts every day, and every god-damn day nothing happens in his life. He keeps trying that jump and he can't do it. It's lame. But does he know that? No, just like he doesn't know that his stupid shorts need a washing, he also doesn't know that he sucks at skateboarding."
Robin glanced up with sudden excitement, hope written all over her soft features. "Are you going to help him make the jump?" she exclaimed.
"Hah. No. Genie, here is my wish. I wish that, instead of wearing his blue shorts today, Reggie was wearing red shorts." And Benjamin smiled, nudged Robin on the arm and winked, and then folded his arms across his chest in a remarkably good imitation of the genie's sullen posture.
The genie raised an eyebrow, then lowered it. Then he pursed his lips, unpursed them, wrinkled his nose, straightened it, and eyed Benjamin up and down. "THAT is your wish? That's the dumbest, most pointless thing in the history of wishes. Why would you ever wish for something that stupid? And that RANDOM? What sort of something could you possibly hope to accomplish?"
"Ab-so-lu-tely. Nothing," smirked Benjamin in self-satisfaction.
"And you enjoy this absolute nothingness?" asked the genie skeptically.
Benjamin shrugged emotionlessly.
"Well then," smiled the genie, and cracked his knuckles resoundingly, "It shall be so!" The Pyrex genie waved his arms wildly above his head and began to spin around in circles as if doing some bizarre hula dance. He continued this for about five minutes.
"Does that make magical things happen?" Robin asked curiously, after it had gone on long enough.
"NO!" shouted the genie, "I just like hula dancing!" And with that he pointed at Reggie and disappeared in an enormous puff of stinky red smoke.
Robin jumped up and Benjamin calmly flicked his eyes toward Reggie. Reggie was now wearing red shorts. He had not seemed to notice anything different. None of the onlookers had noticed the change either. It was as if Reggie's shorts had always been red rather than blue. "Success," smiled Benjamin. "Nothing lost, nothing gained. Totally just broke even. Perfect." Actually, he did feel some remote sort of satisfaction with his own cleverness.
But Robin was tugging at his sleeve. "Uh, Benny, you might want to notice that." She pointed at a blonde girl who had been watching quietly from the sidelines, but who now was standing up and approaching Reggie. "I have a feeling something's gonna go down." The girl slowly approached Reggie, who was rubbing his sore hip after having just fallen down yet again.
"Move closer," hissed Benjamin, "We've gotta see what's going on!" As an afterthought he added -- "DON'T call me Benny!" With that he jumped up and grabbed Robin's hand, dragging her closer to the unfolding scene. He didn't realize that after he moved them to an observation point, he accidentally let his fingers linger against Robin's palm, and he also didn't notice the wide-eyed and blushing expression that crossed her face before he finally let go.
"Benjamin?"
"Shhh, we've gotta watch this!" They sat on the curb, looking down at their sneakered and booted feet, about three yards away from Reggie and the girl. The girl was nodding to him and saying something. They tuned in to the conversation mid-sentence, "...for months now and today something just feels different. So I thought I'd come say hi."
"Well, I'm very glad you did, Nicole." Reggie was smiling at the blonde girl with an extremely goofy grin. "Gosh, I didn't think anyone would be much impressed cause I totally fall on my ass all the time."
"I... like how hard you always try, how you never give up," and now Nicole had a huge smitten grin showing on her face as well.
"You wanna get some ice cream with me?" asked Reggie.
"Well, let me think about that." Nicole paused, evidently for flirtatious and dramatic effect. "YES!" The two of them grinned the goofiest smiles yet and walked off together, Reggie's skateboard tucked casually under his arm and Nicole's blonde ponytail swinging merrily behind her.
Benjamin scowled. "That wasn't because of his shorts. You can't possibly tell me that was because of some stupid shorts. That was pure coincidence." He glanced at Robin, but she was miles away, gazing after Reggie and Nicole with a sweet, empathic and dreamy expression on her face. Benjamin heaved an enormous sigh.
They sat there for a few hours, each lost in their thoughts, occasionally commenting out loud to one another, until eventually Reggie and Nicole came back. Reggie took up skateboarding again, and this time, after about three attempts, Reggie successfully completed the jump for the first time in his life. Robin jumped up and screamed in excitement, but Benjamin pouted even harder. By the end of the afternoon, Reggie had made the jump ten times, and he and Nicole had left together, holding hands. This gave Benjamin a strangely sick feeling in his stomach - a sense of a combination of power, fear, and something else too, (which, as you may have guessed, was happy satisfaction) but which he did not recognize with any certainty. All he knew was that it bothered him, and he was hungry.
So, somehow it was about those stupid shorts. He'd tried to come up with something completely meaningless, something that would destroy that stupid genie's sense of ability. But it had backfired. Somebody's life had been changed by the tiniest, most insignificant of details. This notion bothered him enormously, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
"Well, that turned out extremely well!" sighed Robin contentedly when Reggie and Nicole had wandered off.
Not really hearing her at all, Benjamin mumbled gruffly, his eyes narrowing to little slits of determination. "Don't you worry, I've got a BETTER plan now. Oh, that genie won't have a clue! I'll outsmart him... just you watch, Robin, just watch. He's just met his match." And then he snickered impishly to himself, got up and began the trek home.
Robin watched Benjamin go with simultaneous longing and disappointment. She kicked at a nearby pebble with her massive boot and watched it skitter accidentally through a grating and into the sewer. Well, it's good to see him passionate about something, at least, she thought to herself. It was funny. Robin knew exactly what she would have wished for if she'd been the one with the wishes. Well, that is, if she were going to be selfish about it... Really she liked to think she would have wished for something altruistic like a cure for cancer. But if she saved one for herself, oh yes, she knew exactly what it would be. And she sat on that curb by herself for quite a long while afterwards, silently daydreaming about things she was certain would never be.
It actually took Benjamin two days of careful thought before he came up with a wish that seemed meaningless enough to accomplish his ends. For the rest of that first day, he went walking in the woods behind his house and down along the stream's edge. It had been years since he'd visited it, but even though he could have allowed himself to feel nostalgia for his lost innocence, his thoughts and feelings remained fixed on the current situation. He knew that whatever small thing he might wish for had to take the genie completely by surprise. The genie had said he expected Benjamin to wish for something grandiose and self-serving. Benjamin's objective was to wish for something so pointless and miniscule that the genie could not re-interpret it and wreak havoc on Benjamin's life. By the end of his walk along the stream, Benjamin was no closer to coming up with something ultimately meaningless than he had ever been. For the first time in his life, everything seemed either too spiteful or too significant.
The next day, still immersed in his own thoughts, Benjamin cleaned out the garage without even noticing. His mother stood on the concrete steps in the doorway and gawked at the freshly cleaned space, but when she mouthed the words, "Thank you," her son didn't even seem to notice her. But that evening, as Benjamin stood staring blankly into the open refrigerator, a perfectly pointless thought finally came to him. With an exuberant yell, he slammed the fridge shut and reached for the kitchen phone to call up Robin.
"Benny!?" she screeched when she picked up and heard his ecstatic voice. "You idiot! You haven't phoned in two days. I've been calling you off the hook, going wild with worry. Did you make the wish? Without me?! You jerk, I can't believe you would do that!"
"No," Benjamin said calmly, not even noticing that she used his least favorite nickname, "I have a plan! And it's a good plan. Meet me out front of my house at nine o'clock sharp tomorrow morning." And with assertive confidence, Benjamin clicked the receiver back onto its cradle.
The next morning Robin was pacing anxiously outside Benjamin's house at eight thirty. She'd attempted to wait patiently but found she couldn't sleep any more. Robin was wearing an extra-bright yellow skirt and a deep purple top with lacing along the front of the bodice. She had on a large pair of military boots that made her feet look at least three sizes larger than usual. Her face was puffed into a tight little pout, her eyes blazing with fierce curiosity as Benjamin ambled out his doorstep and down the path toward her. She was really quite lovely with the sparks of excitement flaring in her eyes, but of course Benjamin failed once again to observe this.
"Ready?" he asked her, placidly.
"Ready?!" she responded. "Am I ever!"
Benjamin approached the enormous tree into which the Pyrex genie had disappeared the last time they'd seen him. Treating its steady trunk like a front door, he balled his fist and rapped mightily on it. "Hello?" he screamed. "Yo, genie-man, get your stupid face out here and show us what you're made of!" There was no response.
"Benjamin, be polite," suggested Robin.
"Ugh." Benjamin folded his arms across his chest. "I don't know if I trust this guy. He seems a bit self-absorbed. But whatever." He cleared his throat and put on a softer tone. "Excuse me, Sir Genie, won't you please grace us with your presence?" Still no response. Now Benjamin backed up three paces and then charged at the tree, giving it a mighty kick and causing a few bark chips to fly. "OW!" he exclaimed, rubbing his bruised toe through his sneaker tip.
Robin giggled slightly.
Just then a resounding and deep-bellied laugh could be heard to issue from the loaded trash can sitting on the curb. It shook a couple times and some sort of yellow slimy substance slid down its edge. With a great shudder, the mists began to swirl out of it, accompanied by a swarm of about twenty flies. And then the genie appeared, rubbing his eyes and chuckling to himself. "Oh-ho!" he exclaimed with glee. "So you've come up with your first wish, have you? That figures it would take you so long. You probably couldn't decide what first, world domination or a million trillion gold coins, eh?"
Benjamin narrowed his eyes at the genie, completely straight-faced. "You said you were going to dwell in the tree. What are you doing making a mess out of our garbage -- agh, you stink!"
"Did I say that? OH. Yes. I did. Well, no matter. I do whatever I want and say whatever I think. But this is neither here nor there. What is your wish, MASTER?" This last word was spoken, as you can imagine, with an enormously sarcastic sneer attached.
Robin cocked her head to the side and waited expectantly. But Benjamin was enjoying himself, sensing the genie's underlying eagerness to get the wishing underway. "First we gotta take a little field trip, Pyrex!" Grinning, Benjamin began to saunter down the street, snapping his fingers rudely over his shoulder at the genie. Robin gaped for a moment, then ran to catch up to Benjamin's long strides. The genie only followed because she turned to gaze imploringly back over her shoulder, and her sweet face was too much for him to resist. He trailed along behind them as they walked the nine blocks to the skating park where Benjamin and Robin often spent their summer afternoons, idly watching skateboarders and roller bladers attempt jumps and tricks to impress the onlookers.
Though it was still early in the day, the sun was already high overhead and they found themselves lightly perspiring in its warm bath. The hum of busy insects spun around them in the trees and grass as they arrived at the park. Benjamin walked directly to the usual bench and flopped onto it, propping his arms up along its back and spreading his feet out in a relaxed posture. Robin sat on the bench next to him, leaning carefully forward to avoid coming in any contact with Benjamin's inviting arms.
"Yes?" sighed the genie, as he came to rest directly beside Benjamin. "What's this about?"
Benjamin nodded and pointed at a tall lanky skater, probably in his early twenties. Everybody watched him silently for a few moments. He kept attempting the same jump off a ramp nearby but fell onto his behind every time. With the same dogged determination he would get up again and again, unflagging in his efforts, and try it and fail it.
"And?" demanded the genie, most impatiently.
"That's Reggie," said Benjamin. "See those shorts he's wearing? Those blue shorts? He wears those same shorts every day, and every god-damn day nothing happens in his life. He keeps trying that jump and he can't do it. It's lame. But does he know that? No, just like he doesn't know that his stupid shorts need a washing, he also doesn't know that he sucks at skateboarding."
Robin glanced up with sudden excitement, hope written all over her soft features. "Are you going to help him make the jump?" she exclaimed.
"Hah. No. Genie, here is my wish. I wish that, instead of wearing his blue shorts today, Reggie was wearing red shorts." And Benjamin smiled, nudged Robin on the arm and winked, and then folded his arms across his chest in a remarkably good imitation of the genie's sullen posture.
The genie raised an eyebrow, then lowered it. Then he pursed his lips, unpursed them, wrinkled his nose, straightened it, and eyed Benjamin up and down. "THAT is your wish? That's the dumbest, most pointless thing in the history of wishes. Why would you ever wish for something that stupid? And that RANDOM? What sort of something could you possibly hope to accomplish?"
"Ab-so-lu-tely. Nothing," smirked Benjamin in self-satisfaction.
"And you enjoy this absolute nothingness?" asked the genie skeptically.
Benjamin shrugged emotionlessly.
"Well then," smiled the genie, and cracked his knuckles resoundingly, "It shall be so!" The Pyrex genie waved his arms wildly above his head and began to spin around in circles as if doing some bizarre hula dance. He continued this for about five minutes.
"Does that make magical things happen?" Robin asked curiously, after it had gone on long enough.
"NO!" shouted the genie, "I just like hula dancing!" And with that he pointed at Reggie and disappeared in an enormous puff of stinky red smoke.
Robin jumped up and Benjamin calmly flicked his eyes toward Reggie. Reggie was now wearing red shorts. He had not seemed to notice anything different. None of the onlookers had noticed the change either. It was as if Reggie's shorts had always been red rather than blue. "Success," smiled Benjamin. "Nothing lost, nothing gained. Totally just broke even. Perfect." Actually, he did feel some remote sort of satisfaction with his own cleverness.
But Robin was tugging at his sleeve. "Uh, Benny, you might want to notice that." She pointed at a blonde girl who had been watching quietly from the sidelines, but who now was standing up and approaching Reggie. "I have a feeling something's gonna go down." The girl slowly approached Reggie, who was rubbing his sore hip after having just fallen down yet again.
"Move closer," hissed Benjamin, "We've gotta see what's going on!" As an afterthought he added -- "DON'T call me Benny!" With that he jumped up and grabbed Robin's hand, dragging her closer to the unfolding scene. He didn't realize that after he moved them to an observation point, he accidentally let his fingers linger against Robin's palm, and he also didn't notice the wide-eyed and blushing expression that crossed her face before he finally let go.
"Benjamin?"
"Shhh, we've gotta watch this!" They sat on the curb, looking down at their sneakered and booted feet, about three yards away from Reggie and the girl. The girl was nodding to him and saying something. They tuned in to the conversation mid-sentence, "...for months now and today something just feels different. So I thought I'd come say hi."
"Well, I'm very glad you did, Nicole." Reggie was smiling at the blonde girl with an extremely goofy grin. "Gosh, I didn't think anyone would be much impressed cause I totally fall on my ass all the time."
"I... like how hard you always try, how you never give up," and now Nicole had a huge smitten grin showing on her face as well.
"You wanna get some ice cream with me?" asked Reggie.
"Well, let me think about that." Nicole paused, evidently for flirtatious and dramatic effect. "YES!" The two of them grinned the goofiest smiles yet and walked off together, Reggie's skateboard tucked casually under his arm and Nicole's blonde ponytail swinging merrily behind her.
Benjamin scowled. "That wasn't because of his shorts. You can't possibly tell me that was because of some stupid shorts. That was pure coincidence." He glanced at Robin, but she was miles away, gazing after Reggie and Nicole with a sweet, empathic and dreamy expression on her face. Benjamin heaved an enormous sigh.
They sat there for a few hours, each lost in their thoughts, occasionally commenting out loud to one another, until eventually Reggie and Nicole came back. Reggie took up skateboarding again, and this time, after about three attempts, Reggie successfully completed the jump for the first time in his life. Robin jumped up and screamed in excitement, but Benjamin pouted even harder. By the end of the afternoon, Reggie had made the jump ten times, and he and Nicole had left together, holding hands. This gave Benjamin a strangely sick feeling in his stomach - a sense of a combination of power, fear, and something else too, (which, as you may have guessed, was happy satisfaction) but which he did not recognize with any certainty. All he knew was that it bothered him, and he was hungry.
So, somehow it was about those stupid shorts. He'd tried to come up with something completely meaningless, something that would destroy that stupid genie's sense of ability. But it had backfired. Somebody's life had been changed by the tiniest, most insignificant of details. This notion bothered him enormously, and the more he thought about it, the angrier he became.
"Well, that turned out extremely well!" sighed Robin contentedly when Reggie and Nicole had wandered off.
Not really hearing her at all, Benjamin mumbled gruffly, his eyes narrowing to little slits of determination. "Don't you worry, I've got a BETTER plan now. Oh, that genie won't have a clue! I'll outsmart him... just you watch, Robin, just watch. He's just met his match." And then he snickered impishly to himself, got up and began the trek home.
Robin watched Benjamin go with simultaneous longing and disappointment. She kicked at a nearby pebble with her massive boot and watched it skitter accidentally through a grating and into the sewer. Well, it's good to see him passionate about something, at least, she thought to herself. It was funny. Robin knew exactly what she would have wished for if she'd been the one with the wishes. Well, that is, if she were going to be selfish about it... Really she liked to think she would have wished for something altruistic like a cure for cancer. But if she saved one for herself, oh yes, she knew exactly what it would be. And she sat on that curb by herself for quite a long while afterwards, silently daydreaming about things she was certain would never be.