Curses, Curses, Curses

"Okay, " I say to the genie, who is made out of what looks like
lime-flavoured jelly, " What I want is a wallet that is always full of
money - English money, and money that I can actually spend."

I'd read my fairy stories, see, and I knew that genies could be tricky.
No good to me having a wallet that was always full of white fivers, or
small domination lire or whathaveyou.

The genie smacks me across the forehead. Considering his arm is made
out of jelly, it hurts quite a bit. When I stop blinking, I study his
arm to see if there's a bone inside there. I think there is.

"You don't listen, " he says, and his voice is a little bit like the
actor Dan Ackroyd, "I never promised you three wishes. It is important
that you listen when mystical beings of great power are talking to you.
"

I've never been good at that sort of thing. What I mean is, I'm the
sort of guy who unpacks an Ikea wardrobe and starts turning allen keys
and connecting one bit of wood to another before I've even opened the
instructions, then an hour later I'm wondering why I've built something
partway between modern art and a climbing-frame for hamsters. I've got
no patience, see? If I ask someone for directions, I'm only interested
in the very first line - turn left, or turn right. After that, my brain
just tunes out.

So, I don't get three wishes.

* * *

This whole genie-summoning thing came about as a bit of an accident, to
be honest. I'm not someone who dabbles with dark forces. I am, on the
other hand, someone who decides after a day of seeing how wired you get
if you drink nothing but Red Bull and eat nothing but Pro-Plus tablets
(answer - very wired?), that it ought to be possible to make a curry
for your nose.

At the time, this seemed a very good idea. I'd got stuck into the
kitchen, got everything sorted out and did very small piles, lots of
fine chopping. Then I got the bathroom mirror out, did some faffing
with a credit card and did myself lines of all the necessary
ingredients. Chopped ginger, garlic, onions, a line of yoghurt. All
snorted up the nose. A little coriander. Then the spices. They were not
so easy on the nose. I was leaving the chilli until last - I'd been
moderately sensible and decided to lose my nasal virginity to tikka
masala, rather than anything too potent. My eyes were watering a bit at
this stage and the taps in my kitchen seemed to be oscillating - I
really wanted water, but I'd made this pact with myself that I would
only drink Red Bull. My hands were trembling as I popped the can
open.

At this point, so far as I recall, I had opened the door of the fridge
and toyed with the idea of snorting some chicken, but I didn't think my
concentration would be good enough to chop it as fine as would be
required. There was already quite a bit of blood on the chopping board.
I'd rinsed the cut in Red Bull, which was quite a tart sensation.

Anyhow, it is my theory that it was a combination of being so heavily
medicated on concentration-enhancements and having snorted a
micro-curry up my now very tender nose, that summoned the genie. I
didn't notice him until I woke up with my face in a bowl of cat
biscuits. I looked in the mirror, which was still covered in little
lines of red and brown spices and saw that I had biscuits in the shape
of little fish and parcels of cheese nuggets stuck to my face. Also,
right behind me was a lime-green being, who, when I turned round was
wearing flip-flops and a burgundy dressing gown. Personally, I didn't
think that the colour combination was doing anything for him, and I
wished that he'd done the cord up tighter.

* * *

"So I don't get three wishes then? "

I can't believe how alert I am. You know when you see boxers just
coming into the ring before a fight and they're all lithe and rolling
their shoulders and doing little flurries of jabs and stuff? That's how
I feel.

The genie says, "Jesus. Every bloody time I turn up, I get someone as
fried as you. I need to have a word with the people in charge of my
summoning spell. The process is self-selecting? if you can only be
summoned by people doing something really dumb, you only ever get to
meet dumb people. "

He says, "Mind, my cousin Hekatra, he gets summoned by people putting
light bulbs up their ass. And they're never at their most comfortable.
"

I can imagine.

The genie says, "What you get, dummy, is three curses. "

Curses, eh?

* * *

A week later, the genie is still with me. He's grousing and I'm not too
happy either. He only eats Instant Whip, and he never washes the bowls
out when he's done. He claims that he's not corporeal, so he can't do
it. I don't believe this for a second.

"Haven't you thought of anyone you want to curse yet? " he sighs.

I shrug. It's not that I'm a particularly nice guy, who wishes no ill
towards anyone. Usually, about eight people a day really hack me off,
but not to the extent that I want to curse them. I've been ringing up
ex-girlfriends to see if any of them will be sour and bitter on the
phone, but they've all been quite nice. One or two of them have talked
about hooking up again. Nobody has been dreadful to me at work and Rod
Hull is dead. I would definitely have done something appalling to Rod
Hull if he'd still been alive.

"I guess I'm just not feeling particularly hostile at the moment, " I
tell the genie. Sometimes your moods just mellow out.

The poor guy looks so glum, rubbing his green index finger round the
bowl to get the very last bit of Butterscotch Instant Whip.

I say, "How about if you come back later, when I actually decide I want
to use one of my Curses? "

He shakes his head sadly, then he picks up some variety packs of Cocoa
Pops and Ricicles and shakes them too, just for emphasis, or
percussion, I'm not sure which. "Doesn't work like that. I have to stay
with you until your Curses are used up. The only way you can get me
back is by summoning me again. "

I'm not doing that again, the stuff that was coming out when I blew my
nose the next day? you wouldn't want to know.

* * *

A month passes and the genie is annoying the hell out of me. He
interrupts all the time during television, saying "Isn't he annoying,
wouldn't you just love to see his face eaten slowly by gumming frogs?"
and I can never use the telephone because he's always on the internet.
I grow to hate that dial tone. Also, when I have women round, he makes
himself go incorporeal, and sits on the sofa or the bed, exactly where
they are going to be, so that they sink through him, and only I can see
this green jelly genie outline around them. It puts me right off.

I should just use the Curses, but I really can't think of anything. All
of life's minor irritations seem deeply insignificant now that I have
the power to wreak a dreadful, bloody and imaginative revenge. The
genie recommends having someone smell faintly of tuna until the day
they die, and never being able to get rid of the smell, to curse
someone so that they always think people are smirking at them when they
are in conversation, or that every time they handle paper they'll get a
papercut, or that a car alarm will go off in their street exactly four
minutes after they fall asleep from now until they die.

These all sound like fun things.

I just can't think of anyone who really, truly deserves them. I'm
looking for a loophole and when I tell the genie this, he explains that
he's spent hours online looking for exactly the same thing. He also
tells me that in his opinion, he sounds nothing like Dan Ackroyd and he
fancies himself more as Bill Murray in Ghostbusters.

He is quite wrong.

The other thing is, that I know that as soon as I blow my third Curse,
something will happen that will really deserve a Curse and I'll kick
myself forever. I could easily squander them on trivialities, Curse
something really feeble like 'You'll have really dull Wednesdays' or
'any souffle you ever make will collapse', but it just seems such a
waste.

I say to the genie, "What happens if someone else summons you? Before
you've done my Curses, I mean?"

He says, "Well, I'd have to go to them. They'd take priority. But I'm a
Red-Bull and Nose-Curry demon. Do you know how often I've been
summoned? "

I'm guessing not often. He says I'm his third. Still, Red Bull hasn't
been around for all that long, so I figure that's not too bad a hit
rate. If he went off to someone else for a month or so, I'd be bound to
think of someone that I really really wanted to Curse. Then it comes to
me?

I flick through the phone book and pick a name out at random, "Right, "
I say, "Mr Julian Fry, of 12 Lynechester Walk - I curse you to have a
sudden uncontrollable urge to drink Red Bull and snort the ingredients
of a curry up your nose and you will be unable to rest or gain any
peace until you have done this. "

"Nice work, " says the genie, with his arms folded behind his head,
"Just a matter of time. "