Week 13, "Fan Death"

THE REPAIR SHOP

“Missed again,” thought Al, frowning.  “I get more flies than customers.”

The fly landed again on the dingy yellow counter, just out of reach.  Al went to the work room, grabbed a soda from the old Kelvinator, and returned to hunting his nemesis.  This was the most activity in Al’s Appliance Repair in days.

“Used to be,” he thought, “people got their broken stuff fixed.  Now they just throw it out.”

Al liked grousing.  It was the one benefit of old age he enjoyed, and these days he’d been feeling too damn old.

He’d made a good living out of people’s dead fans, lamps, and toasters.  “We Fi  Anyth   Satisf ction Guarent   ” read his sign.  He hadn’t bothered with it in years.  It just didn’t seem to matter.

There was a neat work area behind the counter with wire, soldering irons, knobs, and anything Al needed, even some tubes for old radios and TVs.  He was proud of his work and always did a crackerjack job.

Fortunately, Al had enough money.  A few years ago, he’d rented the rear storage room to someone who needed the space, no questions asked, and he was willing to pay Al a ridiculous amount of money for it.  He also needed him to keep running his business, even if he never got another customer.

“Think of it as early retirement,” the man had said.

Al had seen men like him before – greedy, bad men, willing to do anything for money.  Once upon a time there had been . . . .  He had quickly shoved that out of his head – it had been from long ago and a different place.  Since he had needed the money, he had taken it and just looked away.

“If I were younger . . .” he had started to think, but no, not even then, when he had flirted on the edge of their world, had he defied such men.

The storage room was large, much bigger than Al had ever needed.  There were two ways in – through the back of the shop or a side door from the alley.  The shop door had been locked from the other side so Al couldn’t get in and there was a surveillance camera protecting the alley door.  Al had once heard someone use a password to get in; he couldn’t hear it and he hadn’t been curious.  He was too old for that and he’d been paid too much to keep his thoughts to himself.

After the fly got away again, the rear shop door opened and the evil man walked in.  Al hadn’t seen him since that first day.

“I need you to fix this lamp,” he said.

“I don’t work on those kinds of lamps,” Al said.  “Where’d you get it?”

“That’s my business,” said the man.  “Yours is fixing lamps.”

The lamp was clearly an antique.  It was an oil lamp, shaped something like a tea pot.  It looked like it might be silver, with a graceful handle and spout.

“There are no electrical parts,” said Al.  “There’s nothing for me to fix.  Have you tried cleaning it and putting in some oil and a wick?”

“I can’t open the top and the spout’s clogged,” said the boss.  “Don’t you think we’ve tried?”

“What makes you think I can do better?” said Al.

“You’ve seen it before, long ago, in Baghdad.  Remember?”

Al picked up the lamp, imagining it when it was new and he was young, running his hands around it, trying to remember what it had looked like back then,

And then he remembered – the marketplace, the peddler, and Baghdad over a thousand years ago.  He had been young, foolish, and a thief, stealing to keep alive, but one day he had seen the lamp in a display of the junk dealer’s goods.  It was shiny with intricate designs and decorated with pearls and jewels.

“What would I do with such a lamp?” he had thought as he headed to the baker’s stall to steal his lunch.  He had prided himself on only taking what he needed to live.  The lamp would stay where it was.

“Aladdin, that was my name then,” thought Al.

It had been a good day, with enough food and a vest to replace his tattered one; the tailor had chased him, but the market was crowded and he had been good at escaping.

Aladdin had rarely had such days and he should have been happy, but he could not keep the lamp out of his mind.  He had thought about it more and more during the day and now it was all he could think of.

“If it’s still there, it was meant to be mine,” he had thought, and then headed back to the junk dealer.

Even through the dust and crowd, Aladdin could see it, just sitting there.  He approached carefully, planning to grab it and disappear.  But as he neared the stall, the dealer held it out, called him over, and gave it to Aladdin.

“May it bring you good fortune,” said the dealer, “but be careful.”

The rest of Aladdin’s story is well known: the genie in the lamp and Aladdin’s wishes for riches and love.  But his last wish has never been told.

“I wish for immortality,” Aladdin had said to the genie.

Aladdin, being young and foolish, had never asked for wisdom.

“I should never have done that,” thought Al as he held the lamp in his shop.  “No one should live forever.  There’s too much pain.”

“Who are you?” asked Al, “and how do you know about me and the lamp?”

“I am . . . an antiques dealer,” said the man.  “Certain items find their way into my storage room and I sell them to special clients.  They want something, I find it.  I come from a long and distinguished line of antiques dealers.  While you were in Baghdad, one of my ancestors had a gang of forty thieves.  Your story has been passed down through the family until here I am, with the genie’s lamp but no genie.”

“But I freed the genie,” said Al, “and I can’t put him back.  There are no more genies.”

“Then I need you to tell your story to my client, and assure her that this is the real Aladdin’s lamp.  She won’t pay as much,” said the man, “but she’ll still pay a lot.  Collectors of magical items are fools who want so badly to believe.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sold King Arthur’s sword.”

Al agreed to help the thief in exchange for too much money and some magic beans from the bin in the storage area.  He added them to his salad for lunch.

After meeting Al, the client was happy to pay the thief.  She planned to display the lamp next to the Wicked Witch’s ruby slippers.  She kept Snow White’s poison apple in her refrigerator; it had turned brown and shriveled, but the thief had convinced her that this was just the patina of age and not a piece of rotten produce.

Al had been very convincing when talking to the client.  He had added just the right details, including the missing jewels, and discussed Baghdad in the twelfth century with ease, since he had been there.

“You’re a natural at this,” said the thief afterwards.  “You should work for me as an authenticator.  I have some magic mirrors that need some work and a box of Merlin’s wands.  You could make them look real and help me sell them.”

“It beats swatting flies,” said Al, “and no one throws old men in jail.”

Al enjoyed the work of aging the antiques properly and meeting the customers, all of whom had far more money than sense and were too willing to believe an old man in a nice suit.

“I’ve been many things in life,” Al thought, “but I never thought I’d be doing this.”

Once in a while a genuine antique would appear in the storage room, and Al took special care with these.  Once in an even longer time, a genuine magic piece would come in.  He kept the real Magic Mirror for himself; he liked being able to talk with something his age.

After many months, the thief acquired a box of miscellaneous pieces of jewelry.  There didn’t seem to be anything special, so Al decided that they would be mysterious amulets that brought good luck to those who wore them, but if they were foolish enough to take them off, they would have only bad luck.

In the box was one authentic, truly special ring, worn by Osiris.  Al became excited and put it aside to study later.

Dinner was toast and broth.  Food had long ago ceased to appeal to Al.  After he finished, he started researching Osiris on his computer; it did not take long for him to find what he was looking for.  Osiris had been the Egyptian god of the underworld and the giver of life and death and he wore only one ring.  The description matched the one from the box perfectly.  A mortal who found the ring and returned it to Osiris would be granted one wish.

Osiris had long ago faded away and other gods had claimed his power, but the ring had remained.

“I can’t return it to Osiris,” thought Al, “but the power of the wish must surely remain bound into it.”

Al placed the ring on his thin finger, which shrank to fit it.  He thought carefully about his wish.

“I was so foolish with the genie,” he thought.  “I wish to undo my last wish.”

The ring glowed and Al could feel its power surge.

“I’m free at last,” he thought, grateful for his own end.

When he awoke, Al found that he was confined inside a tiny space.  It was dark, with a tiny opening high up the curved walls.  He tried to climb out, but something held him back.

Days, weeks, or months passed in darkness.  Al was alone with his thoughts.  Suddenly, his prison was lifted up.  He could feel something rubbing the outside and he heard the words he feared the most.  “Mighty genie, grant me my wish.”

Suddenly, he was outside. He felt big, immeasurably powerful, but cursed to serve the owner of the lamp.

“I wish for true love,” he heard the woman say.  He had no choice but to grant her wish, only to return to the lamp.

It was then that Aladdin remembered his true last wish from the genie.  It was not for immortal life.  He had made another wish.  He had freed the genie.  When Osiris reversed his last wish, Aladdin had replaced the genie in the lamp, doomed to remain there forever, serving his master.

At that moment, a fly flew down the lamp’s spout and Aladdin tried to swat it, but it kept just out of reach.

“I wish I had a flyswatter,” thought Aladdin.

It did not appear.