The Genie With The Light Brown Stain

So this is the label that was created for the red wine this year.

And if you have the time and the inclination what follows is the (over inflated) story to go along with the wine. In fact it might be a good idea to drink the wine while you're reading, at least it would pass the time more constructively.

So here it is....

Genie with the Light Brown Stain

A Campbell Brothers’ Misadventure

After wandering around the Indian sub-continent, whatever that is, Colin and Ralph Campbell are finally persuaded to leave India: their reason? Well for a starter they screwed up (poisoned really but the Campbells always liked to argue things in the largest and vaguest of possible terms, quibbling really) the curry supply of most of the country. Now some might think that poisoning a whole country, practically a continent, is not an easy thing to do but they obviously haven’t taken Campbells into consideration. Particularly Ralph’s cooking. It’s a long story and not really worth repeating here. Let’s just say it has something to do with rampaging squirrels and the food that Ralph and Colin blithely refer to as chili.

And the term ‘persuaded to leave’ may be a slight exaggeration as well. Maybe ‘panicked into flight’ might be a slightly better choice of phraseology. It came down, like the song lyric says, to a case of  “Should I stay or should I go?”

A simple enough decision, right? So what were the choices?

To stay meant, basically, remaining where they were (‘trapped like rats’ is a phrase that comes to mind here, if you’re not too concerned about insulting the rats) to face an enraged population and an unpleasant end, maybe quite a few unpleasant sharp pointy stabby ends really.

And then receiving a good torching.

Or?

Well the ‘or’ is really something that the Campbells were particularly good at. They practically could write the book on it.

Colin woke up suddenly. He wasn’t a very deep sleeper anyway (with the noise Ralph usually made in his sleep it wasn’t hard to figure out part of the reason why). The dirt floor and scattered garbage of the hovel seemed normal, if squalid could be considered normal and was part of your decorating scheme. No, everything in here seemed okay, the lump that was his brother was still snoring sonorously, but something else was definitely wrong. He sat up and looked around the edge of the torn fabric that served as both door and window to the so called shelter he and his brother were in and contemplated the mob of robed figures coming down the dark street toward where they stayed, waving torches as they came.

They didn’t sound happy. Not the torches, the men I mean. The torches just sounded torchy, you know, like large burning oil soaked rag wrapped sticks being waved in the air. Maybe guttering is the word I was looking for here.

Colin picked up an empty wine bottle from the floor and wailed it at his brother’s sleeping form. With contact the snoring broke off. “Ralph!”

There was a snort, “Ummm?”

“Wake up. We’re going to have company in a moment.”

“Ah?”

“I call ‘scamper’.”

And there you have it, the legendary Campbell brothers ‘scamper’. The hovel was empty of Campbells in less than thirty seconds; they cleared the last fence at the edge of town an anxious minute and a half later.

So ‘scamper’ has a very personal and particular meaning for Colin and Ralph. They could do this with their eyes closed or, as you can see, practically in their sleep. They often did.

To call a scamper you had to do a quick mental calculation on the possible obstacles to Campbell survival.

Colin sometimes did this, in his head, to the melody of a blues song. Like the one Sammual L. Jackson does in that movie with Gena Davis, the one about blowing up a tanker bomb in Niagara Falls (which happens to be the home town of the Campbell brothers if you didn’t know). The film is, in fact, one of Colin’s favorites. It’s called, “The Long Kiss Goodnight”.

His song went like this:

‘Since this is a very small village,

and since we are foreigners too,

and since we are also very large and conspicuous people,

and since we did do business earlier this evening in the market,

and since we actually did manage to sell a couple of bottles of wine,

and since these would probably be drank by now,

and since there appears to be a lot of the local male population of this small village headed this way (‘who probably aren’t going to want to talk nicely when they get here,  even if we could understand what they are saying’, he thought in an unmusical aside),

what should a Campbell brother do?’

‘Scamper’ he thought to himself. The Imaginary Blues Band sounding the song’s final chord in his mind.

And off they went, out into the desert in the middle of the night with nothing but their bedclothes on. Ralph, now wide awake, looked back at village from the crest of a sand dune to see if they had been seen, or worse, were being pursued. It seemed still enough, for the moment.

“Depart intact,” he said in a low voice to his brother and turned back to face the desert.

“Check,” his brother agreed.

It is a fact of life that news travels fast. Bad news, of course, seems to take an express because it travels even faster. For the next several days the Campbells found it hard to both keep alive and to keep ahead of word about themselves. It was a drag.

But even in their hurried and harried travels from thorn thicket to cave, to rock, to oasis, when they could pause long enough for a rest or a drink they started to hear stories about fabulous riches, a lost cave and, more importantly to the brothers, three wishes for, as far as they could tell, major stuff, like winning a lottery or something.

But they couldn’t stay to learn more, they’d have to scamper on.

By the end of the forth day it got so bad that Colin was having difficulties just keeping up. He was walking in a daze and tripping over his own feet, but he never actually fell, and he never actually stopped walking forward, not all that day. Ralph, in a similar shape himself, knew Colin was in trouble and did the only thing he could think of.

It is also another one of those obvious facts that when you’ve been with any person, let alone a sibling, for a number of years (and here we’re counting decades really), you get to know that person pretty well. You know all their jokes, all the stories, their strengths and their weaknesses. Hell, you know their life’s story, right, because you were there. And one other thing too; you also know where all the right buttons are to push and get a reaction. All Ralph had to say to him was, “Wanna race?” and Colin was good for trudging another few miles.

Those couple of words spoke volumes. It sparked a childhood memory in Colin about racing with his brother. It reminded him that even though years ago he might have been able to beat his brother in a race over a short distance, when it came to endurance, Ralph was your guy.

And that was years ago, when they both were kids.

Colin wasn’t sure now if he could beat his brother in a race for the door, even if he were given half a room head start.

The other thing the words reminded Colin of was the story Ralph liked to tell (what Colin thought now of as ‘the damn so called joke’) about the two guys in the woods. Do you know this one? So there were these two guys who got lost in the woods during the winter, at night, and there were the sounds of wolves howling in the not so far distance and coming closer.

Ralph loved to drag the story out. He could make the story last for half an hour.

Anyway, the punch line of the story was that it isn’t necessary for you to be faster than the wolves, and this was the big point, you just had to be faster than the other guy.

But in the heated corridors of his mind there echoed an implied afterthought, ‘even if that other guy happened to be your brother?’ The disturbing thought was never vocalized, never so much as mentioned, never breathed, never even hinted at, but Colin sure had lots and lots of time to think about it as they kept on the move, and from somewhere he found the strength to stumble on.

Much later on, in fact, he thanked the gods (whichever ones were still on good terms with them) that the ‘even if’ was never put to that ultimate test.

It often came close though.

And so with Ralph’s strength (and his strong arm at the end) they both, remarkably, managed to stay alive and outpace trouble. Late one afternoon, as the sun was thankfully setting, they staggered into a largish village, one that, at first glance, Ralph thought they could rest in for a bit and maybe hide for a couple of days.

He turned to Colin and said, “This looks promising. You okay?”

Colin, leaning on his brother’s arm for support, turned to face him, smiled weakly, and croaked the words, “Arrive alive.”

“Check,” his brother said just before dumping his brother headfirst into a watering trough.

Ralph looked around while his brother bubbled. He scooped up some water in his hand and rubbed it on the back of his sunburned neck. He thought to himself, ‘Self, we’re going to have to get under cover, and fast. Okay, so it’s shelter, food, and then we have to start to make some serious plans.’ He looked back down at his brother and saw the bubbles were just starting to ease up so he pulled his head out of the trough. Colin sputtered and gagged in appreciation.

Now may be an important time to talk a little bit about planning and the three things associated with it.

First thing is that no plan ever works as well as you imagine, and this goes doubly for the Campbell brothers.

The second is that things can and do get complicated quickly, so apply the KISS rule, Keep It Simple Stupid (unfortunately again there is the Campbell factor to consider and so the rule often ended up being ‘keep it stupid simple’. I’m sorry; alcohol is usually consumed during planning sessions, it’s almost mandatory).

Oh, there’s one other thing to consider, never stick to a plan that’s going to kill you.

The brothers had a number of good examples of that one too.

Still it was important to plan. Planning meant that you were thinking ahead. It also gave you something to work toward, a direction maybe. And a planning session often let you see options and consider things you might otherwise have missed, particularly when you’re bouncing ideas off the head of another person, even if that other person was only your brother Colin.

Sometimes the plan was just to depart intact and arrive alive.

And sometimes a plan is a myth.

Ralph managed to find them a shelter that put a roof over their heads. Well, to be honest, it could only loosely be considered a roof because it sort of sat above them (and quite serious about the loose part). Here they’ve managed to lay low and to recover for close to a week. Colin is once again up and active, and right now out doing what he does best, scrounging. His last trip he was told by his brother to go grub for some food. And he did. Ralph was now stirring the grubs into a pot containing the latest version of chili.

Colin comes in suddenly, trips over the edge of the ratty rug as he does, falls into the shelter and onto his brother and almost into the pot. He rolls off, kneels, and grabs his brother by the shoulders. He looks right into his face and says,

“I got it.”                                                          (Declarative)

“Got what?”                                                     (Interrogatory)

“The answer to all our plans.”                          (Mixed metaphor)

“You mean prayers.”                                        (Correction)

“Them too.”                                                      (Agreement)

He pulls out a piece of goat skin from where he has it stuck in his belt. The skin is covered with markings. He lays it in his brother’s lap, points at it, and says. “I found the treasure.”

“You what?” with disbelief, “Get out of here.”

“No, no, look. I got it from this guy.”

He knees his way over to a cement block and grabs something there. He brings over the clay dish with the little stub of candle and lights the wick. The candle burns with a dim and smoky flame but sheds enough light to illuminate the map, for that is what it is, and for Ralph to read it. By this time, just like all the viruses and germs they have shared and traded with one another over the past decades, Colin’s excitement is being caught by Ralph.

“While I’ll be. Is this…?”                                  (Incredulous inquiry)

“Yes.”                                                               (Affirmation)

“For real?”                                                        (Wishing authentication)

He holds up two fingers, “Scout’s Honor.”      (Yes)

"The real deal, eh? Where’d you get it?"             (Demanding inquiry)

"Near the market while I was out…"

On this, one of his brief trips to the market, Colin was doing his version of a stealthy approach and tripping over almost everything in his path. He was just in the process of leaving a dark alleyway and merging with the crowds of people who thronged the stalls and pens and carts of the noisy marketplace when, as he rounds the corner, a little Arab man senses or sees the motion, turns, notices Colin, points directly at him, smiles hugely, and says in flawless English, “I see you.”

Colin, taken aback, shushes the little man and gestures ‘quiet’ with his hands. He steps back out of the light and into the alley again. The man looks quickly around him, smiles again even more hugely, and steps into the alley after Colin, drawing his grey shabby cloak closer around himself as he does.

“And this little Arab guy, no taller than this,” he gestures the size, “introduces himself to me and asks if he can be of service. He actually said that, ‘be of service’. So this Hakim® guy, Honest Hakim® is his name by the way. I’ve seen him hanging around the market before. Well, Hakim® and I started talking…”

Again, I’m sorry to interrupt the narrative. I just wanted to pass on a trivium. I think that’s the singular form of trivia, isn’t it? I’ll have to check later but I don’t want to hold you up. I just wanted to pass on this one little bit of information.

We just introduced a new character and every time that you’ve come across his name it has that little ® thing after it, a registered trademark. It is not done in error. It is not a mistake. It is all in Colin’s mind. For some unknown reason Colin associated both the Arab person and his name with that dinky ® mark. He couldn’t help it. He wouldn’t have been able to explain it. The guy was just that sort of guy, trademarked or something. Funny that.

“So after a while he asks me why I’m there, the village. I mean I don’t tell him about any of the shit that’s happened or anything; I’m not that dum, right? I just tell him that we’re there to, you know, just get some supplies and crap.

And then he asks, ‘Who is this we?’”

“Aw, crap” Ralph grumbled.

“Sorry, I screwed that up. Hakim® is pretty sharp, but it’s still okay. He already knew.”

“He did?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “he’s seen both of us when we’re out to do our, ah, errands.”

“Did he ever catch on?

“Might of.”

“Okay, a person of interest then. What’s the rest of the story?”

“Oh, okay, ah, and then, don’t ask me why, I said ‘and information about some treasure that someone lost’.”

“You did that? And? What did he say?”

“What a strange coincidence, he says to me, he says that he just came into possession of an old map, he won’t say from where, and that I might be interested in seeing it. So he takes this skin out of a pouch and we look at it and he’s pointing out all these markings and he says to me, lowering his voice, ‘You know, I think this is the map to the legendary treasure of the Forty Thieves’.

“Really? Yeah, that’s the name we kept hearing.” Ralph is still turning the map round and round in his hands trying to figure out which way north is. His hands are trembling so it’s difficult to focus on the markings.

Colin continues, “So Hakim® tells me that this map is surly ‘the’ genuine article and that it will lead both me and my brother…”

“Oh,” Ralph breaks in, “so he knows I’m your brother too.”

Colin hangs his head for a second and then grimaces and says, “Ah, unfortunately I think that would be a yes.”

“And what else does he know?”

“Hey, let me finish this, okay?”

“Okay. Go on.”

“So it’s going to lead us unerringly, I repeat, unerringly, to the legendary cave of wonders, ‘by all the gods’ he ended up saying, ‘by all the gods.’ Period. End of sentence.”

They both whooped and hollered and laughed and slapped at each other. Ralph was the first to sober; he had a suspicious thought, “So if this map leads to the goods then why isn’t he looking for it himself?”

“Yeah, I though about that too,” Colin replied, “so I asked him. He answered, kind of sadly, that he had this sick elderly mother-in-law in his tent along with a wife and seven kids, or was it seven wives and one kid? They were all girls though; I think I got that much right. Anyway, he said that he couldn’t be away from the casbah for any length of time because of needing to support a tent full of women.”

Convinced now, or at least placated for the moment and willing to suspend his disbelief, Ralph raises the map to face level, a huge fist holding each edge, he smiles and says, “This is frickin’ great.” A moment later and he’s dancing around the small space, miming pulling a freight train whistle and yelling, “Yoo Hoo,” then he added in a more normal tone of voice, “Let’s make some plans.” He opens the sack and pulls out one of their few remaining bottles of wine.

A while later, about two thirds of a bottle later actually, they sit on either side of the little candle stub which is still flickering feebly in its pot. They pass the bottle back and forth (casually making sure that no wine fumes are allowed to get anywhere near the open flame) and Ralph says after a burp, “Finally, we get a real piece of good luck.” He looks over to the map on the cot. “I just can’t bloody well believe it.”

“I know,” said Colin, “I can hardly believe it either.”

Ralph asked, “So he really said ‘Unerringly, to the legendary cave of wonders, ‘by all the gods’, eh?”

“Unerringly by all the gods,” his brother agreed.

And the little flame guttered out.

Okay, and now a word from god. No, not big ‘G’ God, and not all the gods, just one, Loki.

Lately, for the last decade or so, he’d been feeling bored. I mean gods often are, particularly the Old Ones. Given enough time wouldn’t you get bored with everything? It’s only human after all, and humans, their faith that is, made the gods in the first place.

So Loki (sometimes called ‘The Trickster’) had been bored, but being a clever god he had long ago worked out a number of ways to fight this ennui. One of his favorites is to follow the Campbell brothers around. Sometimes he does it for weeks at a time. It usually cheers him up. He’s doing it now. He’s having a good time.

And he only had to do that one little bit of magic in their panicked flight to keep them both alive back in the desert, he made that viper point the other way, and that was it. And the one had not died. Pretty good, just one bit of magic so far.

Now don’t get all teary eyed about the great compassionate god Loki. So he saved a life, so what? You have to remember that Loki is not necessarily one of the nicer gods. That’s not his reputation. He’s not compassionate, he’s not sentimental, he’s ‘the’ trickster. He likes to be entertained and, for a while at least, he wants the Campbell brothers to do it. End of discussion.

He thought that the two brothers actually were like the two guys in that wolf joke in a way, only in real life. In ‘2C’ as he liked to think of it, ‘two Campbell’ mode, always on the brink. He was convinced that in order for his amusement to continue it was necessary for the brothers to be paired, they fed one another. He’d seen it happen before and knew that to maximize any calamity you need them together. It’s the combination that creates all the chaos, and Loki loved it.

And yes, Loki might play some small roll from time to time in keeping them alive, but he certainly wouldn’t be making their passage through this life any easier. In fact he’d be placing obstacles in their paths just to see what they’d do, what would happen.

It would be hilarious.

So he’d hang around some more.

He intently and pleasingly watched the faces of the two brothers from the little clay dish that he had manifested as and listened to their talking and planning and dreaming. This was going to be great. He guttered himself out.

Next day Ralph and Colin went out on the procurement assignments that had been discussed the night before. Ralph is in charge of getting gear (he knows more about tools and rope and climbing spikes and shanking sheep than anyone) and Colin is put in charge of transportation. Ralph told him, repeatedly, that they needed to get a camel in order to travel in the desert properly.

In his search for a camel, Colin eventually encounters the little trader Hakim® again, back near the dark alley where he met him the first time. When he returns to meet his brother a couple of hours later he has a sorry looking animal in tow.

“What’s that?” asks Ralph, looking up from the collection of stuff he has ‘acquired’ and is sorting through.

“It’s the camel you sent me for.”

“That,” he says pointing, “is not a camel.”

Colin bristles and replies, “No, it is too. I went back to that little Arab guy and asked him if he knew where I could get a camel. I specifically asked for a camel. I already know him, right?”

Ralph sighs to himself, rubs one beefy hand over his face, looks up, and shakes his head. “Okay, tell me.”

“I’m getting near that market thing and only have to go through this alley, see, when out pops Hakim®. He did his big dopey smile, points his finger at me again and does his ‘I see you coming’ routine and wants to be of service again.  So I figured, what the hell, we done good by him last time, right? So, I told him that we needed a camel. We talked about it for a bit, haggled, and then he took me to see this animal. He really did assure me that this was an ‘a number one’ quality camel. He had it hitched up in front of some hotel. I didn’t even have to pay for the saddle or anything. It was ready to go.”

Ralph shakes his head again, “Still, that ain’t no camel?”

“Where did you become such an expert on camels anyway? If it ain’t a camel, what is it?”

“It’s an ass, just like you.”

“Ooh, ah, nice, thanks much. I should tell mom. You sure it’s not a camel?”

“Camels have humps.”

“Don’t be rude.”

“On their backs.”

“Now you’re really being rude.”

“In fact I’ve never heard of a no-hump camel.”

“Will you please stop saying that?”

“What?”

“Hump.”

Ralph sighed and made a dismissive gesture. He said, “Okay, anyway, what’s done is done. So what did it cost us?”

“Four bottles of wine.”

“What, four bottles? That’s almost all we got.”

““Sorry, that’s all he wanted of our stuff…”

“Four bottles.”

“…and all I could get for the wine. He started off wanting a case of it.”

“A case? Why we’re lucky if we can make a case at a time.”

“I know, but I talked him down to four bottles, okay?” Colin paused for a moment and then added, “ It really is a good deal you know, for a camel...”

“Ass,” interjected his brother.

“…and saddle. For four bottles of our wine, are you kidding? Hey, and that stuff has been roughly shaken for the last couple of days and exposed to lots of sun, right? I wouldn’t want to open it right now because of the mood it’s probably in.”

“You’re probably right.”

“Come on, I done good.”

“I guess so,” Ralph grudgingly puts in. “But it still is not a camel, and it still means we’re down to our last three bottles.” He sighed again. “This is really cutting into our comfort zone pretty badly. We have to get some more wine soon, or make some.”

“Not make some, I hate making wine. It’s awful hard to find all that drain cleaner.”

“Or the squirrels, yeah, I know. Let’s open a bottle for last call and then get some sleep. How’s that sound bro? We’ll head out early tomorrow, at the crack of noon say.”

“You got it, Ralph.”

The next morning they loaded up (leaving them now with only one remaining bottle) and headed off into the wilds, both brothers walking, Colin leading the, ah, camel.

A figure in a grey cloak watches them leave the city from the shadows of an archway. He smiles to himself and then turns away. There is the sound of an explosion from somewhere in the marketplace.

The road soon becomes difficult as it climbs into high desert and canyons, mile after mile of rock and desert and heat. Colin is lagging behind again, this time because the animal is giving him a hard time. He practically has to haul it up the road. His brother, for what had to be the millionth time, turned to him and said, “Hey bro, get your ass in gear, will you?” and laughs.

Finally Colin can’t take it anymore. He yells, “Hey, Ralph, can you please stop saying ass? It’s worse than saying hump.”

Ralph grunted noncommittally.

“And can you please just call it a camel? Okay? For me?”

“Okay, it’s a camel.”

“Thanks.”

“But you’re still an ass for buying that.”

“I know.”

“I just want to make sure you remember so you wouldn’t do it again.”

“I know.”

And that was that. Ralph never mentioned it again, well except for once.

It happened a couple of days later. The brothers were busy trying to coerce their ‘camel’ up a hill. Ralph was pulling the lead, and Colin was the rear guard action, pushing from behind. A horsefly circled the group a couple or three times and then made a perfect landing on the rump of the animal. It stung.

Ralph had the reins pulled out of his hands as the ‘camel’ reared and Colin, just turning away from what he instinctively knew was going to be bad news, received a good kick to the butt. Both brothers went flying. The ‘camel’, free of Campbell influence at last, made a run for it. The brothers watched after it sadly as it disappeared over the rise. It still carried the vast remainder of their supplies.

The only items the Campbell brothers had left now were the one bottle of wine that Ralph had kept safely tucked in his shirt (away from Colin and out of the sun) and a small knapsack that Colin kept (and away from Ralph).

Ralph gave his brother a look as he got up, rubbed his knees, wiped his hands on his pants, and then started walking slowly away. Colin looked at his brother and said, “What? What did I do?” Colin followed in his brother’s footsteps massaging his rear.

“Ass,” was all his brother said.

Many dunes, rocks, sand and lots and lots of sun later, lost in what has to be the biggest cat box in the world, two brothers rest and sit in what little shade is offered by a rock outcropping, sitting with their backs against a cliff wall. Colin is rummaging through his little knapsack checking out their meager provisions.

Ralph is looking at their map and not feeling very good. He’s got that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one that says they’ve been had again. He might as well use the map to wipe his arse, that’s the only thing it’s good for. It’s all bogus. Nothing matches. And now he had to tell that to Colin. He hated situations like this. And because Colin is Colin, and he was the one who made the deals through that little Arab guy Hakim®, he’s going to think it’s all his fault. Guilt 101. This was not going to be pleasant.

The next moment Colin hands Ralph a packet.

Ralph looks at the little package and then back at his brother. His anger and frustration start to leak through. He starts off pleasantly enough, “Is this all I get to eat?”

Colin looks up from opening a similar package and nods.

“Look here,” he holds it up between forefinger and thumb, “ it’s not even a whole one.”

Colin is about to respond but before he can Ralph asks, “You’ve been munching on this, haven’t you?” His tone sharpens; the volume increases. “I’ve been walking for miles and miles in the frickin’ heat, I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m cranky, I’m sober, and all you give me to eat is an open sesame seed cake package…”

He starts to wave the open package accusingly in his brother’s face, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish either the rant or the gesture because at the words ‘open sesame’ there is a rumbling sound and the yawning mouth of a cave opens behind the brothers. They fall backwards through it into a dark interior.

Not for the first time that day they pick themselves up and dust themselves off. They look at each other.

“What just happened?”                                    (stunned inquiry)

“I don’t know.”                                                (stunned reaction)

“You all right?            “                                    (filial concern)

“Think so. You?”                                             (confirmation, reciprocation)

“Okay, I guess.”                                               (affirmation, approximation)

“Ralph?”                                                           (named inquiry)

“Yes.”                                                               (name acknowledgment)

“Do you think this is…?”                                 (credibility check)

“It can’t be.”                                                     (denial of feasibility)

“It might.”                                                         (glimmer of hope, raise of eyebrow)

“But how?”                                                      (seeds of doubt, seeking explanation)

“Don’t know.”                                                 (admission of ignorance)

Ralph asks his brother, who can see marginally better than he, “What can you see?”

“Not much of anything right now. I’ll have to adapt to the dark a bit. There does seem to be shiny stuff in here though.” He takes a couple of steps forward, all his senses probing ahead. “You know, if I were to put what I think I’m seeing into a category then it would have to be…” another couple of steps.

“The things bright and shiny category Alec?” asks his brother.

“Yeah,” his brother agreed. “And then some.”

So the Campbells, Ralph and Colin, walk, awe struck, into paradise. Gleams and heaps and constellations of gold, gems, pearls and other precious things draw them further and further into the cave.

Just below their threshold of hearing there is a low buzzing, as of an insect, circling near the cave entrance. Then a tiny voice intones, “Shut, O simsim.” Ralph and Colin hear the cave door close behind them with a dull boom. They feel the change in air pressure.

“And Colin, did the door just close behind us?”

“Yes. Maybe it was on a timer.”

“And now we can’t get out.”

“Not right now, no.”

A pause and then Ralph asks, “Are you feeling threatened?”

“Always,” says his brother.

“What I mean is,” he pauses for the thought to clarify,” is anything natural, unnatural, or supernatural trying to kill you or me at the moment?”

“No, now that you mention it.”

“I think then we might as well stay for a bit.”

“As if we have a choice,” Colin mutters.

“Still, it’s good to be out of that sun and in here where it’s cool.”

“And dark.”

“Yeah,” Ralph admits, “but it’s not completely dark. There’s still light coming in from that hole in the ceiling.”

The brothers both look up at a hole in the roof. Ralph starts looking at the light in a more assessing way, “Say, bro, how much daylight do you think is left outside?”

“Ah, I think I get your point. A couple of hours I would guess. I wonder how dark it’s going to be in here tonight?”

“Do the words ‘pitch black’ mean anything to you. Exactly, I think we gotta’ look around and see what we can scrounge up for light and stuff before it gets too dark.”

“Good idea. I’ll go this way,” he starts off to the right.

“I’ll be over here. Yell if you find anything.”

“Oh, if I find anything I’ll be yelling my head off.”

So they split up and start a more careful search of the cave. “Okay,” Ralph says, “try to ignore all the glitzy stuff, we’re looking for basic needs crap.”

“Righty ho.”

As the brothers search they keep up, well not a running commentary, more of a shuffling poking through stuff commentary with their sibling, telling what they’ve found. Their voices, which had started off quite softly in the cave, in awed tones, gain in volume as their confidence grows, as they see all the incredible things surrounding them, and as the distance between them increases.

“Hey Ralph?”

“What?”

“I just noticed, does it seem almost damp in here to you?”

“Kinda’, I guess.”

A pause, “Listen, I’m getting what sounds like someone left a tap dripping over here. Can you hear it?” The sounds of quick footsteps and then a second later he adds, “Hey, we got water.”

“Great. What have you got?”

“There’s this big stone woman over here on a raised pedestal or something. Wow, she’s got to be over ten feet tall. And she’s got these huge...”

“Stop right there,” Ralph butted in, “just about the water, okay?”

“Sure, sure Ralph, anyway she’s got water dripping from her fingers. It falls into this basin or something at her feet.” He pauses contemplating for a moment. He adds, “You know, this statue isn’t like connected to anything, it’s not even up against the wall, it’s out here in the open. Where do you suppose all the water is coming from?”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, there’s water and that’s the important thing. And what do you expect from a cave of wonders?”

“Oh, yeah, I was almost forgetting that. Do you think we’ll find any Wonderbread?”

“Funny. Well, maybe its Arabian equivalent, who knows?”

There’s the sound of metal shifting from Ralph’s side. “Hey, I think I just found the armory.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, definitely, lots of guy stuff here, lots of pointy things; more swords and helmets and gold plate than you would believe. And a lot of it inlaid with gems and stuff.”

“Can we eat it?”

“Nope,” more shifting noises, “Keep looking”.

From Colin’s side Ralph hears, “Wait, there’s a big layout on the floor over here, around a big rug. It looks like a huge banquet set up and waiting. Hey, what’s this? Cool, Ralph, I just checked out this little barbeque thing over here. I just touched it and it started up. Wow, it’s hot already. I burned my fingers.”

His brother’s shape comes shambling out of the gloom and joins him. Ralph is wearing a gold helmet and gold arm bracelets. He grins at his brother who grins back.

“Look,” he points down, “someone even put out the good china for us.”

“The good golda you mean.”

“Good going bro. Anything on the menu?”

“Well, it looks like we got platters full of everything from fruit to nuts.”

“And I see we got bread and cheese, well goat cheese and that flatbread stuff.”

“Is that meat over there? Hey dude, we got ourselves a barbeque.”

“Yeah, now all we need is the wine.”

“Yeah, wine.”

There is a moment of shared respectful silence.

“Now you’d think that a cave of wonders would have wine, wouldn’t you?”

“What kind of a cave of wonders would it be without lots and lots of wine?”

A couple of hours later they are reclining on pillows. They are both decked out in gold and silver, wearing robes, actual silk robes with cool things stitched into the fabric, and a lot of that handwork gold as well. They are wearing rings and turbans and torques and jeweled knives and sabers and other rich stuff (the likes of which you just wouldn’t believe).

Colin is still picking at morsels of food from the heaps of dishes still laid (and still full) in front of him, ‘filling in the cracks’ as he liked to joke. He belches contentedly. Ralph, also stuffed, stretches back on his pillows and folds his hands over his stomach; the rings jangle as he does so. He’s almost dozing. Faint sounds of sawing are just beginning to come from him as he slips into sleep.

Ralph is really quite pleased with himself and his brother. Here they are, in the actual frickin’ ‘Cave of Wonders’. They’ve managed, in spite of all the crap they’ve had to go through, to actually find the damn place. And now they’ve got loads of riches as well as unbelievable magicy things; like torches that light themselves and swords that sing. They’ve found relative safety, water, and lots of food. The only downside, as far as he’s concerned, is that they haven’t found, in all the poking into nooks and crannies that they have done, the one thing that would have made it all perfect, they haven’t found any wine.

And another minor detail, they haven’t found a way out.

Colin clears his throat. “Okay, I don’t mean to spoil the mood or anything here but now that we’re fed maybe we should be thinking of where we go from here? I hope this place isn’t like that Hotel California. You know, the song,” he quotes, “where ‘you can check in but you can never leave’.”

His brother takes a huge yawn. He keeps his eyes closed as he replies, “I love that song. It’s got that lyric, what is it, about drinking pink champagne on ice, right?” He starts singing the lyric softly out loud, badly out of tune.

“Yeah, it’s a great song,” Colin agrees, “but according to the story the guy doesn’t get any wine.”

Ralph pops one eye open. “What? Really? No wine. What kind of run down hotel is that?”

They both chuckle.

Colin continues, “Yeah, there’s another lyric that goes, ‘ So I called up the captain; Please bring me my wine.’ And the next line goes, as if this waiter or someone is replying, ‘We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty-nine’.”

“So the poor bastard never gets any wine.”

“I hope that’s not the problem here.”

“Yeah, you figure a legitimate C. O. W., Cave of Wonders, has got to have some.”

“Wine,” Colin sighs, and starts to sing the chorus of the song ‘Wine’ by the Electric Flag. “Wine, wine, wine, hey buddy, pass that bottle to me.”

Ralph continues, “I wonder if the lack of wine has anything to do with this being one of them Muslim countries?”

“Well, maybe,” he shudders, “but I’d hate to think that was the case.”

“Yeah, me too. You know what this means, don’t you?”

“The last bottle?”

“Afraid so.”

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“Should be, well by tomorrow at least. I’ve been cooling it off in the fountain. It’s almost stopped steaming. It’s a good thing that I’m so tired or I’d already have tried to open it.”

“Me too.”

They both fall asleep on their cushions. The cave soon dims to black and echoes to the loud sounds of snoring which echo and reverberate in the enclosed space. Colin doesn’t even notice.

The next morning diffused sunlight peeks into the cavern through the natural occulus in its roof. It falls gently through the opening in the ceiling of the chamber and casts it’s light on a small plinth on which stands an unremarkable little item. A horsefly is flying circles around it.

There is the sound of bodies stirring and then great yawns and stretches. Ralph says to his brother and the world at large, “So, Brain, what are we going to do today?”

And Colin replies, “Same thing we do everyday…”

They both finish in unison, “try to take over the world.”

After fully waking they sat on some cushions by the rug and had a bite of breakfast. Hell, they even had coffee (although it sure didn’t taste like Tim Horton’s). After that they decide to do an even more careful search and inventory of the cave, including all the passages that led off to the other chambers (‘caveletts’ Colin thought of them). Their intention is twofold, first, and most important, and the number one priority, the top of the list, the thing that would make their day, and the thing they’re really looking for, is, you guessed it, and you can sing along with me, ‘Wine, wine, wine, hey buddy, pass that bottle to me.’ In fact that’s the song that keeps ringing in Colin’s head as he’s searching.

And the second thing is to keep looking to see if there’s another way out.

Unfortunately no jug, amphora, wine skin, or bottle is found that entire day. Nor was there any progress made in finding a way out. There was no back door as far as the Campbell’s could tell (and you have to remember that the Cambpells were quite expert at finding rear doors and opening them whether they were locked or not). The way they had come in, to all appearances just another wall, wouldn’t budge either, no matter how they yelled, entreated, plead, gestured, or pounded at it.

They even tried remembering the words Ralph said that opened it in the first place. They said, ‘sesame snap’, ‘sesame cookie’, and another bunch of variations. Colin even yelled ‘Oreo’ at one point for some unknown reason, maybe just in frustration. Nothing worked.

And now it is the evening of the second day. The last bottle of wine has been broached (fortunately it did not explode) and the brothers have made their way through about half of it, taking moderate gulps to make it last.

Ralph, after his turn drinking, passes the bottle to his brother and says, “You know, this place is great and all that but it sure doesn’t live up to its reputation.”

“The wine you mean?”

“Yeah, that too, but wine was never on the handbill, was it? Nobody ever said, ‘and the tanker truck full of wine, did they?”

“I guess not, although I like the concept. What are you getting at?”

Ralph gets up, grabs the bottle from Colin as he passes, and wanders toward the light coming from the ceiling, stretching his legs. Colin gets up too and follows a short distance behind.

“What I mean,” he drinks and passes the bottle behind him. His brother takes it, “is that there was something else that was supposed to be here, wasn’t there?”

“There was? Like what?”

“I mean didn’t whoever find this place, I mean weren’t they supposed to win the lottery of something like you first told me. Weren’t we supposed to get three wishes?” He stops in his pacing and Colin almost collides with his back, drinking.

Colin gulps, manages to keep from spilling or spewing any of the wine (again a trick they have perfected), swallows noisily and then passes Ralph the bottle again. He looks around the space and says, “I don’t know. I mean look around, maybe that just meant you’d get all this crap, right? Maybe that last bit was, you know, like false advertisement.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“How much more rich can you get, or want to get? Look at this stuff.” He gestures around.

“Wishes. Still, it would be nice.”

“Oh, I agree with you, wishes would be damn nice.” There was a slight pause while he switched mental gears. “What would you wish for Ralph?”

“You have to ask?” He passes the bottle back to his brother and said in the gesture and in the expression on his face, ‘this is what I’d wish for’.

They wander close to the fountain. Colin looks up at the stature of the woman dripping water and smiles dreamily, “I’d wish for a fountain of wine, just like her.” He drinks.

“Too hard to carry.” Ralph takes the bottle back.

“Only if you have to move around, but yeah, you’re right, especially being us.” Colin now wanders over to a huge chest, opens it, takes out a jeweled turban and places it on his head. He calls out to his brother, “Then what about wishing for a huge bowl of wine?” He holds his arms out as if he were cradling a huge bowl and mimes drinking from it.

“Nah, that aint it. Think about it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be big, it just has to be never empty.” He upturns the bottle and a single drop dangles from the lip. Ralph dabs it up, contemplates it on his finger, and then places it in his mouth. He sucks meditatively.

Colin, seeing this, realizes that the bottle is empty and so wanders off to poke his nose into more piles of riches, and maybe too he’d find, you know.

Ralph, still slowly moving, walks over to the little pool of light and the sun washed pedestal. He leans against it and looks up through the hole in the ceiling, wondering for the hundredth time if they could somehow get out that way. They might have to find out.

He begins to put the empty bottle down by the thing on the dais. With the motion, however, he looks, for the first time really, at the dully-glowing metal thing. ‘Hell, it’s not even gold,’ he thinks. As he lets go of the one thing he reaches for the other. He also thinks, ‘Why the hell is this here? It’s just one of those old Arab brass thingy’s, ah lamps.’

‘Yeah, oil lamp,’ he thinks. He turns the little lamp around in his hands and looks a bit more closely at it. ‘It looks like a gravy boat,’ he says to himself. ‘In fact it looks like Aunt Eva’s gravy boat. No shit.’ Ralph starts cleaning it off with his sleeve to see if maybe, beyond reason, Aunt Eva’s name is somehow etched on the side. To his surprise there’s a puff of smoke and a figure appears in front of him.

It intones in a great voice that fills the cavern, “I am the genie of the lamp. I grant three wishes to the one who owns me.”

Ralph, in surprise, quickly drops the lamp back onto the surface.

“He who… hold on a minute,” a voice calls from deeper in the darkness. There are the sounds of things being knocked over, a crash, something shattering, coins bouncing on the floor, and accompanying them all the frantic scurrying motion of one large person. It arrives on the scene quite out of breath and says, “Hey, hi, ah, did some one say wishes?”

“I am here to serve,” it says to Ralph, not acknowledging Colin.

Ralph stares at the apparition dumbfounded. He says, “Huh?”

“What is your desire?”

“Wait a minute,” he adds thoughtfully.

“What is your wish?”

Colin, by this time, is looking over his brother’s shoulder and speaks into his ear, “Hey, we get wishes after all Ralph.”

“Huh? Wait a minute.” Ralph looks at the lamp, turns for a quick look at his brother, then back at the genie, “Ah, look you, lets run this through one more time. Who are you? What did you say?”

“I am a genie, a spirit.”

“Okay, got that, and…?”, he waived his hands encouragingly. “Continue.”

“I serve the lamp and the master of the lamp.”

“Good, and?”

“You are my master.”

“Oh, I am? Go on.”

“I must serve you.”

“Keep going, don’t stop there, how must you serve me?”

“By granting you three wishes.”

“Bingo. You know if it weren’t for the fact that you appear to be suspended on a little whirlwind of smoke I might have thought you were giving me a load of bullshit.”

“Or worse, a hallucination,” his brother piped in.

“Shhh.”

“Cool,” Colin whispered in his ear, “so what are we going to wish for first? Are you going to go for wine?”

“Wine not,” his brother said with a grin.

Ralph thinks for a couple or three seconds, clears his throat, picks up the now empty wine bottle and holds it towards the genie. “I wish this bottle to be always full of wine…” He continues speaking but slows down to make sure he gets it all in and doesn’t somehow screw up the wish, “eh, good stuff, not like we usually make. Can we wish that?” He looks up at the genie expectantly.

“Your wish is my command.” The bottle was filled.

The brothers spend a joyous couple of minutes dancing, drinking, and pouring wine over each other’s heads. Generally carrying on in other words.

The genie patiently waits until the noise dies down and then asks, “And what is your second wish?”

The sounds of hilarity die down. “Hold on. Hold on,” Ralph says, “We have to think about this. Hey Jeannie, or whatever your name is, can you take a break or something and we’ll get back to you?”

“At your command,” and he disappeared at the end of his little whirlwind back into the lamp. Both brothers stare.

Another round of dancing, back slapping, and bottle chugging erupts.

A couple of hours later two wobbly Campbells stare bleary eyed at the lamp which they have brought over to the banquet area and set between them.

Colin takes a long pull on the bottle. “Hey Ralph, this is great. Maybe for the scheckecond (that was the word ‘second’ coupled with a hiccup) wish we could ask for another one of these?”

“Naw, that would be waschtteful.” Both brothers by this time were getting a little ‘incapacitated with incahole’, and beyond the capacity of their tongues to speak clearly.

They wisely decide not to wish for anything in the condition they were in.

Similarly, and probably prompted by that initial thought, Colin has a song going through his head, as he often did. This one had the lyric; ‘Just checked in to see what condition my condition was in.’

He was absently humming it and trying to tap his foot. He misses.

Again, another couple of hours later in fact, their condition was sobering. They had eased up in their drinking some time ago (having reached some critical Campbell mass) and now might mistakenly be thought to be sober. Well almost, if you didn’t listen hard.

They sit and they talk about many things; of wishes, hopes and dreams, people and places they have been. They laugh and they cry. They throw things at one another. But sometimes they just sit, comfortable with each other and lost in their own thoughts. Right now they are ruminating about relations, doing a sentimental stumble down memory lane.

Colin says, “I member the time dad and Giff Scott drank a bottle of whiskey sittin’ at the kitch’n table talkin’.”

“Ah that. An they solved all da worlds probblems.”

“Ha, yeah, right. An dad finally got up an wen into the bedroom an sat on da edge of the bed an called me in. He schaid for me to look after Gif an make sure he got home.”

“What’a’genleman our ol’ man was. Lookin’ after ’is guest. Makin’ sure he got a drive home.”

“An den he fell back on da bed an pashed out.”

They both fall back on their cushions and pass out.

The next morning they have a light breakfast of flatbread and coffee (with goats milk to whiten and honey for sweetener, not quite what they were used to but still marginally acceptable) and then talk over some plans. They decide that the first thing they should do is to see if they can ask the genie some questions before they make the next wish.

Colin says, “Sure, why not?  Can I do it? Call the little guy?”

“Okay,” says his brother.

Colin picks up the lamp and calls into it, “Hey, Jeannie?”

No response, he shakes the lamp. “Hey, anybody there?” He turns to his brother. “How did you call this guy?”

“I didn’t call him anything.”

“No, how did he appear?”

“Oh, I just rubbed the thing, trying to see if there was something written on it.”

“Written on it, like what?”

“Ah,” he said, somewhat evasively, “Aunt Eva’s name or something.”

“Oh you mean the gravy boat?”

Ralph nods, “Precisely.”

Colin rubs, no cloud, no genie. “Hey,” he yells into the lamp, “Smokey, are you home?” Nothing. He pours a bit of the wine down the neck, still no reaction.

“Here,” his brother says, “I think I have to do it.” He takes the lamp from Colin.

“Ah shit, that’s right. You’re the boss, aren’t you?”

Ralph pours the wine from the lamp and onto the floor, then he rubs the lamp on his sleeve. The genie appears. He appears to be soaked in wine but doesn’t take any notice of it. The genie says, “I am the genie of the lamp. What is your wish master?”

“Wait a minute,” Ralph says. “I’m new at this lamp wishing business and so I have a few questions for you. Can you answer them?” The spirit nods. Ralph continues, “Now, what if I get my three wishes and then hand the lamp over to my brother here. Does that count, does he get three wishes then?”

The genie looks at Colin. This is the first time it has acknowledged Colin at all. “No, I will be gone from this place with the granting of the third wish.”

Ralph turns to his brother, shrugs, and says, “Well, it was worth a try. Still looks like I gotta’ wish for both of us.”

Colin makes a sulky face, “Just great. You always have all the fun.” Since it doesn’t seem that being whiney is going to work on his brother (it seldom does) he changes his tone and adds, “Ralph, since it looks like you have to do the wishing for us both I only have one thing to say.”

“What’s that?”

“Wish good.”

Ralph gets a thoughtful look on his face. He puts the lamp down on the rug and says to the genie, “Give me a second.” He gestures to his brother and they move a couple of steps away and go into a huddle, and since the two Campbell brothers are both big men two does make a huddle. They whisper, they gesture, they naturally get into an argument. Finally they arrive at some consensus and return to the lamp. Colin jiggles his nose back into place.

Ralph starts to speak, “You know, all the food and stuff here is fine but it sure isn’t what I’d call good grub. What we’re thinking here, my brother and I, is well, you know, all the curry we’ve had to eat…”

Colin interjects, “Nothing but curry. Curried goat, curried chicken, curried squirrel, curried curry.”

“Frankly I’m sick of it. I don’t want to have to cook no more curry.”

“And it gives me gas,” adds Colin.

“Yeah,” says Ralph, “me too. What I want to wish for is to have a never ending supply of another food.”

Colin pipes in, “Chili.”

“Yeah, chili.”

The genie says, “Make your wish, it will be my command.”

Ralph looks over at his brother, “Are we going to go for this?”

“Go for it.”

“Okay, Mr. Jeannie, for my second wish I want all the curries to turn into chili.”

Colin prompts, “Like mom used to make.”

Ralph adds, “Like mom used to make. And,” he adds quickly, “whatever pot I’m cooking in fills up with chili.”

“Like mom used to make.”

“Yeah, we already said that.”

The genie nods his head and says, “It is done, and what is your third wish?”

“Ah, we’ll get back to you on that.”

The genie disappears back into his lamp.

Ralph and Colin, and particularly Ralph, didn’t want to put a rush on the third wish and so he democratically decided that they were going to think on it for a bit. He figured that since it was their last wish he wanted it to be a good one. The Campbell brothers, Ralph and Colin, then spend the next 1001 nights drinking wine, eating chili, playing cards, and talking about wishes.

You know, this could possibly be the longest bender in history. And when you start to think about it 1000 nights is a long, long time. Let’s break it down. Hold on, I have to look for my calculator. Okay, here we go. According to the little electronic gizmo 1001 nights equals 2.74246575342 years. That’s 2 years and 271 days, or 2 years and almost 9 more months. That’s a long time to be stuck in a cave with only your brother for company. And it’s a good thing that it was a big cave and there was an inexhaustible wine supply available or who knows what might have happened. There might have ended up being just one Campbell alive at the end of it. Again, who knows?

So in all this considerable length of time they thought up many plans, considered many wishes, and discarded them all. They also searched many times for an exit and found none. At one point they even tried piling everything they could lay their hands on into a heap under the hole in the roof but, once they managed to reach the little sun hole, they found out that neither of them could fit through. The only thing they had succeeded in doing was making a rich mess.

I said earlier that it was only the two brothers stuck in the cave for all this time. That’s not entirely true. There was a third occupant (and occasionally a fourth, although he’d fly out for a while when he was feeling bored). They started calling on the genie most days and getting him to talk or play cards with them (and it’s only because of Ralph’s insistence early on that the genie looks at or speaks to Colin at all).

It was Ralph who was always the most interested in talking with the genie. He wondered how he got into the genieing business in the first place. At one point, during a game of backgammon they were playing, he gulped a mouthful of wine and looked at the little figure on it’s whirlwind tail and asked, “Say, why do you have to live in Aunt Eva’s gravy boat, I mean the stupid lamp thing? Do you like it in there?”

The genie replies, “I am trapped by the power of the lamp until such time as I am released.”

“Released?”

“Replaced. Someone must take over my charge. Until then I must remain here.”

“Okay, I get it, you have to wait for a replacement. How long have you been the genie?”

“Over two thousand years.”

“Wow, talk about a bummer. You must have years of vacation time built up.”

The genie makes an ‘I don’t know what you are speaking about’ shrug.

Ralph, not elaborating, continues, “So why the lamp?”

“The container could look like anything; it’s just a vessel for the spirit.”

Ralph says, “Anything? It can look like anything?” The genie nods. “Can it look like this wine bottle?” and he holds up the bottle for emphasis.

“Assuredly.”

“Could you do it, I mean not as a wish or anything, right?”

There was a ‘poof’ (there always seems to be a ‘poof’ necessary in these magical type stories) and the genie’s little hurricane is now coming out of a bottle that was an exact duplicate of the one Ralph held.

“Cool,” said Ralph, “can you keep it like that? This should really mess up Colin.”

And so it was that in the days, weeks and months that followed there was the slight but constant problem, usually experienced by Colin, of keeping track of which bottle was which and attempting not to try to drink the genie.

Again, some time later, Ralph is having another conversation with the genie and asks, “So what’s keeping you in there? Is it like being in prison?” Ralph, having been shut in now for so long is feeling a bit like that himself these days. Not waiting for answers to the first questions he continues, “How would you get out? How would that work? Is it a wish?”

“No, you cannot wish for me, you can only wish for yourself. And yet it is a simple thing, you would have to willingly take my place and become the servant of the lamp, ah, I mean bottle.”

Ralph mulls that one over. It actually becomes a topic of conversation for him and Colin, and the genie too, over the next weeks and months.

And remember, the brothers have a never emptying bottle of primo wine. And it doesn’t sit idle. And on one particular evening, sitting on cushions around a brazier (not a brassiere), they’ve consumed a particularly large quantity of wine. They get mellow, they get sentimental, and they get stupid.

Ralph asks the genie the question he’s asked him several times already, “So, one of us could become what you are, a genie, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And have all your magical powers?”

“All of my power.”

Ralph gnaws at a thought. “If my brother and I decided to take over for you, do you think, ah, that maybe we could take turns or something? Being the genie that is?”

“You would both then be servants of the lamp and yes I believe that you could, as you say, take turns.”

Colin, a bowl of chili at his side (which has partially tipped over and its contents are slowly burning a hole through the rug), has been half listening to the exchange as he sits on his cushion daydreaming about touring with the Imaginary Blues Band. His brother gives him a rude poke in the ribs that shatters the daydream and says, “Well, why don’t we then?”

He suddenly comes to full wakefulness. “What?”

“Take over for the genie.”

Still unsure he says, “Are you serious?”

Ralph starts getting worked up to his topic. He’s spent a long time thinking about this. “Never more. Look, you get a place to stay and all the magical power you could dream of.”

“So?” Colin, not quite convinced or not quite ready to commit himself to the scheme asks, “Okay, so what you’re saying is that we take over for the genie, right? So who ends up in the bottle?”

Ralph replies, “I haven’t worked that out yet. We do take turns though.” There’s a silence and then a mental light bulb clicks on and he says, “Hey, I got an idea. Why not let fate decide?”

“Fate?”

“Yeah, let fate decide the whole thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean first, lets give the genie a sporting chance to get out of the bottle, so to speak.”

The genie has said nothing during this exchange. The only reaction on his features has been the slow raise of an eyebrow. Ralph turns to him and asks, “Would you go for that? At least it would be a chance for you, right?”

“Yes.”

Colin breaks into the exchange, “Okay, you said fate decides. So how are we going to do that?”

Ralph grins, “Why not have a little card game?” He starts rubbing his hands together.

Colin now has a definite sinking feeling. From the moment that his brother jabbed him in the ribs he hasn’t felt quite on top of things. And the wine hasn’t helped the situation. ‘In vino veritas’ maybe, there’s truth in wine, but there’s also a lot of bull….

So Colin could sense that something was going to happen and he would not necessarily like it. All he really wanted to do right now is to have a little post meal lie down, maybe another cup of wine, and get back to dreaming about the band, but he knew his brother wasn’t going to let that happen. He also knew something else, and his brother knew this too, that he was lousy at cards. He made a gulping swallow.

Ralph continues, “Yeah, we’ll play cards with the genie. I’ve played him enough that I know he doesn’t always win but he wins enough so that he’s at least got a chance; it’s a definite maybe for him.”

Which was true, the genie didn’t always win at cards, although you still had to be careful playing him. It was true that the genie never cheated, unlike the brothers, but he had an almost photographic memory of the cards that were shown or dealt.

“And what about us?” Colin asked.

“So we both agree to be servants of the lamp, right? If you’re in the bottle first, you grant the first set of wishes, and then I take over and grant wishes to the next person who discovers the lamp. That way we both get lots of time off work. It should be easy peasey. Agreed? Think of the places we’ll see, the great deeds we’ll do.”

“Think about being stuck in a jug.” Colin continues to struggle against the tide of Ralph but it’s a losing battle, it’s like trying to stop an avalanche with a plastic snow shovel. He gives up. “Okay, I guess. Just to make sure I have this clear, if he wins…?”

“He’s out of the bottle.”

“And then we play to see who takes his place in the bottle.”

“That’s right, you or me. The guy who wins second gets to pick who goes in the jug.”

“Nice way to put that. Okay, I guess I’m in,” he has a thought, “but on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“I name the game.”

Ralph smiles knowing that he almost always wins at playing cards with Colin and agrees. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

It takes a few minutes to get everything ready for the game. They clear a space on the rug, shovel off the smoldering bits of spilled chili, pour themselves ‘refreshments’ into golden goblets, and then get into position. Ralph picks up the deck and shuffles the cards. He looks at Colin, “So what game do we play? Do we take turns playing each other to see who wins the most games?”

“I think it should be a three handed game.”

“Okay.”

“And something that once one player is out the other two can keep playing to see who wins second.”

“Sounds okay too. So cribbage maybe?”

“Okay Ralph, I know I keep going over this but I really want to be sure I don’t screw this up, if the genie wins you and I play to see who decides on which of us goes in the bottle.”

“That’s the idea.” Ralph grins magnanimously and says to Colin, “Name it.”

“Go Fish.”

It’s Ralph’s turn to feel his heart drop. He feels the confining wall of glass surrounding him already. Of all the games they’ve ever played ‘Go Fish’ is the only one that his brother wins, overwhelmingly wins. In fact he wins at it so often that Ralph has refused to play it with Colin for a decade or more.

So Colin begins explaining the rules to the genie, with accompanying gestures.

 “Okay, so this is a game that three players can play. The deck is the standard 52-card deck. Five cards are dealt to each player and all the remaining cards are placed face down in a draw pile.

Now the goal of the game, simply put, is to collect the most sets of four. The sets are the four cards of the same type: four aces, four twos, threes, and so on to the four Queens and the four Kings. Got that so far?”

The genie nods.

“I guess we could draw to see who goes first. Okay? High card starts.

So what you do, on your turn you ask a player for a specific card from a set. For example, if it was my turn I might say,  ‘Genie, have you got any nines?’ Now, I would have to have at least one of the cards I’m asking for in my hand already, okay?”

Again a nod.

“If you have any cards of the set that I asked for in your hand then you have to give them all to me. In the example, you would give me all your nines.”

Ralph started to turn pale.

“If I get any cards from you then I get another turn. I can then ask you or Ralph if you have a certain card from a set, again as long as I have at least one of them in my hand.”

Ralph started to sweat.

“If the person you ask, say it’s Ralph here,” Colin companionably but meaningfully slaps him on the knee, “if I ask Ralph if he has any twos and he doesn’t have any in his hand he says, ‘Go Fish’. Then I draw the top card from the draw pile. Clear so far?”

“I am clear.”

“Okay, so if, when you’re told to ‘Go Fish’, you happen to draw the card that you asked for, the two in this case, you show the other two players that you have that card and you get another turn. You can then do all that jazz about asking any player for a card from a set you hold, yada, yada, yada.”

A fly buzzed by, Colin shooed it away. He took a quick sip of wine.

“However, if you draw a card that's not from the set you asked for, it becomes the next player's turn. You keep the drawn card and add it to your hand, whatever set it’s from. Okay?”

Nod.

“And the person who gets to ask next is the last one that said ‘Go Fish’.”

Ralph said, “I didn’t know that. I thought it was the next person on the left?”

Colin answered, “No, it’s the rule, honest.” He turns back to the genie, “So when you have all of the four cards from a set in your hand you show the set to the other two players and place the four cards face down in front of you. The game continues until either someone has no cards left in their hand or the draw pile runs out. The winner is the player who then has the most sets of four.”

Ralph was thinking that maybe he would get the opportunity to play a couple of games and maybe his luck would be good. He thought about that right up to the time Colin added, “Now, with three people, excuse me, three players, it’s a little bit different. It usually means that the one who wins the game, the first winner, is the one who runs out of cards. The other two keep playing. The game stops when the two players who are left either run out of cards or the draw pile runs out. Then they count the number of sets they have and the person with the most sets wins. Got all that?”

Genie nods in acknowledgement. Ralph says, “I didn’t know that either.”

So they deal out the cards and start to play ‘Go Fish’.

Loki flies in and out of the circle of players checking out the cards and the rounds of play. He’s tried to whisper in the genie’s ear about which player had which cards but the genie is not paying him any attention, and he didn’t push it. He knew that it’s not a good idea for one magic user to interfere with the magic of another. Bad stuff is usually the result. Many gods and spirits have died in that way so he has to back off a bit and just watch the play, for now.

The genie, it turns out, needs no help. Within just a few rounds he’s managed to get rid of all his cards. He’s out of both the game and the bottle. He sighs with pleasure and anticipation while the rest of the formalities are observed. There’s a brief round of congratulations from Ralph and Colin, another mouthful of wine consumed, and then serious play continues between the brothers. Colin is pretty sure by now that he’s ahead and his brother was as good as decanted. He smiled to himself.

But, and Loki knew this for a fact, it was only a matter of time before Colin took another drink of wine. What was even better was that when one brother drank the other, as if connected by wires, invariably did so as well. He waited for that moment.

The game went on. It was hard play and the stakes were pretty high (as they themselves were). Ralph did his damnedest to win and took several hands but he felt for certain that it wasn’t going to be enough.

Then Colin grasped his goblet and took a drink. His brother did the same. As the two golden goblets were raised to their faces Loki slips two of Colin’s early won sets to Ralph’s side. The genie notices this, looks at Loki, and says nothing. Loki gives a little fly shrug.

Finally Colin is out of cards and he calls the game. Ralph drops his head contemplating defeat and having to be stuck who knows how long in a bottle, but when they do the official count Colin realizes, to his amazement, that he has lost.

“No.”

“I guess it’s over then,” Ralph says in stunned disbelief.

“No.”

“You’re in the jug bro.”

“No.”

And then the genie spoke, “It is done. Now we must all leave.”

Both brothers answered in unison, “Leave?”

He continued, “Now that the bottle has a new servant,” he corrected himself, “two servants, it must move to a new location. It cannot remain here, and neither can you.”

There is a loud ‘pop’ and, yes, more smoke effects, and the cave is empty.

To the brothers it seemed that the cave just disappeared. When they regain their senses a moment later Colin and Ralph see that they are no longer in the Cave of Wonders, instead they are apparently stranded in the desert, again. Colin is now suspended in a little whirlwind of smoke, his tail streaming from the bottle.

The (former) genie has reappeared with them. He looks at each in turn and then utters, “I thank you and farewell,” and he’s gone. Just before he disappears in the obligatory puff of smoke they see that his apparel has changed. He’s now wearing sunglasses, a loincloth, argyle socks, sandals, and has a single snowshoe casually draped over his shoulder.

A little scorpion observes the touching scene from the top of a nearby rock. It had turned out better than he had imagined.

Loki knows that for the magic bottle time and space mean nothing. He also has an inside scoop (being a god) as to who the next master was or is going to be (just as he just ‘knew’ the magic words needed to shut the cavern entrance and trap the Campbells inside). ‘Wasn’t it supposed to be some guy named Aladdin? Something like that anyway. And the genie was Colin. What a hoot. That dumb schmuck, whoever it was going to be, was going to be surprised at the havoc his wishes were going to create. Colin could screw up putting his pants on in the morning. And Loki would, of course, be there to help. ‘Ass,’ he said to himself, ‘This was going to be priceless’. He turned his attention back to the brothers who have begun arguing.

“Ralph, it’s all gone.”

“Seems that way.”

“Gone. If it wasn’t for you we’d still be rich like sultans.”

“And stuck in the cave. Still, easy come, easy go.”

“Don’t hand me that shit.”

“We didn’t know this was going to happen, right?”

“So we lost the treasure and all the good stuff.”

“Apparently, but we helped out the genie, didn’t we?”

“Genie schmeanie, and look what happened?” Then Colin had an alarming thought, “The wine, what happened to the wine?”

“I think that’s back at the cave. And I don’t know if genies are allowed to drink anyway.”

“Well, this one is going to. Great, this is just great. I go along with your stupid plan and look what happens.”

“I still have my last wish.”

“What! And you expect me to fulfill it? You can stuff that.”

“Yup.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Because you have to. Now shut up and get back in the bottle like a good little brother genie.”

At this word the little whirlwind reverses itself and Colin disappears into the bottle with a ‘thoop’. There is an audible “Fu..,” just as he disappears.

Ralph puts the cork he’s been saving in the top of the bottle and shakes it vigorously, an evil smile playing on his face. Finally he was going to get back at Colin for all the crap he did while they were growing up. He tosses the bottle up into the air and catches it, behind his back.

Ralph looks up and squints at the bright sun overhead. He’s feeling a lot better now but still has a splitting headache from the wine, the sun, the argument, and the tensions of the game earlier. “Damn, I wish I had an aspirin.” And he did. They both disappear. Again.