by Joe WHITLOW

He’d lived in Man­hat­tan his en­tire life, and he still liked the place. It was the two mil­lion oth­er Man­hat­tan­ites Har­ry couldn’t stand any more. There were just too damn many peo­ple in the city. You couldn’t get away from them, even in your own apart­ment. You heard their ar­gu­ments through the walls, smelled their spices through the vents, suf­fered their in­tru­sions when they came to bor­row your corkscrew. Every­where. Al­ways. Peo­ple. He’d had enough of them.

Which is where the ge­nie lamp came in. It was a birth­day gift from his kooky aunt Mag­gie, un­doubt­ed­ly pur­chased cheap in some dingy pawn shop. He’d prompt­ly parked it on a clos­et shelf and for­got­ten about it.

Maybe that tar­nished old hunk of junk was the an­swer to his problem. 

Har­ry re­trieved the lamp from its shelf and set to rub­bing it. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, a cloud of smoke be­gan pour­ing from the spout, form­ing a cloud. The cloud ex­pand­ed un­til… poof. 

The “ge­nie” was dressed in a cheap suit and wore a gaudy gold ring on one pudgy fin­ger. He looked like a cross be­tween a gang­ster and a per­son­al in­jury lawyer.

“What can I do ya for, boss?” 

Har­ry was skep­ti­cal. “You re­al­ly a genie?”

“Ful­ly li­censed in New York and New Jer­sey. Name’s Lou.” The ge­nie held out his hand.

“Har­ry,” Har­ry said, shaking.

“So, what’ll it be Har­ry? You got two wishes.” 

“Shouldn’t it be three?”

“This is a New York sto­ry, Har­ry, not a fairy tale. Two wish­es, take ’em or leave ’em.”

“Can I spread them out at least? Make one wish now and one later?”

“That’s al­lowed. But you’re stuck with me un­til you make the sec­ond wish. I don’t go back in the lamp un­til then. And once I go back, I’m out­ta com­mis­sion for at least a hun­dred years.”

Har­ry con­sid­ered this. For his first wish, he de­sired to find him­self on a de­sert­ed is­land where he could en­joy some soli­tude, for a change. He’d pre­fer hav­ing the is­land all to him­self, but if it was a choice be­tween one ge­nie and two mil­lion Manhattanites….

“It’s a deal.” 

He told Lou about the de­sert­ed is­land. “It should come with ameni­ties like satel­lite TV, an end­less sup­ply of high-end scotch and pre­mi­um ice cream, and all the Lee Child nov­els.” He’d use his sec­ond wish when he was ready to re­turn from this par­adise, if ever.

Lou snapped his fin­gers. “Done.”

Har­ry looked around. Apart from a new book­case full of Lee Child nov­els, noth­ing had changed. “What about the island?”

“You’re on it. Manhattan’s an is­land, tech­ni­cal­ly. I just… mod­i­fied it.”

And that’s when Har­ry no­ticed it, a sound you nev­er, ever heard in Man­hat­tan — si­lence. He drew the blind to look down on an emp­ty side­walk, a street filled with stopped cars, a city bus idling at the curb with its doors open and no pas­sen­gers. Twi­light Zone stuff.

“You didn’t.” 

Lou shrugged. “Modifying’s eas­i­er than mak­ing. You learn that quick, in this business.”

Har­ry got a gleam in his eye. His crazy sum­mon-a-ge­nie idea had ac­tu­al­ly worked. The peo­ple were gone!

Lou con­tin­ued, “Satel­lite remote’s on the side ta­ble, ice cream in the freez­er, scotch in the liquor cab­i­net, Lee Child in the book­case. Now if you’ll ex­cuse me, I could use a nap.”

In min­utes Lou was asleep on the fu­ton, snor­ing like a buzz saw. Har­ry, mean­while, pro­ceed­ed to down a pint of pre­mi­um ice cream and sev­er­al shots of high-end scotch. Then, fly­ing high on liquor, sug­ar, and the thrill of be­ing alone, he de­scend­ed in­to Man­hat­tan, and pro­claimed it his.

Over the next sev­er­al weeks, Har­ry fell in­to a rou­tine. By day he roamed the city, swig­ging scotch and rev­el­ing in his alone­ness, in the free­dom to move, the abil­i­ty to take a breath with­out feel­ing like he was com­pet­ing with two mil­lion peo­ple for the same oxy­gen. Evenings, he re­turned home to feast on ice cream, ca­ble TV, Lee Child sto­ries, and more scotch. Ex­cept for the snor­ing, Lou pret­ty much left him alone. It tru­ly was par­adise on earth, for a while. But earth­ly par­adise is hard­ly the re­al thing. It’s an im­per­fect place, where even a guy who’d had enough of peo­ple can be­gin to miss them. Sure, Har­ry had his ameni­ties, and Lou for com­pa­ny, but they weren’t quite the same thing as two mil­lion neigh­bors. To his great sur­prise, Har­ry dis­cov­ered that Man­hat­tan was a hol­low and un­sat­is­fy­ing ver­sion of it­self, ab­sent its noisy, smelly, in­tru­sive mob. Har­ry de­cid­ed it was time to bring the peo­ple home. One evening, be­tween swigs of high-end scotch, he told Lou he’d made a decision.

“I’m red­dy use my sec’n wishlou.”

The ge­nie looked up from a Lee Child nov­el. “You’re drunk, Har­ry. As your ge­nie, I ad­vise you to wait un­til your mind is clear to make your wish. You can’t un­make a wish, so you need to be sure.”

“I’m to’ly sure.”

“We’ll dis­cuss it in the morn­ing when you’re sober.” Lou said good­night, then stretched out on the fu­ton and fell in­to a deep sleep.

Har­ry be­gan click­ing through the chan­nels, but he could hard­ly hear the TV over Lou’s snor­ing. “Damn I wish you’d qui’snorin,” he grumbled.

Lou, with his spe­cial ge­nie abil­i­ties, could de­tect a wish even in his sleep. He im­me­di­ate­ly stopped snor­ing, and his eyes sprang open. 

“Aw crap,” Har­ry said, re­al­iz­ing he’d screwed up. “I din’ mean that.”

“Sor­ry, Har­ry. Your fi­nal wish is grant­ed. Now it’s time for me to go. So long, boss.” Lou snapped his fin­gers, dis­ap­pear­ing in a puff of smoke just like the one he ar­rived in. 

Har­ry sighed, belched, then tipped back his bot­tle of high-end scotch, on­ly to dis­cov­er that it, too, was empty.

Filed under Fiction on April 26th, 2024

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Care to Share?

by Robert WEXELBLATT

Jen­nifer and John Jef­fer­son had two sons, Jared, ten, and James, eight. James, who pre­ferred Jim, was skilled at pro­vok­ing his broth­er who nev­er called him Jim. He called him “Jar-Head” and “Jor­rid,” and did things like putting wet wash­cloths in his bed and hid­ing vi­tal Lego pieces. To re­tal­i­ate, Jared would leave post-it notes for his broth­er with ques­tions like “How long did the Hun­dred Years War last?” and “In what state would you find In­di­ana Uni­ver­si­ty?” so he could cor­rect him. “Ac­tu­al­ly, it was a hun­dred and six­teen years.” “It’s in Penn­syl­va­nia. Look it up.” He called his lit­tle broth­er “Jim­be­cile” and “Ce­ment-Head.” Jared al­ways got per­fect grades; James didn’t. James was good at every kind of sport; Jared wasn’t. 

Jennifer’s method of deal­ing with her boys was sim­ple. The more worked-up they got, the calmer she be­came; the loud­er their voic­es, the soft­er she made hers. This worked well be­cause both boys adored her; and, though this was it­self at the root of their abra­sive ri­val­ry, nei­ther want­ed Jen­nifer to be mad at him, just at his brother.

One day, Jen­nifer baked a choco­late sheet cake. It was on the kitchen counter when the boys got home from school. They burst through the door ar­gu­ing about Ms. Pitt who had been Jared’s teacher two years be­fore and was now James’. Jared thought she was won­der­ful; James hat­ed her be­cause of how of­ten she com­pared him to his brainy broth­er. “Teacher’s pet!” he shout­ed with con­tempt. “Jim­be­cile!” Jared re­tort­ed smugly.

“Qui­et down, you two,” said Jen­nifer then gave each a long and sooth­ing hug.

The boys spot­ted the cake.

“Can I have some?” both said. Nei­ther said, “Can we have a piece?”

“It’s for dessert.”

“Aw, Mom,” whined James.

“Please?” begged James. “I’m famished.”

The boys looked at her plead­ing­ly with ex­trav­a­gant­ly wa­ter­ing mouths. “I have to run to the dry clean­ers,” said Jen­nifer, re­al­iz­ing that this wasn’t an an­swer. “Well, all right. You can each take a small piece off the side.” She laid a knife on the counter. “Be very care­ful with this.”

“I will,” said Jared. 

“Me, too,” Jim echoed. 

“Bön voy­age, Ma­man,” said Jared, who was teach­ing him­self French.

Jared in­sist­ed on tak­ing the knife first on grounds of se­nior­i­ty. He cut a small slice off the left side of the cake and laid the knife down on the counter.

“Just a small piece, and be very care­ful with the knife,” he warned his brother.

“Be care­ful with the knife,” James said in the falset­to he used to mock his bossy brother.

The cake was de­li­cious, moist, choco­laty in­side and on top.

James looked hard at the cake, the knife, and his brother.

“She didn’t ac­tu­al­ly say one piece.”

Jared, sur­prised by his brother’s as­tute­ness, con­sid­ered his point. “Or one time.”

“Right!”

So, each cut an­oth­er slice, one from the left, the oth­er from the right, big­ger ones this time.

Jared got the milk from the re­frig­er­a­tor. James went to the cup­board and took out two glasses.

They cut more slices, from each side. The mid­dle got nar­row­er, thin­ner, tinier, un­til scarce­ly even a sliv­er was left.

Filed under Fiction on March 29th, 2024

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Care to Share?

by Salvatore DIFALCO

The phar­ma­cist stared me in the eyes. Her eyes were blue and cold. She asked my name, made me re­peat it pho­net­i­cal­ly, then had me spell it out as though it were im­pos­si­bly ex­ot­ic. She frowned scan­ning the com­put­er screen for my or­der. I had called in my re­fill for citalo­pram. I’d been on it for six months to help com­bat crip­pling anx­i­ety at­tacks. The phar­ma­cist brushed a strand of her blonde hair from her face and pursed her lips.

“Is some­thing the mat­ter?” I asked.

“Are you aware of the side-ef­fects of this drug?” she asked, her tone annoyed.

“I am,” I said. But they were mild in my opin­ion — a lit­tle dizzi­ness on oc­ca­sion, dry mouth, a mild feel­ing of de­tach­ment from events that I ac­tu­al­ly en­joyed and pre­ferred to my reg­u­lar jazzed state of being. 

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Doesn’t it say there?”

“I’m just verifying.”

I gave her my birth date.

“So how old does that make you?” 

“You’re kid­ding, right?”

She stared at me, her face smooth and unwavering.

A white-haired se­nior stand­ing be­hind me is­sued im­pa­tient sighs and sniffs. He had places to go. I turned and eye­balled him as if to say, “Hold your hors­es, buddy.”

“Are you on a plan?” the phar­ma­cist asked.

“No,” I said.

“Cash or card?”

“I’ll pay cash,” I said.

The phar­ma­cist raised her pen­ciled eye­brows and made a small sound. Al­though less com­mon than ever, I didn’t think pay­ing with cash was strange. But some­thing else trig­gered her sur­prise, some­thing un­fold­ing be­hind me. I turned and saw two mid­dle-aged women grap­pling at the front of the phar­ma­cy. Each had the other’s hair clenched in both fists with nei­ther re­lent­ing. They were es­sen­tial­ly rag-dolling each oth­er. I’d nev­er wit­nessed any­thing like it. 

“Aren’t you go­ing to do any­thing?” the phar­ma­cist asked.

“Do I look like a cop?” I replied.

“Big he-man like you.”

“I don’t care,” I said. “Do you un­der­stand? I sim­ply don’t care.”

The pharmacist’s eyes thinned. The se­nior be­hind me guf­fawed. The grap­pling women screamed and bumped about the en­trance­way, still en­tan­gled. I sighed. All I want­ed was my fuck­ing meds so I wouldn’t lose my shit. Was that too much to ask? Did that make me the heavy in this sce­nario? Please an­swer the read­er sur­vey below:

Is the nar­ra­tor the heavy here?	Yes ▢	No ▢
Is the phar­ma­cist evil?	Yes ▢	No ▢
Is the se­nior a blowhard?	Yes ▢	No ▢
Are the women fight­ing assholes?	Yes ▢	No ▢
Are all peo­ple assholes?	Yes ▢	No ▢

Filed under Fiction on March 15th, 2024

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