The Djinn's Plea

A gasp, a wheeze, then a sigh.
A smile that uncurled quite wry.
Thus did the Djinn begin:


I'm the Spirit you have summoned.
As you stand there with shoulders stooped
Burdened by the wishes you have shaped
From your motherland, beyond the desert and that sea.
Time aeons may have passed,
But by the familiar quality of the gleam in your eyes,
I glean that Mankind has changed naught.


Hence, pay heed to my warning,
And listen in
Onto the fate of the three before you.
I do not seek to rob you of thy wishes,
But merely cling on to a near-dead notion,
That there may yet be salvation for your Kind.


The first was a Woman, thin and drooling with thirst.
She did not even pause to breathe, but recited thus:
"My husband, The King, The Father of Egypt, is barren!
Oh Djinn, make me the mother of a hundred of his finest sons!"
She returned, and bore a hundred shining princes,
And lived on to watch them pillage the kingdom to the loam.


The second was a young man, barely out of adolescence.
His lip quivered, but his voice was quite steadfast.
He wished to conquer all women, merely by his presence.
He imagined the courtesans of renown thronging his doors,
As he fed upon the envy of his neighbours, and his brothers.
Three years later, he was found with a man in his bed.


The third, your predecessor, was a world-weary sailor.
He bore the whispered titles of "Sea-conqueror" and "Death-defier".
Funnily enough, he commanded me to transport him to the Land Beyond;
The Afterlife, The Seven Halls, and the Swarga you know of.
Whence he returned, he unhesitatingly stabbed himself in the heart.
His blood is that dark spray on the tile upon which you kneel now.


So, oh Child of Fire and Ice,
Born of Passion and Reason and Vice,
I implore to you, with what little respect for your race I bear,
To ponder well one last time, unmindful of the hardships you may yet face:


Is your wish worth wishing for?