April 2024
April 2024
Just a Greedy Ifriti
Two ways to be, as I see it, in or out, and I’m in right now.
Da says insaan is a greedy bunch, wait till you see us ifritis. We like us some good time, a little dancing when we have enough juice to materialize, some women. Man, your insaan women are hot, not like our kind want this want that before we get in the sack, insaan women do you if you’re hot and we ifritis can make ourselves look hot, oh yeah, and hooch, who doesn’t like whiskey man, I know I do, that’s how I got into trouble, sneaking some right here from the best bottle cos I got no juice to be an insaan today.
No, you’re not drunk, and you aren’t seeing things, man. I’m here, right inside this bottle you see across the bar, the empty one in the bottom shelf that says Redbreast? 15 years old. Down, look further down, yep, right here, that’s where I am.
Now, reach in and get me out man, quick as a piss on a drunken night, for the love of God. Of course I say God, I can say Allah, Christ, whoever I like, they are ours too, you know. You insaan always think you’re alone, you know different now, right?
What’s in it for you?
Well, for starters I can make you young again. See all those wrinkles on your white throat? All gone, young skin, young muscles man, I can make you new down there too, and you can get it up the same as when you were sixteen and did your neighbor’s mother. No more Viagra. How I know, I look inside your soul man, every little thing you said or done. Say what, let me be more ifriti-like, give you three wishes and all that shit.
Take the bottle out and I give you three wishes, how about that, huh, you such a splendid man sitting there drinking all by your lonesome self on that fancy leather chair, I get all the hot women in the joint for you before you can say jackshit, how about that?
I can smell them, under their funky perfume, under the fumes of all this lager beer on tap. Good stuff, look at that one in red. Which one? The only one, man, turn around. Your wife? That can’t be your wife, oh wait she’s totally your wife, I’m all boozed up see, and we ifritis don’t see so good, not from inside bottles. I give your wishes, I slip out and go my way, you go home to a good time, okay?
No, I’m no black snivellin’ thief, just a greedy ifriti. No! You’re scaring people, not the gun man, you break the bottle I remain this size forever, you don’t want that. Please, anything you want, any number of wishes, all right? Stop talking in your head? Done. I stop calling you ‘man’, I stop talking now. Zip.
Ah, there you are now, now that you’ve un-stoppered the bottle, and here I am. You can’t hear my thoughts now because you asked me to shut up, right?
I didn’t wish this for you, but you point a gun at an ifriti, what did you think would happen? Stay there, keep waving your hands from within the bottle—you could have had your wishes, but that time’s now gone. You won’t know your price of freedom neither.
You no longer an insaan drunk enough to see an ifriti, but a desperate ifriti no one can hear, just a greedy little ifriti.
Please Click
Joyce Cho, Ph.D., Professor Emerita of Computer Sciences, Iowa State University, and an avid photographer, has spent the past decade following her retirement from academic life engaged in improving my visual functionality. I accompany her on photo expeditions, where she enjoys the pleasures of large format black-and-white film photography. She has explained to me that […]
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