A Thousand And One

Granpa told me all about the genie in the lamp.

It’s the oldest story ever and came from the land of the sand and the women with only eyes. It’s in there, the genie of everything, but you have to find him and let him out. Then he’s out and you have to figure what to do with him. Granpa says he’s wonderful but as dumb as a stump, just like all of us. He can do anything but doesn’t know what to do. He needs guidin’.

The lamp is always hidden in plain sight he says. Men go prospectin’ all over the landscape for the easy riches but they’re generally layin’ right there on the ground but you step over them in your hurry and scurry to look for them. Granpa points to the men through the door of the grog shop and they’re playin’ cards and Granpa says what good does it do for them to find the riches anyway.

Granpa would take the books down from the high shelves that the kids weren’t supposed to get because the treasure in them was too dear to waste on such as us. He told me to run my hands over the cloth on the cover to see if it was the real deal inside there. They don’t waste the nubbly cloth on the fakers.

The lady wouldn’t like it but Granpa would shush her and we’d go home and open that book but only so far. A book is like a man, Granpa would say. You can only bend him so far back until he can’t take it no more and then his back breaks. People always put the book back on the shelf but you can always tell because neither the man nor the book can stand up straight any more after that.

Scheherezade told that Sultan all those stories and it kept her alive and me too.