The Free Genie

Trigger warning: This story contains a brief depiction of a suicide attempt.

1

Gene still couldn’t believe it had really happened. He couldn’t believe his master had been so selfless as to free a genie from his lamp. But the master had not been messing with Gene when he had made his third wish. He was being serious. And so, earlier that morning, Gene had uttered for the last time those terrible, terrible words: your wish is my command. He had never been happier to say them.

And now, after spending millennia inside a brass prison, only coming out to grant the wishes of others, Gene was finally free to do whatever he wished.

He started with a stroll through the park, where he found a sturdy bench, and had himself a nice sit, and just let the hours pass. He had never experienced a sitting as good as this. Sure, he’d done plenty of sitting in his dark lamp, but there was nothing to entertain the senses in there. Out here in the park, though, he had the freedom to watch the clouds sail through the azure sky. He could feel the breeze against his purple skin, could look at the trees and enjoy the music played by the birds.

At one point, a friendly dog ran up to him, and its owner let Gene pet it and even throw a stick for it to retrieve. The dog loved it, and so did Gene, because he hadn’t been commanded to do these things. He did them because he wanted to. It felt incredible.

“The world is so full of things to do and see,” Gene said to himself after the dog and its owner had continued on their way. “I think I should be very happy if I could sit here forever to experience its wonders.”

Just as he said this, his stomach began hurting very badly for no apparent reason. Gene was frightened at first. But soon, his human instincts, to which he was still adjusting, told him there was no cause for alarm; he was just hungry.

“I wish I had some food,” Gene said. Then he chuckled. “Ha! Listen to me, making wishes!” He smiled to himself for a time, then stopped. “But no, seriously, my stomach really hurts. I need some food.”

So, Gene got up from the bench, left the park, and walked to the city centre. Despite the intense hunger pangs, he couldn’t help marvelling at everything he saw—the tall buildings shimmering in the sunlight, the brightly coloured billboards smiling upon him, the happy motorcars whizzing by. When he came to a crosswalk, he was amazed that he could literally stop traffic with the mere push of a button. It made him feel like God.

As Gene reached the other side of the road, he was met by the smoky aroma of flame-grilled meat. His human body reacted in strange ways. For example, his mouth began watering completely involuntarily, and his stomach growled like it was an animal. It was really weird.

He followed his nose into a pub whose sign read ‘McGrady’s,’ where a stalky, balding, gruff-looking Irishman told him he could sit wherever he liked. Once Gene was seated, the man poured him a glass of water, then handed him a list of all the different foods the pub had on offer.

The man left for a time, and when he returned to take Gene’s order, Gene said, “I’d like a McGrady Burger with fries. Where do I go to prepare my meal?”

The man chuckled. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of that for you,” he said, shooting Gene a wink.

Gene smiled a wide, king-sized smile. Being free was just the best.

When the burger and fries came, Gene wolfed them down with gusto. By the time he swallowed the last bite, the pain in his stomach had miraculously disappeared.

Feeling satisfied, he rose from his seat and made for the door, waving goodbye to the nice man who had served him so kindly.

“Hey!” called the man. He came to Gene, holding out a slip of paper. “Don’t forget about your bill.”

Gene took the paper and observed it. It showed what he had eaten, along with some numbers that made no sense to him. He couldn’t see any reason for keeping a physical record of his meal, but he accepted the document to be polite.

“Thanks,” he said pleasantly, putting the paper in his pocket. “See ya.”

But as Gene turned to leave, the man put a firm hand on his shoulder. And when Gene turned to face him, he did not look happy.

“No,” the man said. “You gotta pay your bill.”

“Pay?” Gene said, tilting his head. “What is pay?”

The man’s face turned red, and he pointed a fat, grubby finger in Gene’s face. “Don’t get wise with me, you!”

“I’m not getting wise,” Gene said innocently. “I only became human this morning, you see, and I don’t understand very many things.”

The man lowered his finger, and his face returned to its normal shade of pink. “Oh, I didn’t realize,” he said apologetically. “Pay is what you do when someone provides you with a product or service. Basically, it means you gotta give me money for the food I gave you.”

Gene knew what money was, for a vast majority of his masters had wished for it. But once a master received his money, Gene would go back into his lamp, so he had never seen what was done with it.

He felt around in his pockets, hoping maybe his most recent master had slipped something in there, but he had not. “What happens if I can’t pay?” he asked.

“If you can’t pay, I call the cops, and you go to jail,” McGrady replied.

Gene also knew what jail was. Several of his masters had utilized his powers to wish themselves out of jail. And the thing he had noticed all jails had in common was that they severely lacked a general sense of freedom, which was the thing he desired most. Needless to say, jail was not a place Gene wanted to go.

He gulped. “Oh, dear. I’m afraid I don’t have any money. Is there any way to obtain it without wishing for it?”

The man smiled, as if Gene had said something amusing. “Most people work for it.”

“Oooh, what’s work?” Gene asked, his wide eyes filled with wonder. “It sounds like fun!”

The man’s smile grew. “Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.”

As it turns out, the man was old Paddy McGrady himself, the owner of the establishment. He said he had a guy quit on him that morning and could use someone with Gene’s positive attitude. He hired the former genie on the spot and got him waiting tables right away.

Gene caught on quickly and enjoyed the work at first. But by the time he was finished for the day, he was thinking it was not something he would want to do all the time, mostly because it was kind of repetitive, and a lot of the customers were rude.

When Gene’s shift was over, McGrady called him into the office at the back of the pub. Gene did some paperwork while the Irishman smoked a cigar and did some admin on his computer.

As Gene went to hand McGrady the filled-out forms, the old man said, “I want you here tomorrow at eleven.”

The forms fell from Gene’s hand. McGrady’s words sounded just like a command, and this gave Gene a terrifying flashback to when he was a genie. His chest tightened. It felt like the walls of the room were closing in on him. The smoky air was suddenly too thick to breathe.

“Gene?” McGrady said. “You ok?”

Gene blinked hard. “Yeah, I’m ok. I’m just not sure I understand. Do you mean to say I’m not free to come here and work whenever I please?”

McGrady laughed so hard he choked on the cigar smoke. “You naïve son of a bitch! No, that’s not how it works. I make the schedule, and you come in when it says.”

“And I have no choice in the matter at all?” Gene asked, still not quite understanding the concept.

McGrady explained how Gene could say if there were certain days or times when he couldn’t work, but other than that, he had to work when the schedule said. And he got five vacation days and five sick days a year, but the vacation ones had to be booked and approved in advance.

Also, he wouldn’t be paid immediately for the work he’d done that day. Instead, every other Friday, he would be issued something called a paycheck, which was equivalent to money, but it had to be, like, processed by a bank first, for some reason. McGrady then went on to explain Gene’s breaks, and how the length of them and whether Gene got paid for them depended on the length of his shift, or something.

By this point, Gene was just nodding along to get the conversation over with, because he didn’t understand any of it. All he knew was that nothing the pub owner was saying sounded like freedom. In fact, most of it sounded like the exact opposite of freedom. But if Gene had to adhere to McGrady’s wacky rules so he could eat food without going to jail, then that’s what he would do. Some freedom was better than no freedom.

2

The sky was dark by the time Gene left McGrady’s Pub. He went out to enjoy his free time exploring the twinkling city, but it wasn’t long before he was overcome by a new sensation that wasn’t hunger but was equally unpleasant. His head swam, and his legs seemed to resist his every effort to move them. His eyelids felt like they weighed five grams apiece, which might not sound very heavy, but by eyelid standards, it’s a considerable weight.

“Oh, what is this now?” he muttered as he trudged along the street, becoming more dazed by the second.

It wasn’t until he happened to see some beds through the window of a furniture store that he identified the sensation. “This must be what my masters meant when they spoke of being tired,” he said. “The remedy for this, as I recall, is sleep. I must go rest on one of those beds.”

He was so tired by now that he could barely lift his feet as he made his way through the furniture store. He collapsed onto the first bed he came to, and was asleep almost instantly.

He was awoken much too soon by the shrill, snarky voice of the store manager. “Excuse me. You can’t sleep there.”

Gene opened his eyes and looked up at the woman. She had a sharp face, and her hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. “I beg your pardon, Mindy,” he said drowsily, reading the woman’s nametag. “Is this pay?”

“I don’t understand your question,” Mindy said impatiently.

“Do you need to pay to sleep? Like how you have to pay to eat?”

“Well, no. You can fall asleep without paying a dime if you like, but if you want to sleep on a bed, you have to pay for the bed.”

Great. More rules. Just what Gene wanted.

He sighed as he sat up. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his tips from his shift at the pub. “Fine, here,” he said, throwing the money at Mindy. “Now let me sleep.”

“First of all, this isn’t nearly enough,” Mindy said as she gathered the money and threw it back at Gene. “And second, even if you could afford this bed, you can’t sleep in the store.”

Gene pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh my God,” he groaned.

“Yeah. You have to take the bed to your home and sleep on it there,” Mindy added.

Gene looked at the woman. “What’s a home?”

Something softened in Mindy, who was suddenly looking upon Gene not with annoyance but with pity. In nurturing tones, she told him she had a basement suite for rent under her house, and it could be his home, if he wanted. She said she was almost off and could drive him out there to look at it in half an hour. And if he agreed to rent the place, she would postpone his first month’s rent payment until he got paid by old man McGrady.

Gene accepted the offer and went to check out the place with Mindy after she closed shop. She gave Gene a tour of the basement suite, though there wasn’t really much to see. There was nothing in there but an old stove and refrigerator in the kitchen and the usual fixtures in the bathroom. In the bedroom where the tour ended, Gene stared down at a mattress that Mindy said couldn’t be sold at her store, but she wouldn’t say why.

Gene was too tired to care about the bareness of the place. His human body was exhausted, and all he could think of was sleep. He fell forward like a board onto the mattress, and as he was falling, he told Mindy he would take the place.

When he awoke the next morning, on the floor next to his mattress was his rental agreement, with a note saying for him to read and sign it. He took it into the kitchen to review it. The thing was ten pages long, the bulk of them containing lists of things he couldn’t do: no excessive noise, no smoking, no pets, no subletting, no painting the walls, no storing car tires outside.

“Wow, this is a lot of rules,” Gene commented.

He hadn’t even gotten halfway through the agreement by the time he had to leave for his shift at McGrady’s Pub. “I really wish I didn’t have to work today,” he said. But unlike yesterday when he’d wished for food in the park, this time, he did not laugh.

Gene’s second shift was more drudgesome than the first, the third was more drudgesome than the second, and so on. Customers constantly ordered Gene around and complained about the burgers being too hot, and McGrady grew increasingly frustrated with the pub’s slumping sales and often took it out on Gene for no good reason. But Gene endured it, much preferring the toil of a hard day’s work to the sting of an empty stomach.

The main thing that kept him going was knowing that payday would soon be here. He’d pay his rent, furnish his apartment, and, depending on how much was left over, he might book some vacation days and do some travelling.

But when payday came, Gene was flabbergasted when he opened his paycheck and saw his paystub. The amount on the check was not nearly as much as he had expected. “This can’t be right,” he said to himself. “I must see Mr. McGrady about this at once.”

He found his boss on the computer in the smoky office and said, “There has been a mistake with my paycheck, sir.”

McGrady stopped tapping on his keyboard and spun his chair to face Gene. “What’s the problem?”

“It says here that I worked thirty-seven-and-a-half hours last week, which is accurate. But then my take-home pay isn’t even six hundred dollars.”

“Yeah, and?” said McGrady, as if he didn’t see the problem.

“That’s ludicrous,” said Gene. “That’s not even half my rent.”

“That’s minimum wage,” came the reply. “When I hired you, you agreed to minimum wage plus tips.”

“I understand that,” said Gene, trying to remain calm. “But when I agreed to that, I assumed minimum wage was higher than this. I thought it meant, like, the minimum amount that could be considered fair.”

McGrady took a puff of his cigar. “And what would you consider fair?”

“Well, if you ask me, minimum wage should be enough that one week of work would at least cover one’s rent.”

McGrady smirked. “You naïve son of a bitch.” He said nothing more.

“So, this is really all I get?” Gene asked.

“That’s right.”

Gene stared down at his paycheck for a time, as if hoping the numbers might rearrange themselves into more agreeable figures. “I don’t see how I can live off this,” he murmured.

McGrady rose from his chair and placed a cold hand on Gene’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll find a way. You just need to budget.”

“Budget. . .” Gene repeated. “Yeah, I guess I can do that.”

When Gene got home that night, he looked up the word ‘budget’ in the dictionary. He did not like the sound of it at all. It did not sound like freedom. It sounded like he would be eating nothing but rice and would never get to do anything fun.

During the next months, Gene felt like he was living his life walking in circles, dragging a hundred pounds of chains behind him. Even if he had any disposable income to speak of, he wouldn’t have had the time to dispose of it as he pleased. Not between his job, the commute, the laundry, the grocery shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, and about a billion other things that had to get done.

His only respite came in the hour or two each night before bed when he could lie on his smelly mattress and scroll on his phone. But even this was not always relaxing. Sometimes, instead of a cute cat video or comedy skit, the algorithm would recommend videos providing Gene with glimpses into the lives of people who made more money in a day than he would make that year. He would watch them drive around in their fancy cars, sail the seas on their yachts, and travel to exotic locations. These videos filled Gene with immeasurable envy, for the people in these videos had achieved the level of freedom that he desired.

More months went by. More work, more chores, more bills, more debt, more scrolling, more envy, more links added to the chains around Gene’s neck.

His mental health was already in a tailspin on the day when McGrady called him into the men’s restroom for what he called “special duty.” And what he meant by that was that someone had clogged the toilet, causing it to overflow. They had also smeared excrement all over the bathroom stall—that was the worst part of it.

“But you didn’t hire me to clean excrement off the bathroom stall,” Gene pointed out when McGrady tried to hand him the rubber gloves and cleaning supplies.

“I hired you to do what I tell you to do,” came the bald-headed reply.

“No, you hired me to wait tables. You hired me to provide excellent customer service and bring our guests their meals before they get cold. And in these things, not once have I let you down.”

McGrady shoved the supplies into Gene’s chest. “Just do it.”

Gene rejected the supplies. “You’ll have to pay me more than minimum wage for the hour this will take me. I want double.”

“That’s not how this works,” the boss said with some heat. “Clean it up, or you’re fired. That’s how it works. Got it?”

Gene’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t afford to get fired. His budget was so tight that not working for even one day would leave him unable to pay his rent at the end of the month. He had no choice. He had to do what McGrady said.

With a mirthless smile, Gene accepted the cleaning supplies. “Your wish is my command.”

Gene was taken aback by his own words. He hadn’t meant to say the phrase he’d uttered countless times when he was a genie, the phrase he’d thought he’d never say again. It had just slipped out. But the words were fitting, because as Gene cleaned the bathroom stall, he felt no freer than when he’d been a prisoner in his lamp.

3

Come bedtime that night, Gene was feeling less free than ever. He went on his phone to destress, but nothing could soothe him. Even his go-to pick-me-up YouTube video—the one where David Letterman works the McDonald’s drive-thru—brought him no cheer.

The problem, he realized, was that his need for money drained him of so much of his time and energy that he couldn’t enjoy life for what it was. He thought back to his first morning as a human, when he’d sat on that park bench. More than anything in the world, he wanted to feel that way again.

“I wish there was a way to make money without working so much,” he said in sombre tones. Then, when he clicked on another video, an ad came up of a man standing in front of a luxury car and yelling loudly at the camera. This man claimed he could show Gene how to make thousands of dollars a month in something he called “passive income.” The more Gene listened, the more he felt that his wish had been granted.

He eagerly tapped on the ad and was taken to a website that explained how he could make money with no boss and no schedule by building an automated online business. And all he had to do was take an online course.

The course cost three hundred dollars, which was a lot of money to Gene. But all qualms he had about the fee evaporated when he read in the description that he would be able to achieve “financial freedom.” This was exactly what he had been searching for since taking the job at McGrady’s. Suddenly, three hundred dollars seemed a small price. In fact, it seemed like a no-brainer.

“Why isn’t everyone doing this?” Gene thought aloud. “Everyone’s a bunch of suckers except for me.”

Starting that week, he picked up extra hours at McGrady’s Pub until he had saved up enough for the course. Once he had paid for the course, he watched all the videos and followed all the instructions to a T. A month later, he had made five thousand dollars in passive income, just like the yelling man in the ad had promised.

This new stream of income offered Gene much more freedom than his job at McGrady’s, which he quit. He now had plenty of money to furnish his home, and plenty of time to travel and experience the world. He enjoyed living off his passive income very much.

At least, he enjoyed it for a time. As he reached his first birthday as a human, he noticed that he still didn’t feel truly free. Somehow, despite his comfortable income, he didn’t feel quite the same as he had on that park bench. Several times, he had returned to the park, hoping to recapture that feeling, but it just wasn't the same.

He spent a lot of time thinking about true freedom and how to attain it, but he struggled to find any answer. Then, one morning, inspiration struck him as he was preparing some avocado toast.

“Of course!” he said as he mashed the avocados. “If a few thousand dollars a month makes me feel freer than minimum wage, then it would stand to reason that tens of thousands would make me feel even freer.”

As Gene took the first bite of avocado toast, another bolt of inspiration struck him. He knew exactly how he would multiply his income: he would create his own course on how to make easy money. He would be the man standing in front of the luxury car. He would be the man yelling way too enthusiastically at the camera. And he would be the man collecting three hundred dollars from every student who enrolled in his course.

Designing the course was a surprisingly easy task, since Gene’s experience as a genie gave him many insights into the desires of man—and how to exploit them. For one, Gene knew that humans are only ever interested in the outcome, never the process. When you ask them what they want, they always say something like, “I want to be rich” instead of “I want to develop a talent that could make me rich in five to ten years if I work really hard at it.” So, he made sure each lesson in his course promised to provide results rather than skills and knowledge.

Gene also knew that humans never take the blame for their misfortunes (whenever a wish backfired, the master always blamed Gene). So, he ran ads that fed into people’s victim mentality. For example, he would start some ads by claiming that his target audience was being “held down” by an unidentifiable group of people called “they.” And Gene promised to tell his students things that “they” didn’t want them to know.

Most importantly, Gene knew that people wanted happiness more than anything. Based on this knowledge, he littered his ads and web copy with expressions that suggested a happy life but were vague enough that people could interpret them in the most favourable way possible. Things like “live the life you were meant to live” and “be who you’ve always wanted to be.”

Within a year, the course was attracting enough students that Gene was making forty-five thousand dollars a month. He moved out of Mindy’s basement and into a luxurious penthouse that overlooked the city centre.

Some mornings, he would stand at the window in his velvet bathrobe and drink his coffee while viewing the city, knowing that somewhere in his field of vision was McGrady’s Pub. He would look down on the pub and think about his former employer. He liked to picture the old man on his hands and knees in the bathroom, scrubbing excrement off the floor.

Sure, he was the owner of a somewhat successful pub. But how much could he be making? Certainly not six figures after you accounted for all the expenses. And he worked a lot harder than Gene, who hadn’t made a single update to his course since it launched. The really sad thing was that McGrady probably thought he was doing pretty well for himself. And whenever Gene thought about McGrady’s pathetic situation, he would shake his head contemptuously and say, “You naïve son of a bitch.”

In addition to moving into the penthouse, Gene bought a luxury car, wore nothing but tailored suits, and often splurged on things like a ten-thousand-dollar bottle of scotch and a solid gold skillet. When Gene had ordered this latter item, he hadn’t realized it was too heavy to be practical—it weighed, like, literally thirty pounds—and the metal was so soft that it deformed the first time he used it. But Gene had enough money that he didn’t even care.

But being carefree, Gene realized, was not the same as being park-bench free. If he was being honest with himself, once he had acclimated to his new income, he wasn’t even sure he felt any freer at 45K a month than he had at 5K.

Because with his higher income came new, unexpected rules to follow. These weren’t the same kinds of rules that McGrady and Mindy had made him follow—and while nobody in particular was forcing him to follow these new rules, he felt compelled to follow them nonetheless. For example, he frequently interacted with other businessmen and felt an illogical need to prove he belonged among them by wearing the trendiest brands, schmoozing the right people, and constantly buying new phones. And he now had a public image to maintain. That was a new thing he could say he didn’t care for at all. It was all so horridly restricting.

One night, as Gene was contemplating his lack of freedom, he had an epiphany. “I must not be making enough money,” he told himself. “Perhaps if I were to make a million dollars. . .” He thought about how frequently his masters had wished for this sum of money. Perhaps they somehow knew this was the exact amount it took to achieve true freedom.

“Yes,” he declared. “I must become a millionaire. Only then will I be free.”

In the weeks and months that followed, Gene created more online courses, added some real estate to his portfolio, and invested in several companies, including one whose stock skyrocketed. A year to the day after promising himself he would become a millionaire, he had accomplished his goal.

But as with his previous increases in income, the feeling of freedom that came with being a millionaire did not last long.

Naturally, Gene decided he must become even richer, and he aggressively put his money to work for him. By far his most successful venture was his funding of the development of a method for making the wheels for luggage at a low cost without sacrificing quality. These wheels became the industry standard, with every major luggage company adopting the technology. As a result, within a few short years, Gene’s net worth was over a hundred million dollars.

He had a great many employees working beneath him and a large team of assistants who attended to his every demand. He owned a mansion, dozens of summer homes, and a fleet of luxury cars. He had travelled to every country he had ever wanted to visit. He had become the kind of person who had evoked so many pangs of jealousy in the deepest recesses of his heart when he was making minimum wage.

Yet, every night as he lay on his luxury-brand canopy bed, he still longed for the feeling he’d experienced that morning on the park bench.

“I don’t understand it,” he said into the darkness of his bedroom one night. “I played the game of life the way you’re supposed to, and I won. So then why don’t I feel free?”

He was no longer so foolish as to believe that more money was the answer. But at the same time, he could see no other possible solution. “I suppose,” he said with a shudder, “there is no such thing as true freedom.”

After having this realization, he became more and more depressed with each passing day, until he started wishing his master hadn’t freed him from his lamp in the first place. At least when he was a genie, he could lighten the mood in dark times by assuming the form of a celebrity and making a reference. But now he couldn’t even do that.

He hated being a human.

Now, if you yourself have been a human for any considerable length of time, you’ve almost certainly thought about killing yourself at least once or twice. And that’s where Gene found himself on the night of his sixth birthday. He simply couldn’t endure another day of the countless rules, laws, and social pressures that dictated his every move.

He went to the safe in his bedroom closet, retrieved his handgun, and shot himself in the head. But, to his chagrin, the bullet did no damage as it passed clear through his skull, as if he had taken on a ghost-like quality for a split second after firing.

Though he knew genies couldn’t kill, he had hoped he could end his life now that he was human. But alas, there must have been trace amounts of genie essence coursing through his blood. Therefore, no matter what method he chose, he could not take his own life. He would have to wait to die of natural causes.

“It’s funny,” he said, completely devastated. “People act like death is the scariest thing in the world. But honestly, not being able to die is so much worse.”

In the following weeks, all of Gene’s time and effort were spent on speeding up the natural death process. He engaged in various heart-attack-inducing activities like bungee jumping and skydiving, and he ate bacon for every meal. But it still felt like it was taking forever to die.

Then, one morning as he was in bed scrolling through Instagram, he saw a picture of a man building a well in a developing country. According to the caption, he was doing some kind of volunteer work.

“There’s something familiar about that man,” Gene said to himself. He zoomed in on the photo. “Is that. . . my master?”

Almost everything about the man had changed. He had lost a lot of weight, his stylish undercut had been shaven clean off, and his designer suit had been replaced by rags. But the man’s dark, expressive eyes were the same; there was no mistaking that.

As Gene recognized the man, he suddenly remembered something of great importance. Although genies couldn’t kill themselves, he was pretty sure he had heard somewhere that their masters could do the deed.

Gene gazed at the photo for a moment longer. “I will go to him, and I will ask him to put me out of my misery.”

4

The master had provided the name of the village where he was volunteering in the comments, and Gene took his private jet there without delay. The land in this part of the country was so barren that the pilot was able to land right next to the impoverished village.

Naturally, this attracted the villagers’ attention, and dozens of people stood gazing at Gene’s jet as he disembarked. But one face was missing from the crowd.

“Where is my master?” Gene asked the man who stood at the front of the crowd. He was a head taller than the next-tallest villager, and Gene assumed him to be the village’s chief.

The chief said something in a language Gene did not understand. Gene took out his phone and showed the chief the image of his master from Instagram. The chief nodded and motioned for Gene to follow him.

Gene was led along a dusty road past some grazing goats and some children carrying water. Soon he came upon a small mud-brick hut, which the chief pointed to.

Gene walked up to the hut and ducked through the low entrance. Inside, the hut was dim and empty except for a few handmade jugs on the floor and Gene’s former master, who sat cross-legged on a cushion, his hands resting on his knees, his eyes closed.

“Hello, Gene,” the master said without opening his eyes.

“How did you know it was me?” Gene asked.

“I could sense your essence,” came the easy reply. The master opened his dark eyes. His hair was bedraggled, his clothes were ragged, and his skin was dirty. But his eyes were the eyes of a man at peace with himself. “I also sense you are unwell. What troubles you?”

“What troubles me,” Gene began, “is that I wish to die, but being a genie, I cannot kill myself.”

“And so you have come here to ask me to kill you?”

“Yes, that’s what I was hoping.”

The master’s expression remained unchanged. “I cannot kill you, Gene.”

“You could try. I heard somewhere that masters can kill their genies. And even though you are technically no longer my master, I think it’s worth a shot.”

“Let me rephrase my response,” the master said. “I will not kill you.”

“But you must! I can’t stand being alive another minute.”

The master’s eyes sank into Gene’s. “Why are you so miserable? Why do you wish to die?”

“Because death is a much kinder fate than this terrible fate you’ve given me,” Gene said, pointing an accusing finger at his master. “You wished for my freedom in a world where freedom is impossible.”

The master remained as calm as a wet stone. “How do you know it’s impossible?”

“Because I’ve made more money than I know what to do with. I’ve made millions upon millions. I have enough money to buy anything I want, go anywhere I want, and see whatever I want. And I still don’t feel free.”

The master smiled gently and shook his head. “You naïve son of a bitch.”

Gene furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Let me ask you something,” the master said. “How much of your wealth have you shared?”

“I’ve shared plenty,” said Gene defensively, not liking the implication that he was greedy. “I pay my workers well enough, and I make charitable donations on behalf of my corporation.”

“Yes, but do you pay your workers because you want to or because you have to? And do you make those donations out of the goodness of your heart, or to get a tax break and enhance your corporation’s public image?” The master’s eyes bore into Gene’s. “How much of your wealth have you shared of your own free will?”

Gene opened his mouth, but no words came out. He just stood there in silence for a minute, for he’d never really thought about this. How much of his wealth had he really shared freely?

“I suppose I would have to say. . . none,” he said. This was followed by another silence. “But what should that matter?”

The master kept his deep, unblinking gaze on his genie. “You’ve been hoarding your wealth, Gene. I know because I did the same thing after you granted my wish for immense wealth, and my eyes held the same emptiness that yours hold now. But I came to realize that the only reason people hoard anything—whether it be objects, power, or money—is because they’re afraid of losing it. And if you’re afraid, you cannot be free.”

Gene stared at his master in disbelief. Could he be speaking the truth? “Master, do you mean to say that if I want to be free, I should. . . give my money away?” Gene could scarcely believe he was asking such a ridiculous question, that he was actually entertaining the idea that less wealth meant more freedom. It went against everything the yelling man in the ad had told him.

“Yes, Gene,” the master replied. “If you want to be free, you must relinquish your iron grip on your gold. It’s the only way.”

“I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” said Gene, “but at this point, I’m willing to try anything to end this slow, painful hell that I am living. I will take your advice into consideration.”

The master closed his eyes and resumed his meditation. “I wish you all the best, Gene.”

Gene bid his master goodbye and turned to leave. But as he stepped toward the door, something stopped him. He hadn’t thought of it until now, but there was something he needed to know.

He turned back to the master. “Pardon me, but may I ask you a question?”

“Yes,” the master answered with closed eyes.

“Why did you wish me free of my lamp?”

The master took a deep breath. “Because I was facing the turmoil that you face now. And, like you, I thought suicide was the only way out. I was going to use my third wish to ask for a quick, painless death. But then, remembering that genies cannot kill, I decided to use my last wish to do something good for someone else, so I wished for your freedom. And you were so thankful and happy that it aroused a wonderfully warm feeling inside me, which made me think, ‘If I am capable of feeling this way, I don’t want to die.’ So, instead of committing suicide, I started using my wealth to grant other people’s wishes. And I did this without asking for anything in return.”

Gene smiled at the irony. “Just like a genie.”

The master raised a finger. His eyes were still closed this whole time, by the way. “Except unlike a genie, I wasn’t forced to help anyone. I’ve found that giving to others feels a hundred times better when you do it by choice.”

These words unlocked something inside Gene. A tiny part of him thought that maybe his former master was right. Was it possible that this bedraggled man dressed in rags knew more of freedom than the world’s best-dressed billionaires?

There was only one way to find out, and Gene was willing to try it.

He nodded to show his acknowledgement of what the master had said. But then he remembered the master could not see him nodding, for his eyes were still closed. So, he said “Yes,” but that sounded weird to him, to only say yes after the long speech the master had given. And so, not knowing what else to do, he just kind of awkwardly backed out of the hut and returned to his jet.

On the flight home, Gene phoned his COO and informed him that he wanted to give all his minimum-wage employees a raise.”

“Are you sure?” asked Bradford. “That’s going to eat into the profits.”

“I don’t care,” said Gene. “I’m trying something.”

“Ok, if you’re sure. . .” said the doubtful voice on the other end of the call. “How much of a raise are we talking, here?”

It was at this point that Gene realized he hadn’t thought this through, like, at all. He really should have thought more about this before calling Bradford. But he was on the spot now and had to give an answer.

Then it came to him: he should follow his own rule for what he had considered a fair wage years ago, when Paddy McGrady had put the question to him. “They should be paid whatever amount will make it so that one forty-hour work week is sufficient to cover their rent.”

“That’s impossible, sir.”

“Nothing is impossible,” Gene said. “My master taught me that.” But as the words came out, he couldn’t remember if the master had actually said this. He had said so many things. But Gene was sure he’d heard the expression somewhere.

“What if we reduced my salary?” Gene suggested. “What if we made my salary such that forty hours of work is just enough for me to pay my rent on my penthouse and summer homes? And if I have to, I’ll sell a few of my summer homes—No! I’ll give them away!”

“Ok, hold on. Let’s slow down,” Bradford said, picking up on Gene’s somewhat maniacal tone. “First of all, if you did what you’re proposing, you’d only be making twenty or thirty times what your lowest-paid employees make.”

“Ok. And how many times them do I make now?”

“I don’t have the numbers right in front of me, but I’d estimate it’s six or seven hundred.”

“Jesus Christ!” Gene exclaimed. “Yeah, let’s try cutting that back a little and see what happens.”

“But, sir,” Bradford said nervously. “Your social standing—”

“Oh, never mind that!” Gene spat. “I’m trapped inside a miserable life, and sharing my wealth may be the only way to free myself.”

There was a pause before Bradford spoke. “Ok. I’ll see what I can do.”

It took quite some time for the change to be instigated, what with all the admin involved, but eventually the day came when Gene’s minimum-wage employees got their first paychecks under his new fair wage initiative.

That weekend, Gene’s inbox was flooded with thank-you emails from his employees.

Gene opened one at random, which read:

Dear Mr. Puffinpoof,

I know you’re a busy man, but I hope you will give me a moment of your time so I can thank you for your generosity. Life has been hard for my family these past few years. I felt like I was a bad husband and father. Some days, I didn’t know how I would keep a roof over my son’s head, never mind sending him to college. Ronaldo’s a sweet boy, and thanks to you, he now has the bright future he deserves.

I felt like I was living in a cage of debt. Thank you for unlocking the door and setting me free.

Really, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much.

Included with the email was a photo of the man, smiling and holding his paystub proudly, standing with his wife and little Ronaldo, who were holding a homemade banner that said 'THANK YOU' in big, red letters. There was a glimmer in the man’s eyes, and in it, Gene could see the same lightness he’d felt on the park bench on the day he’d been released from his lamp.

Seeing this glimmer in the man’s eye—and knowing he was the one who put it there—ignited inside Gene a feeling that burned even brighter than what he’d felt that first morning in the park.

And with each email he read, the feeling burned brighter and brighter until it became clear that this feeling was what Gene had been searching for all these years. Finally, he was free.