Here's a story I wrote around a picture of a silver Aladdin's Lamp.
The Brown Papered Package
It was just an ordinary Sunday. Jane, as her manner was, drank her coffee slowly to savor the warmth that the cup gave to her cold morning fingers. Holding the brew below her nose, she breathed in its aroma. Ummm, it smelled so good. The air in the room began to get warmer as the thermostat clicked up the winter heat. She looked outside the window and saw the sun's rise burning the atmosphere a quiet red which changed gradually into a soft yellow as it rose above the backyard neighbor's trees.
It was one of the quiet times of the day and Jane thought, "another day". And with that thought came the realization that it may be a day just like yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. But that was okay because, like she agreed with her mother, "it's better to have a boring day" than one they had a few years back. They never wanted to have another day like that one when her mother was having a heart attack and they found themselves in the emergency room waiting to hear if a triple by-pass would be performed. So, yes, a boring day was a good day. All was well.
Ding dong!
Who can that be? Jane put her mug down on the side table and raised herself off the corner of her couch. It's too early for anyone she knew to be at the front door. Everyone she knew understood she wasn't ready to talk on the phone much less in person until at least 11 a.m. And besides, it's Sunday. Good grief!
She walked barefoot over her cold, wood floors to her front door hoping it wasn't bad news. How can it be good news this early in the morning from a stranger? Opening the door carefully, ready to slam it shut quickly if it was a burglar or someone that looked even remotely strange, she was puzzled because no one was there. However, a brown wrapped package had been placed on the brick stoop. She looked up and down the street for any sign of a delivery truck or a person running away. But again, there was no one. She opened the door wider and stepped out into the frigid air, bent down, and grabbed the package. Holding it close to her chest she closed the door, turned around, and walked back to her couch where she sat with the box in her lap. She reached over and grabbed her lukewarm cup of coffee and drank it down to the dregs.
She noticed that there was no label on the brown paper. That was a little scary. But Jane didn't hear a ticking sound coming from inside the wrapping nor any other sound so she decided to rip off the packing. What was revealed was a simple, brown box with a lid. She took the lid off with a bit of apprehension but Jane began to feel excited. What she saw was a beautiful jeweled box about a foot long and about a hand's length wide. Every color of gem dazzled her eyes. They couldn't be real, she thought. It would be worth a fortune! From the box alone she could pay off her mortgage, buy a new car or do anything she had ever wanted to do. The Bucket List she had taped to her fridge after her mother had died could finally be taken seriously. Could see really go to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower in person and not just in travel magazines? Could she actually stand in the midst of the huge rocks at Stonehenge and have a "religious experience" like her mother said she had when she traveled there twenty-odd years ago?
She opened the lid of the box with her thumbs and looked inside. Nestled on a deep red velvet fabric was a silver lamp. She reached inside and carefully brought it out. The surface was intricately engraved with swirling designs and it had a long, thin spout. It wasn't cold. She had expected it to be as cold as the great outdoors but it was neither cold nor hot.
But it was heavy and radiated its own energy as if to say, "Rub me"!
"What?" Jane said out loud to the lamp which looked like something out of the Arabian Nights.
"You've got to be kidding me, right?"
The lamp seemed to reply, "Rub me and find out."
"Oh come on!"
Jane stared at the object. It was as if she was hearing the lamp's thoughts. She dropped it like a hot potato back into its box and closed the lid. Throwing the box on the couch she jumped up and almost ran into her bedroom slamming the door behind her. She took her pajamas off and got into the shower and began washing her hair.
This has to be some kind of a practical joke. I need to get a hold of myself.
As she lathered up her hair for the second time she closed her eyes and tried to think of who could be behind this silly gag. It must be Regina, her weekend coworker at Starbucks. Hadn't they just been talking about what they would wish for if they had gotten a magic lamp? But it had just been a bunch of girlish daydreaming during a lull in espresso.
Before she got out of the shower she wrapped a towel around her wet head and then proceeded to dry off her body with her second towel that hung on the towel rod. Lotion was then applied to her long limbs, arms, and cheeks. The ritual continued with "putting on her face". Walking back into her bedroom she almost fell over herself as she saw the box on her rumpled bedsheets.
"Whoa!"
Clutching the towel around her body she tip-toed to her bedroom door that was now open and looked down the hall. No one there. She cocked her head to one side but she didn't hear anything out of the ordinary.
"How did you get here?" she screamed at the box from the doorway.
"Rub me," it answered.
Okay, this was getting creepy. She picked up the box, closed the lid firmly once more, and carried it at arm's length, as if it was a stinky pair of shoes, out to the foyer. She opened the front door and placed it back on the front stoop.
"There!" she exclaimed as she wiped her hands of its annoyance and locked the door.
Back down the hall to her room, she whistled a happy tune and breathed a sigh of relief. Whoever put that box on her doorstep could come back and get it for all she cared. Or it could stay there and rot or disappear. She wouldn't be surprised if the box could vanish in a puff of smoke only to materialize at someone elses' house looking all bored, wrapped in plain grocery brown bag paper, and whisper 'rub me'.
She took the towel from her body and hung it up over the shower curtain rod to dry. Next, she removed the towel from around her head. Looking in the mirror she decided she didn't look too bad for a forty-something-year-old, divorced but looking single, white female.
"Wait a minute", she said to her reflection, "you sound like an ad in the personals".
She scrunched up her face and stuck her tongue out at herself. "Get a grip!"
Ding dong!
"Now what?" she moaned.
She grabbed her terry cloth robe from the hook on the back of her bathroom door and stomped down the hall to the front door and yanked it open, ready to give someone a piece of her mind. But there was no one there.
"Again?" she cried out into the empty front yard. "This isn't funny."
Lying over her black wrought iron railing was what looked like someone else's dry cleaning.
"Okay. What's going on here?" she asked no one in particular.
The box was gone.
Shaking her head she closed the door and brought the garment with her down the hall. Once again she stood in her bedroom with a renewed notion that the day was going to be anything but boring. She could see no tag on the hanger, no name anywhere. Jane could see through the plastic covering that it was a very expensive dress. She took it off the hanger and held it up for inspection. She walked to her floor-length mirror and held it up to herself.
Hmmm. Not bad.
"Try it on."
"Okay."
Jane whipped around where she stood and said, "Wait. What? Who said that?"
"Guess."
Jane looked on her bed.
"It's you again! I thought I put you out."
"You did but I came back in. Put the dress on."
"No!"
"I thought you'd like it," suggested the voice in her head but was really from the box.
"Well it is pretty," she conceded as she looked at it again in the mirror.
If you can't fight 'em join 'em, Jane thought as she dropped her robe at her feet and drew the dress over her head. It settled around her figure as if it was tailored to fit all her ins and outs. She looked slim, young, and fetching in a sophisticated sort of way.
"If there's a Genii in the lamp then come out so we can talk person to Genii!"
She picked up the lamp inside the box and rubbed it. What could go wrong? If she was crazy, then so be it.
But nothing happened.
She rubbed it again more vigorously.
Nothing.
Ding dong!
"Dang it! Now what?"
Jane was getting irritated at the silent lamp. She had finally given in and rubbed the darn thing and absolutely nothing had happened. She had a fleeting comical thought that maybe she was in a dream of which she would wake up if she only knew the magic words.
"Abracadabra!'
Nope. Nothing. Nada. She was still in the dress and still walking to the front door and she was still opening it for the umpteenth time.
"Bob?! What are you doing here?"
Bob worked with Jane at her "real job" during the week at a perfectly boring company that employed boring people to enter boring information into its database. The office was made up of individually decorated cubicles that separated the wheat from the chaff. All the exceptional programmers, like Bob, had bigger cubicles by the outer windows. Jane daydreamed that one day she would have a window next to her desk. It would be fab.
Bob pushed his glasses up his tiny, straight nose and remained glued to the spot with a dazed expression plastered on his freckled face.
"Bob, what are you doing here?" Jane reiterated in slow, precise words.
"Um, wow . . . you look . . . gorgeous!!"
Jane tilted her head and asked, "Really?"
"Really."
Bob was confused at the stirrings in his chest and thought maybe he was having a spasm. He had to admit to himself that it didn't feel all that bad.
"I forgot to put this on your desk Friday."
He was holding a manila envelope in his hand. He handed it to Jane and when she reached for it a tiny electrical charge ran up her arm.
She was startled but not unpleasantly and replied, "You could have called first."
"I tried three times but your phone went straight to voicemail. I hope you don't mind."
"Hmm. That's weird. I never heard my phone ring. Would you like to come in?"
Bob was a bit flabbergasted but said yes and found himself seated in Jane's tiny kitchen at her little table.
"Can I get you a cup of coffee?"
"Sure."
Jane poured him a cup and brought over a spoon, the sugar, and creamer.
"I'll be right back," she said.
Jane carried the envelope to her bedroom, sat on the edge of her mattress, and ripped it open.
In bold capital letters on one sheet of plain light brown paper were the words . . . WISH GRANTED.
"What?"
"Wish granted," came the voice of the lamp.
"Wish granted?"
"Yes."
"What do you mean?"
"You wished for happiness."
"Huh?"
"You wished for happiness. Remember?"
And she did remember. She could picture herself with Regina at the Starbuck's counter talking, just yesterday, about what they would wish for if a silly thing like a Genii showed up in their life.
"Hold on! Are you telling me that the wish I made yesterday is coming true?"
And then she remembered something else. Regina had a nickname at work. Some called her Geeny.
"Yes, that is what I am showing you. He's sitting in your kitchen right now and you are dressed to go out to lunch."
"Lunch? He hasn't asked me to go to lunch."
"He will."
All of a sudden an awful sound blurted out into the room and wouldn't quit. On and on it went until Jane reached over and slammed her hand down on the off button. She opened her eyes and looked at her alarm clock. It read 9 a.m.
"Huh? Phew! It was all a ridiculous dream after all," Jane said to herself and stretched while thinking that her mother would have loved to have heard about this one. What a doozie! They used to call each other up in the morning and tell each other their ridiculous dreams trying to figure out their meaning.
Jane threw the covers off, got out of bed, went to the bathroom first, and then shuffled to the kitchen to start her cup of coffee. Two level teaspoons of sugar and two level teaspoons of non-dairy powdered creamer made it just right. Her day was starting to look like any ordinary, boring day and she smiled just thinking about it.
"I'll take it!" she said out loud as she brought the hot cup to her lips.
Ding dong!
"What?"
For a fleeting moment, Jane thought about quickly combing her bed head and splashing her puffy eyes with cold water. But who cares? Whoever or whatever was at her front door on a Sunday morning would just have to take her "as is", robe, coffee breath, bed head and all.
When she opened the door there was Bob.
Deja vu, anyone?
"Bob! What are you doing here?"
Bob stood transfixed with a "who are you" expression on his face. He had never seen Jane look like this, all crumpled and slept in. In a flash, he saw his future. This was a woman he could live with for the rest of his life. He saw his children in her terry cloth dishevelment and her tangled hair. She never looked so beautiful standing there still holding her cup of coffee.
Jane looked at Bob. She couldn't ignore the flutters in her stomach that also went down her spine and back up again. She felt a flush wash over her face. What is happening?
After a moment's silence, Jane asked Bob, "Would you like to come in?"
"Uh . . . sure. By the way, I thought I would drop this envelope off on my way to grab breakfast. It looked important. You left it on your desk at work on Friday. I took the liberty of picking it up. I remembered this morning and brought it straight over because it said 'Urgent' so . . . "
"Thanks. Would you like a cup of coffee while I put something on?"
"You look beautiful just the way you are," he blurted out before he knew what he was saying.
Did she hear him right?
"Um . . . thanks . . . I think. I'll only be a minute. Help yourself. Cups are in the cabinet above the coffeemaker."
Jane took the envelope to her bedroom and ripped it open hoping she wasn't getting fired. On a white sheet of plain paper were the words in capital letters . . . WISH GRANTED! . . . love, Geeny.
She shook her head and smiled. No use arguing with Fate. Jane got dressed and went back into the kitchen.
Bob asked her, "Would you like to grab breakfast with me?"
Jane looked into his big blue eyes that were way beyond boring and said, "I do."
(image courtesy of the web)
(c)nancy 4.7.2016
No comments:
Post a Comment