You have three magic genie wishes, what are you asking for?
The genie blinked, rubbing his eyes as if he’d just woken from centuries of sleep.
“Three wishes,” he said, stretching his arms. “Anything you want.”
I looked at him — this weary servant of human desire — and said, “I don’t want anything for myself.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Everyone says that, until they remember their mortgage.”
But I meant it.
“I wish for justice,” I said. “For children to wake without fear of bombs or hunger. For people to be treated fairly, and for power to be used to heal, not harm.”
The genie nodded slowly. “That’s heavy for a first wish.”
“I wish for mercy,” I continued. “For hearts that choose compassion over cynicism, forgiveness over fault-finding. For us to see one another not as threats, but as family.”
He sighed — the kind of sigh that comes from watching the world too long.
“And the third?”
“I wish for humility. For leaders who listen. For people who serve quietly. For a world that remembers it is not God.”
The genie closed his hands around the words, and for a moment the air shimmered — not with gold or glitter, but with something like peace.
He smiled. “You know,” he said, “if everyone wished like that, I’d be out of a job.”
The Afterword 
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