The opening

The children’s book you always wanted to read. If you are a child – lucky you! If you are an adult – don’t worry. You may be an adult but still not be a grown-up, as being a grown-up is how you feel inside. If this joyous child with eyes wide open still lives inside you and IS you, you have never become an adult, no matter how many years other people say you have lived. In this case, lucky you! This children’s book is exactly for you.

A Creation Story

In the very beginning, Genies were meant to help people and enhance them, to give them “powers” coming from other realms, other dimensions. In a way, people would have been superhumans working with the Genies. But their story took some unexpected turn, well several actually.

First, Genies became really bored with early humans. They wanted to help mankind apply telepathy, but the Neanderthals had barely any thoughts passing through their mind other than what to eat, when to sleep and how to NOT listen to their wife who had just discovered how to speak and was already abusing that skill. Early humans’ most abstract thought back then was: “Can I outrun this dinosaur and reach my cave before it eats me?” Some people would argue that when there were dinosaurs, there weren’t yet people. Well, let them argue.

So, Genies were getting bored by the hour. This was quite common as since they came into existence they were very joyous, smart, always laughing and very intelligent creatures. But then was the moat - they were connected with humans. They couldn’t escape their world fully and just live in other realms. They didn’t possess the ability to become fluffy like angels. That is why in order to spice up their lives and relieve the boredom, Genies started playing tricks on humans.

How are they doing this? As you know, there is a whole world that most people can’t see. It’s the world of angels, elementals, dwarfs, elves, and fairies. They live on the same Earth people do, just one to five degrees to the left on the quantum axis. Some not so friendly creatures also live on the right of the quantum axis – but luckily, there are not many of them. The ones who can see these worlds almost all the time are… children. That’s the reason why they have what adults call “imaginary” friends. But the reality is that these friends are not imaginary at all. They are as real as the table leg where you hit your pinky toe and cry like a baby from the pain. However, nobody believes children in this upside-down world of humans, right?

Because of the unavoidable pressure to fit into society, when children are growing up they slowly start to forget the amazing world they once belonged to. When they become adults, just like their parents, they also begin teaching their children that what they see is “imaginary”.

The world of angels, Genies and other creatures is fluffy. It’s mostly made of light, and not even your smallest pinky finger can touch it. This probably explains the typical adult response: “If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist”. Which, if you give it some thought, is ironic and childish. You can’t see air, but you breathe air. Yes, you can argue this, but unless you live in a huge polluted city then it still goes that it can’t be seen. You can’t see gravity, but our feet don’t leave the Earth because of it, not to mention the countless ‘other’ things that are steady on the ground because of it. How about love? You can’t see love, but you can feel it, and everyone knows it exists.

“So, what is real in this world, dear adults?” a Genie asks.

The Tricks

“How do Genies play tricks on humans when they live in this ethereal world?” people wonder.

The answer is that Genies are the only creatures that are connected to our world. In fact, they are connected to humans’ subconscious or their superconscious. Here, another question comes to mind: What is subconscious and superconscious?

Remember when you were angry at your sister because she had just told you that you were a schmuck or a sissy? At that moment, you wanted to throw a chair or even a knife at her. But you didn’t because you knew you were going to hurt her. Later, you felt sorry about not doing it. It goes like this: the voice telling you to throw the chair is the subconscious. The other voice telling you not to do it because it’s bad is the conscious. Sometimes, if you listen very carefully and go past your current feelings, you may hear the other, small voice, telling you would rather forgive her, chill out and enjoy life even if she is right about you being a schmuck or a sissy. That’s how the superconscious works.

Genies work with the subconscious or superconscious. That is how they communicate with humans without them even knowing – and this is the same reason people first started seeing ghosts. As you know, there are no ghosts (even though there are dwarfs, fairies, angels, and elves). The very first record people have of “seeing” a ghost was at night when the members of a tribe sat in their cave, keeping warm by the fire. There were several Genies playing around. They had covered their heads with a piece of white cloth. They were fooling around, calling at each another jokingly “booo, booo, booo” which means “brother” in their language. Then a little child saw them, got scared and began to cry, pointing at the Genies.

At that very moment, one of the women who had more open mind and heart saw a shadow lurking in the corners of the cave with her superconscious. This shadow looked to her exactly like her grandfather who had died a couple of days ago. For a few seconds, she stood there in the middle of the cave, petrified of horror, barely able to move her lips. Suddenly, she started screaming: “Go out, go out!”

Maybe as a result of the severe emotional shock, she was moving and speaking in slow motion and her words sounded more like “go-o-oust, go-o-oust”. Everyone frantically ran out of the cave. In the morning, they told the story of the “go-o-oust” to their friends who told the story to their friends and so on. That night the first “ghost” was born.

As you can imagine, this was a breakthrough for the Genies. They had found a new trick to play on humans. Oh, what joy and laughter it brought to them! This day goes down in Genies’ history as the most productive and happiest.

Genies’ Skills and Abilities

Genies, same as humans, have many, many different abilities and skills. Some are easier to master, others - not so much but all are quite extraordinary even for the fairy world of dwarfs, elves, and unicorns. One can immediately notice that Genies’ faces can change color. Usually, their skin color is the same as that of a human, but when their emotions change drastically, their face color changes with that emotion. When Genies are blue, they are, you guessed right, sad. That’s how this expression came into the world of humans – when you are sad, you feel blue. Of course, a red color shows the heat of anger and when a Genie goes pink in the face, he is overwhelmed by true happiness and joy. Black face color expresses great sadness. Yellow shows that one is feeling mischievous and impatient to play a prank. This Genie is set on planning and playing tricks for the rest of the day. Orange says a Genie is thinking about something abstract. Green... well, this means nothing good really, so it’s given no notice. But just so you know, green is for the feeling when Genies have eaten something bad and want to vomit.

Genies can control their face color. If they want, they can always “keep a poker face”. This means that they can keep their natural color, but most of the time they do not because they are joyous and honest creatures who prefer to show what they feel and say what they think. Sometimes, there are rare Genies who can be compared to what people call a “crazy person”. These Genies are very different and communicate with other Genies in a rather strange manner.

However, the Genies do not isolate them by locking them up in homes, away from other people. In the Genie city, they adore them, consider them very wise and honor them. Something interesting about these Genies is that most of the time their face is set in all the colors of the rainbow, a rainbow that moves and changes continuously, a rainbow that you can watch forever and never get bored of.

All the Genies were so enchanted by these rainbow faces that at some point other Genies started wearing turbans colored as the rainbow. Later, an Indian girl saw one Genie with such a turban and told her father that there was a strange laughing creature with a rainbow-colored hat. Her father, of course, didn’t believe the story about the Genie since, as you already know, nobody believes children. He assumed she was speaking about one of her imaginary friends. Nevertheless, he got curious about the funny big hat that his daughter described. He thought that the hat might look cool in the “real” world and used his imagination to recreate it. The father asked his neighbors if they had any leftover fabric from the clothes they sewed (back than there were no textile factories, and people made their own clothes by hand). They gave him different pieces of cloth and he started sewing a colorful hat under the guidance of his daughter. Thus, the first turban was “invented”.

At the same time, a trader passed by their house and caught a glimpse of that amazing colorful hat the father was sewing on the porch. The trader was so fascinated by its colors that he ordered a dozen of hats. He quickly sold the turbans and returned for more. The turban become very popular among the people living in the region. However, this was not the only contribution of the Genies to humans’ fashion.

Beside this common ability of changing their face color, Genies have a bunch of other abilities… well some consider theirs curses, but this is another story. Actually, their abilities and skills are so numerous that in time some fade and new ones appear. There is even a special government appointed only to count and keep a record of the skill and abilities with a short description of each one. Last time they counted them, there were 1,244,789 skills and abilities. According to Newton’s third law of physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is one of the few cases, when human science got something about the universe right. But this is also another story. The point is that Genies have also “counter-skills”.

Some of Genies’ abilities are here forever, some are quite new, and others are lost or just not needed anymore. Like, for example, back in the days, it was a very cool thing to make people create different gods. The god of lightening, sun, sea, the mouse god, the god of the bush and similar were invented because Genies were playing their mischievous tricks on the subconscious of early humans. That’s why, for Genies, the appearance of Jesus Christ was kind of sad as it ended their fun of playing tricks on humans by making them create new gods.

Anyway, being in their heart kind, loving and joyous creatures, they were happy for the humans and their advancement, so you might say they loved Jesus too. Moreover, Genies believe that there has always been one god who created everything (a woman in their creation story), and this same god is also living in each one of us. Genies were a little bit sad, but yet very happy, that humans discovered the One God. This was a day of celebration and joy for their fellow ex-monkey (as some of them still believe they are), half-Neanderthal friends - the humans. It was a real achievement. However, Genies know that people still have a long way to go in their spiritual advancement and peaceful co-existence.

All Genies have some set of abilities, such as reading minds, flying, seeing in the future and in the past (Genies know that one can change the future as well as the past), communicating with animals and plants or even aliens who live on other planets. Genies possess many other different abilities, we can’t even imagine exist, like controlling the gravity of objects and making them appear as if hanging in the air, or some of them can even fart out unicorns. Don’t worry, when they are being born, unicorns are as small as a peanut, but if someone loves them, they can become as big as a house.

In addition, Genies have skills they are inclined to develop like making you forget you are wearing your glasses (and you have to search for them until Genies decide they’ve had enough fun) or pushing someone in the back from a distance (the bigger the distance, the better the skill). All of them have one or more abilities and can acquire and develop new skills. But sometimes, as in our world with people, it takes time to discover your ability, your true talent. Because the truth is: Everyone has a talent, well many talents actually, but each person has at least one talent for doing something really good, as a true master. That’s why sometimes it’s sad when people get confused and they think they should become great scientists but fail because they are actually great musicians. In order to eliminate this problem, which can make one’s life miserable, Genies have special places for both young and mature children where they can discover their exceptional abilities.

Genies do not have a word for “adult” because they always feel, behave and perceive the world like children. They associate adults with someone who thinks and feels old in their mind, is boring to be around and behaves too seriously to be able to be played with. There is a legend shared among them about the only Genie who grew up and became… an adult.

As the legend goes, this Genie was quite different than the others ever since he appeared in the world. Genies are not born and never die. They “appear” in one world and after that go to another, if they choose to. This is called “disappear”. Genies use this word because they know that nobody really dies. “Disappear” is just like returning back home from the kindergarten. Nothing changes, just the games you play, if you’re a child, and the people you are with are a bit different.

This Genie told his friends he came from a world where everyone dresses the same. They do the same things every day and rarely go on vacation, but when they go, they usually quarrel with one another. It sounded like a horror story to every ordinary Genie, but the way this Genie, whose name was Johnny, was talking about his last visit to this world was somewhat weird.

He didn’t follow the playful life of the Genies on Earth, who were always ready to play a trick, always ready to get into some adventure. Slowly, Johnny isolated himself from the rest and started following a very strict everyday routine. He would wake up, drink coffee, dress up, go on a twenty-five-minute walk near the river, buy breakfast, eat it at home, read some boring books about numbers (nobody knew where he got these from), have dinner at home, sleep and then he would follow exactly the same routine next day. In addition, Johnny never wanted to use his abilities and always kept his skin color neutral. This went on and on and on for many years.

Many Genies tried to brighten up Johnny’s life. Some told him funny jokes, others played awesome tricks, and one even painted his house pink while he was sleeping. Nothing helped. When asked how he felt, he always replied politely he was OK. On the Genies’ scale, being “OK” is like zero on a one-to-ten scale. When asked how they feel, Genies usually reply “awesome” or “great” or “irresistibly cheerful”. On a very bad day, they would say, “I am quite good because at least you asked, and you care.”

So, Johnny’s “I’m OK” was bad, and the worst part was that the other Genies didn’t know how to help him. When a Genie asked him why he didn’t move to another world, which is a really easy thing for them to do, as it’s for us to go from one country to another, he would tell them he was feeling tired and would think about it later.

One day, after all options were exhausted, the Council of Good Health and Well-being of the Citizens of the Genie City assembled to discuss the matter because they considered Johnny’s condition detrimental to his health. After a long discussion, they discovered the reason for his strange behavior - Johnny depreciated himself. It meant he didn’t love himself. There were two Genie scientists sitting at the back of the council hall who misheard the word. They heard “depression” instead of “depreciation”. Thus, they named this depreciation of oneself “depression”. The council could not find a way to make Johnny love himself – as they knew this has to be achieved by oneself and that there is always something serendipitous, ready for synchronicity, lurking behind the corner. So, they ended the session with a huge party, and everyone wished Johnny to find his way out of this “depression” thing.

Soon Johnny found something, actually someone. At that time, he looked pretty old, which is really odd as Genies “appear” and “disappear” and never grow old, no matter how long they stay. Johnny had this slow walk, fragile way of talking, dark blurry eyes. He kept going for walks by the river. One day, he encountered a glowing stone. Maybe someone was yet again trying to play . He thought to kick it away apathetically as he used to do when he thought there was something that might even slightly resemble a Genie trick. This time, he stopped and took a second look. He saw a line of flat stones stretching to the river. Johnny followed the path and saw a little girl, sitting on the river bank.

Genies are never born and never die, but they can choose to “appear” as children. In this case though, they forget all the worlds they have ever visited and everything they know or have learnt there. They “appear” in the Genie City with “a clean slate” – no memories, no habits. So, here she was, this Genie girl, new and fresh.

“Do you want to throw stones in the water and see how many jumps they will make?” the girl asked him.

Johnny froze for a moment. He had not talked much to other people than the man in the grocery store and the fisherman who used to come occasionally at the lake. He thought of leaving without saying a word, but something in this girl made him stay:

“I haven’t done this for a long time...”

“It’s OK,” the girl reassured him, “I haven’t EVER done it, just watched people do it. But this is not the same. I want to THROW rocks like a trebuchet”.

The Genie girl smiled as she had learned that word the day before and waited all day for the proper moment to come when she could use it.

And they started throwing stones and playing. Soon Johnny smiled for the first time in many years, and then he was having fun. Later, he went back home and tried to follow his usual routine and be “depressed” as he had heard other people say he was. But something was nagging at him. He could not sleep well. In a couple of days, he went back to the lake. The girl was not there. That day, Johnny broke his routine for the first time in many years (technically a second time as the first was to talk to the girl and play with her). He waited for the girl the whole day and the entire evening. She didn’t come. Johnny didn’t have a disc to enter the Field. So, he returned to the lake the next morning, and this time she was there.

“Wanna play? I am much better than the last time. My record is twenty-one jumps. I’ll go for twenty-five today!”

“You will never beat me, little girl!” replied Johnny, smiling.

Later on, other Genies noticed that Johnny didn’t look bad at all and had become young again. He decided to go to another planet to help in the creation of new ways of teaching kids. This story has a happy ending, but many Genies still shiver when they hear the word “adult” or this thing called “depression”. Since then, now even more, the most important thing in the Genie City is to love yourself.