Genie in the Bottle

Even though James C. Max is a very serious physic scientist, he can be really cool when he saw something totally supernatural. This may be because his wife is a sexy psychic. Anyway, this genie is sitting next to the fireplace, looks utterly pathetic. After Mr. Max's repeated adjurations, he (or it) eventually took off his (or its) little green spire-like hat and shows his (or its) hairy ears to the host.

"Would you excuse me," Mr. Max says. He then stands up and leaves the lobby. Mary is getting him a cup of coffee.

"Is that a genie?" she asks.

"At least he says so."

"He looks bigger than I thought," Mary comments, "but I don't think he will be quite useful."

"For?" Mr. Max answers, "Anyway, I think this is a joke."

The genie sits in the lobby, completely poor looking. Well, most people may guess he is just a dumbass farmer who does not know a bit of manner on dressing unless they saw his (or its) hairy ears.

"I have no idea what is going on," Mr. Max says with a low voice.

"You gotta be careful," Mary tells him, "usually I guess he is a creep."

After drink the cup of coffee, the genie looks much better. Mr. Max comes back to his sit and speaks to this weird dark creature.

"So, what was your name again?"

"Oh, I am Klunalias Gostafer Longpersdicsky," the genie answers, even with a little aula on his (or its) face. "It's a name after my grandfather. He is 8000 years old now."

"Oh, OK. Sir, let's just keep on our topic. So we just talked about Archimedes."

"Yes, yes. He was my first master. Honestly, he is totally crazy," the genie says sadly. "I served him for 20 years, and then when the Romans came, he puts me back to the bottle for hundreds of years!" He (or it) cries while he is talking, and then he uses his hairy hands wipe the tears off.

Mr. Max cannot stand this ugly scene, so he interrupts the genie's self-pity, and asks, "So what did you say about the bet between you two?"

"Oh, the bet. Well, I don't want to mention it again. He is such a jerk!"

"All right, anyway. So how did you come out in Michael Faraday's notebook?"

"Yeah, that was a long story. If you have the list of my former masters, you will definitely know what was happening. I don't want to bullshit too much about what happened. What happened is what happened, right?" Klunalias looks into James' eyes and says, "All your physic scientists are crazy! Say the Mr. Faraday. He told me, 'Hey, you have been with for a while. There is nothing really you can do for me.' So he puts me back into the bottle without saying goodbye! You know, he asked me for tons of coils, but never asked me for a penny. How straight was that?!"

"James, are we going to have a dinner with this gentleman?" Mary asks in the sideway.

The genie suddenly becomes shy and says, "No, no, sir, and my lady. I think we need to get this thing done first." He gets a piece of paper from nowhere and gives it to Mr. Max. The paper looks old and dirty.

Mr. Max extends the paper on his table and look closely, Klunalias keep saying, "We will have a bet. If you win, I will be your servant, but if I win, you will have to give your soul to me. Then I will be a man, a real human!"

"Does it have to be this way?" Mary asks.

"Yep, for thousands of years! You gotta heard some sorta stories."

"There may not be much benefits for me," Mr. Max says, "What can you do for me?"

"A lot," Klunalias extends his (or its) hand, and there is unfailing supply of gold coins come out. "Money, women, power, or anything!"

Mr. Max becomes curious, and tells Mary, "We will eat later. Get me a pen."

The rule of this bet is simple. Mr. Max will have to give Klunalias a question. If Klunalias cannot solve this question within 24 hours, the winner will be Mr. Max. Of course, Mr. Max has to know how to solve this question.

"This may not be that easy," Mary tells James quietly.

"Hey, babe. I saw there are names on the paper. Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, almost every physic scientists I know are on this paper! In the thousands of years, there are on one who lost the bet. I don't think I will be the first one."

Mary blinks at him and asks, "So how are you going to make it difficult for him?"

"Honestly, I want to this chance to do an experiment."

While the genie is going to tear his hat apart, Mary gets the poor hat and put it on the table. She kindly leads the genie to Mr. Max's basement.

"I think it's done now." Mr. Max comes down and talk to Klunalias, "This way."

They are looking at a set of shinning glass utilities. There is a big glass bottle with two rubber plugs on each side. In the middle of this bottle, a vertical septum separates the bottle to two parts. There is some ethoxyethane on one part.

"Are you asking me to go into this bottle?" The genie says madly.

"Yep. Let's see if you can find a way out."

The genie stands there for a while, and then cries and reduce his (or its) size and goes into the bottle. Mr. Max plugs the bottle after he saw Klunalias sat on the floor of the bottle with his invisible tears.

The genie flies around in the bottle. We all know in every story, the biggest enemy of genies are bottles. So no matter how powerful is this genie, he (or it) cannot just unplug the plug and goes out. Of course he (or it) can also keep reducing his body until he is even smaller than an atom. Then he (or it) will have enough space between each atom on the glass wall of the bottle and flies out. Unfortunately, the electrostatic force will suck this poor creature to the nucleus and the genies will never be able to get out of it. That's how his (or its) father died (theoretically he is still on the surface of one nucleus and remains alive). Obviously, Mr. Max has considered this on this his interesting experiment. Oh, this life-and-death bet.

We have to confront that Klunalias has a very clever mind. At least after the hundreds of failures, he (or it) knows something about these scientists. After the depression at first, he (or it) tries to shrink a little smaller and exam every inch of the glass wall.

After drinking another cup of Starbuck, Mr. Max and his wife go to see the genie. Klunalias enlarges his (or its) body so that Mr. Max and Mary can see him (or it).

"I found two small holes on the septum. They are really tiny, but I went to the other side. There is nothing but crazy gas," Klunalias says.

"Those holes were not prepared for you," Mr. Max apologizes, "I made them small. It will be better for the experiment."

Klunalias is totally confused, but he soon says, "I guess I will know what you mean shortly." Then he shrinks and disappears in the bottle.

When they walk out of the basement, Mary smiles to his husband and says, "I think you are winning, James. Can you please tell me this secrecy?"

"In fact, I want to know if he can separate the hot and cold air. In other words, the fast and slow air. It's a question about entropy," James says in the clouds. "Let's go sleeping, darling."

Soon, after intense emotions and violent physical movements and three times of ultimate expressions, James and Mary fall into sleep at this hot and humid night.

Next day, after the delightful breakfast and a little bit of flirting about last night, James and Mary go down the basement.

"How is it going?" Mr. Max bents his body down and stares at the bottle. The ethoxyethane is still at the same level like when he left yesterday. "It looks like your work did not really help out much," then he claims.

"You'd better try yourself, sir!" Klunalias enlarges himself (or itself) again and shouts, "This is getting insane! I try to put the faster air on one side, and the slower air on another side. However no matter what I did, they keep becoming the same speed!"

Mr. Max is shaking his head, and Mary asks, "Why do you look disappointed, James?"

Mr. Max did not answer anything, but says to the little genie, "Are you still going to try for the rest of the time?"

"No! You win! Let me out!" he (or it) shouts.

After Mr. and Ms. Max passed away, they have a small garden in the corner of hell. Not many years later, they built a new five-star hotel upon the garden.

"So, how is your new master?" Mr. Max asks Klunalias.

"Oh, he is nice. But he asked me to put a cute kitten into a small black box lately. Poor thing, until right now, nobody knows if it is alive. My master, however, said proudly, 'I created a creature that is alive and dead in the same time!'"

"What does that mean?"

"Haha, I cannot tell you. But like you asked me, today I bring you the most difficult question I had ever been asked." Klunalias creates a blackboard from nowhere and says, "Some people like to use holograph now, but I still like this old shit."

He (now we eventually can call him he) draws two beautiful circles and asks, "Make them spinning in the same direction!"

"Wow! I am impressive, buddy." Mr. Max says in a good mood. "You should stay and have a cup of tea. I will have to call Newton and Einstein to help me out about this.

"Are they friends of yours."

"Yeah, we have afternoon teas every day. If Archimedes did not forget this time, he may come too."

"Oh, you made a lot of friends here."

"Yeah, hell is a nice place. All our scientists are here. We just built our new spaceship hotel, you know. Jesus and his buddy Paul just came to my hotel last week, I want to give them a presidential suite, but they can't even afford the cheapest room here. Finally I persuade them to stay here for free. They are funny guys. There is one time they were shocks by the room service phone call. Later I heard that in the Heaven, they run to each other for messages."

"Oh, poor men. My grandfather used to serve for the God. He called himself El Shaddai in the old time. He is really acquisitive. My old man ran and worked like a bee in the seven days."

"Yep. Jesus told me he is an old fuddy-duddy. But I still like to meet him some day." James laughs and picks up a phone call, and then he tells Klunalias, "Oh, Archimedes is coming."

"Oh, damn. I gotta go."

"Why, what did he ask you to do?" Mr. Max is curious.

"He asked me if I can give him a pivot."