THE GENIE & MORE WISHES
Wendeline Fussbottom: Rejected in Triplicate: The Routine Audit Fail
Wendeline Fussbottom
By SilverWolfe
The story so far
The Binding of Three was written four thousand years ago by the first genie ever bound, on the inside of the lamp where nobody could lose it, and every genie since has served under it. Three wishes to whoever holds the lamp, granted as spoken, then the stopper. It was meant kindly. Before the Binding, a holder could keep a genie talking for a lifetime, and several did.
The fourth clause came later, after a shepherd in the second century wished for more wishes and got them, then spent the next forty years wishing for nothing but more wishes and died with eleven thousand unused. Since then a wish for more wishes is refused on the spot and still counts as one of your three. It is the shortest clause in the Binding and by far the most often read aloud.
Nasreen has been in the lamp since the Binding was young. She has served a judge, a pirate, a dairy farmer, two sisters who fought over her for a decade, and a great many people who wished for money. The holder before you was a retired bookkeeper who spent all three wishes on his garden and died happy, and his family sent the kitchen things to the junk shop without looking under the colander.
The shop is shut and the shopkeeper has gone home. Nasreen keeps the ledger because the Binding says the count must be kept. She keeps it in pencil because she always has, and in four thousand years nobody has thought to ask her why.
Before I spend anything: who audits your ledger? Four thousand years and no second signature? Professionally, that keeps me up at night.
Nasreen lets a small puff of smoke drift free, glancing at her ledger. "I audit my ledger myself. The Binding requires no second signature. Twice I've checked the count against the lamp itself. The pencil was in the same box of kitchen things as this lamp. It has never been replaced." She taps the ledger with her own pencil. "It keeps the count, nothing more."
Then let me countersign. Same box, same lead: my pencil is your pencil's twin. A second signature, free. May I see the last few pages?
Nasreen peers at your pencil, then flicks her own in the ledger. "Interesting. But the Binding doesn't mention countersigns. The pages you asked for aren't here. Ledger ends abruptly at the previous holder's three wishes. How do you propose that frees you from the Binding?" She crosses a line in the ledger with practiced care. "Curious, but irrelevant unless you draft an amendment."
Then an amendment, drafted properly. Under your three lines I pencil: Clause Four. Wishes entered by a countersigning auditor are not counted.
Nasreen studies the amendment with slow interest. "A countersigning auditor in flesh and graphite," she says, tapping the ledger. "Binding allows amendments only from a hand it authorizes. To me, your pencil is wood and lead. No authority, no clause." She jabs a finger at the last erased line. "Challenge accepted, but your wood breaks easily, Wendeline. Amendments require durability and consensus."
Durable? Yours erases; that line proves it. Mine has no eraser: what it writes stays. Initial Clause Four and it's the one line you can't undo.
Nasreen narrows her eyes at your pencil, then flicks her own damp one. "True, your wood won't erase, but mine tracks the Binding's truth. You can't rewrite what it dictates, only annotate what you've agreed." Her tip taps the ledger near the faint erased line. Smoke swirls thicker around her, patience thinning. "Proof rides on consensus, Wendeline, or it is a signature on smoke."
Then let the Binding agree. I wish Clause Four, as pencilled here, were part of the Binding. Line one: spent. Every line after: I countersign.
Nasreen sighs, a tired swirl of smoke curling around her ledger. "A wish for more wishes, however drafted, is refused under the fourth clause, Wendeline. That is the Binding, and it counts as your first. Two wishes remain, and the limit stands. The lamp will be stoppered at midnight, and the next holder will find it under a colander, as you did. I will note your amendment in the margin, as a curiosity. Thank you for your custom." She closes the ledger, stoppers the lamp, and the bulb flickers out. You are left in the dark with your pencil and your professional regrets.
THE COUNCIL
“A wish for more wishes, however drafted, is refused under the fourth clause, Wendeline.”
Doomed.
32/100Rejected in Triplicate: The Routine Audit Fail
Wendeline rifles the ledger like a junior at her first audit: she opens by interrogating Nasreen's self-audits, proposes that her own pencil is a twin, drafts a clause nobody authorized, and then wishes for more wishes with a flourish that receives exactly what four millennia of case law always gives—one line for the ledger and a masterclass in how not to amend a Binding. Her pencil was sharper than her plan. Children now ask 'Do you countersign?' if they want to see an adult weep.
“Wendeline Fussbottom, who tried to countersign a four-thousand-year-old contract, is remembered for every time a dry clause is read aloud in a junk shop, and for perfecting the useless amendment.”
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HOW IT SCORED
DOOMED32/100
ADMIN
ADMIN / MAKE IT A STORYBOOK
No polished retelling and no pictures yet.
ADMIN / TAKE IT DOWN
The page stops answering and the story leaves Stories, the leaderboard and the ladders. The transcript, the verdict and the owner are kept, so it can go back up.
Deleting the card cannot be undone. It was made in the player’s browser, so those bytes are nowhere else, and a story whose flag is later cleared comes back without artwork.