Genie in the Flames - 2. Chapter 2 - A New Version

The flames flickered in reds and oranges, casting a warm glow across the hearth and the old, overstuffed armchairs. The colors of the room were muted beneath the hazy light. A boy stared into the flames intently, headless of the heat warming his face.

“I wished upon a star last night.” He mumbled to himself, sitting down on the mat in his pajamas with a thump. “I wished I had someone to talk to, about, you know . . . things.” The boy’s blue eyes glistened. He told himself that it was just the heat stinging, and remembered the sharp voice of his father. ‘Big boys don’t cry.’

The flames popped and cracked quietly in reply. He smiled sadly. “I like talking to you. You listen to me. But it’d be better if you could talk back, you know? I get lonely.”

The boy pulled a little hunk of cheese from his pocket and stared at it. Eventually, he nibbled at it and then he looked guilty. He put the cheese aside and pushed another stick onto the fire. “Sorry, I forgot to feed you. I know it’s rude to eat in front of people who don’t have food.”

The fire engulfed the stick eagerly.

“I know wishing stars are just . . . .” He sighed and nibbled his cheese. “Well, they’re fake Mama says. Pa said it was ungodly to wish. I should pray instead. I didn’t think God would like my prayer. He doesn’t, you know, like boys like me.”

“Boys like you?”

The boy dropped his cheese, jerking away from the flames. “Who spoke?” His wide eyes tried to peer into the corners of the shadowy room. Had his father discovered him? That voice didn’t sound right. It wasn’t deep enough, or harsh enough.

“Me. I did.”

The boy’s eyes turned towards the direction of the voice. Flames danced, popped, crackled. Heat and orange light bathed his face. “Who is me?”

“The fire, silly.” The flames twisted into a shape. A person in the flames. A tiny boy like the dolls the rich girls in town pushed in their little prams.

“Are you a . . . genie?” The boy leaned closer, flinching at the heat. The person wasn’t in the flames. He was made of them. Flickering and shimmering. It reminded him of the haze that hung over road in summer, when things seem just a little bit unreal, with blurry edges that made it look as if the wind might blow the world away.

“I am.” The flame boy smiled. “Careful, don’t burn yourself.”

“Do you give wishes? Do I get a wish?” His eyes sparkled. For a moment the heat didn’t matter with this fantastic mystery in front of his eyes.

“Not that type of genie.”

“Oh.” His shoulders slumped. Suddenly the heat did matter and his skin was uncomfortably dry, so he shuffled back.

“I’m Yaidul. Who are you?” The genie twirled in around the flames, smiling brightly. It wasn’t quite like a human smile His face flickered and writhed as he did it.

“Jo.”

“Jo is a lovely name. Did I say I’m Yaidul?”

Jo giggled. “You did. You’re awfully forgetful for genie.”

Yaidul’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Do you know many genies? Maybe we are all forgetful.”

Jo’s face turned thoughtful. He shook his head, shaggy brown hair flopping over his eyes. “I guess I haven’t.”

“Same. I’m glad we have something in common.”

“How can a genie not have met many genies? Don’t you like, come from genieland or something?”

The flames stilled their movements, standing like icicles dyed orange. Jo wondered if that was how flames thought. Then Yaidul shrugged again. “I don’t know. I don’t remember before you were talking to me.”

“You don’t have a family?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Do flames have families?”

“Maybe the matches are your father?” Jo pointed to the box sitting on the hearth.

Yaidul turned his flame body towards the box with the drawing of a candle’s flame on it. It looked more like an orange raindrop, Jo thought. “It doesn’t feel like it. I think you made me. You said you wished for someone to talk to, and here I was.”

“Oh.” Jo closed his mouth. He opened it to speak, then closed it again when he thought better of what he’d wanted to say.

“You didn’t say what you wanted to talk about. I’m here, we should talk.” Yaidul passed through one of the logs on his fire, the blaze wreathing it brightly. “It is boring not talking.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Who would believe a fireplace?”

Jo nodded at that good point, and offered Yaidul another stick. The flames engulfed it when he dropped it into the fire. “Well, my Pa says I’m sick.”

Yaidul flickered darker orange. “Oh. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’m not sure I’m really sick though. But maybe Pa is right, and Ma agrees with him too.” He plucked at the hem of his pajama pants, where it flared out around his ankles. A loose thread slowly came undone between his fingers. “I like boys.”

“Why does that make you sick?”

“Well, I mean. Like, not like boys as friends. Well that too. But you know. I want to . . . when I grow up I . . . .” He leaned closer to Yaidul and whispered. “Fall in love with another boy.”

Yaidul turned a pale yellow as he burned on the stick. “I’m confused, Jo. Why does that make you sick?”

“It isn’t normal, and it is a sin.”

“But you can’t help it. Do you think I’m sick because I’m made of flames?”

“No. You’re just . . . you.”

“But normal boys aren’t made of flames.”

Jo’s fingers stopped pulling on the thread, his face frozen. He blinked slowly. “I . . . .” He wet his lips and smiled. “That makes sense Yaidul.” Jo wanted to hug his new friend but he was flames so that wouldn’t work. So he added another stick. Stifling a yawn with his hand.

“You should sleep, Jo. You’re tired.”

“I know.” Jo stood up slowly. “But I’m happy. Thank you Yaidul.”

“I’m glad.”

Jo paused by the door of lounge room and looked back at the orange glow. “Yaidul? You’ll be here tomorrow, right?”

Yaidul was indistinct in the flames, but Jo saw he smiled. “I’ll be here as long as you need a friend to talk to, Jo.”

From then on, when Jo was scared, he’d sneak down from his room in his pajamas and talk to the fireplace.

He talked to Yaidul when he had a crush on a boy at school, or when his father yelled. When the old man shouted and stomped around the living room, Yaidul stared out from the flames, flashing brighter and higher. He wished he could reach out and pull the man away from Jo.

But he was just fire.

It was a year later when Jo came to the fireplace one night, and was silent. Jo had sat in front of the crackling fire for a long time before he finally spoke. He hadn’t looked at Yaidul, gazing up at the mantle with its pictures of mom and dad’s wedding. He was struggling to work out how to say goodbye. “Dad says I’m going to military school.”

Yaidul brushed his flames along the log and rose to stand on its tip. “What is military school?”

“Dad says it's a place where you go to learn about being a man.” Jo prodded the coals with a stick and the flames burned a bit brighter. He picked up a stick from the pile by the fireplace and offered it to Yaidul, and the genie eagerly embraced it in his blaze.

“Oh. So you’ll be away?”

Jo didn’t answer. He brushed his hand through his shaggy fringe. “I don’t think dad likes me.” Yaidul didn’t answer either. Jo thought that was for the best. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll always be here, Jo. You’ll come home one day.”

“I’ll say hello next time I’m home.”

Jo got up from the mat, and offered a weak smile. Yaidul smiled back and his flames brightened to a ruby colour for a moment. He watched as Jo pushed past the overstuffed armchairs and left his sight.

It was then that Yaidul waited. He thought about the interesting boy who had shared his fears with him. When he wasn’t lit, he sat in the ashes - quiet and silent - and thought then as well. He imagined what it would be like to walk on the ground like a human, and be Jo’s friend all the time.

The old man said that he kept getting burned putting wood on the fire. That winter, mom and dad bought an electric heater and Yaidul wasn’t lit very much anymore. The darkness was peaceful and it lulled the genie into a doze. He didn’t see when Jo came home for a few weeks in summer, because he was asleep.

There was catching up with his friends, and answering his father’s interrogations, and finding a summer job. “You won’t be wasting your time sitting around under my roof boy.” His father said. So in time Jo forgot about the genie boy.

Five years came, one by one, and went. Jo graduated but only his mother attended, his father had passed away the autumn before. His mother was talking about a smaller home, she said shewas older now, and without Jo’s father the house always felt so lonely. They had enough money, she said, to let Jo live in the big house. “Start a family.” She told him. “Jenny is single, remember Jenny form next door?”

He came home that winter, and helped his mother move into a little apartment near the beach. The big house, with the floral chairs and the old dusty drinks cabinet, felt strange that first night alone. The furniture was big and lumbering, and the paint was peeling.

Jo sat on the mat and stared at the fire. He’d forgotten, all those years, about his friend. He didn’t even know if he’d dreamt it up. But he stacked the tinder and lit a little fire with a box of matches, and waited. The smoke drifted up the chimney, out into the night.

The flames danced softly, but he didn't see the boy in them. “Yaidul?” Jo poked the ash with a stick. There was only silence. It was a child’s fantasy, the strange genie boy in the flames that he had concocted when he felt lonely. Jo went to stand, feeling foolish.

Slowly, the flames twisted into a form. It was no longer a boy, but a man, who had grown with his friend. Yaidul blinked slowly with big, burning eyes. “Jo!” He smiled wide, the flames burning an amber hue, face writhing with the changing emotions.

“You’re real!”

“Of course I’m real.” Yaidul’s expression bent and his flames dipped in tandem. “Who said I wasn’t?”

Jo laughed, his shoulders shaking. Something that had built up inside suddenly released, all that doubt disappearing like the smoke up the chimney. “I just worried I’d imagined you. It’s been so long.”

“I’m always here.” Yaidul climbed the tinder to the top, and stood on his toes. His grin couldn’t get any wider, or his flames any brighter. Jo feared he’d have to look away from the heat, but he didn’t want to lose sight of his friend again. “I have a surprise for you Jo.”

“A surprise?”

“Close your eyes.”

Jo didn’t want to, but he nodded slowly. He had to trust Yaidul not to disappear again.

The crackle and pop of flame on wood slowly faded. He resisted the urge to peek through his eyelids. A warm breeze brushed past his cheek, brushing through his short hair, and his t-shirt rustled, then settled back into place as the breeze faded again.

Yaidul’s voice came, behind him. “You can look.” Jo’s eyes snapped open, fearful of what he’d see. Had Yaidul set the house on fire? Why was he behind him? He craned his neck and swivelled his hips to look. His breath caught in his throat.

Yaidul spread his arms and smiled. They were very human arms, with skin the colour of a burnished flame. He wore an old pair of pajamas with cartoon teddy bears looked ridiculous on an adult’s body. A lose thread trailed from the ankle.

Jo found his legs, stumbling on limbs that still seemed too big. Yaidul was a head taller than him now. Jo pulled him into a hug, unable to suppress a laugh that rose up from his throat. “You’re in teddybear pajamas.”

Yaidul laughed as well. “They’re the only clothes I could remember.”