Djinni

                She sat filing her nails and announced in a very bored tone, “Anything else?”
Thinking quickly of something more to ask for, she declared, “I want to be a spirit. So I can go see what they’re doing.”
         “Oh, honey, you don’t want to put yourself through that kind of torture.” The girl’s djinni said, looking up from her nail filing.
         “This is what I want. So will you just… please?” asked the girl, making her little face seem so sweet that she knew her djinni could not resist.
         “Not like I had a choice anyways,” she said, waving her finger around the girl and snapping her fingers. Purple smoke appeared where she had been standing just seconds earlier. But she was no longer there. She was no longer visible, either. As she had wished it, her djinni had made her an invisible spirit. Taking full advantage of this new power, she quickly flew over to the place where she wanted to be, to see the person she had gotten this new spirit power for in the first place.
         As anticipated, he was there. With her. “Of course…” she sighed, as a small glistening tear fell from her eye. Any passersby would have just seen a tiny drop of water falling from six feet above the ground and crashing silently onto the pavement. She dared not approach for fear of bringing on more tears. “And it must seem strange enough to see drops falling from nowhere,” so she held herself back, forming a pain in her throat. “Strong, strong, strong…” she repeated to herself as she flew slightly closer. Even though she was floating above the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street from them, she could see very clearly what was going on on the other side, and hear their conversation, too. Oh, he knew how to make her melt, how to make her die inside. Just a glimpse of his face and her head began to spin. This time was no exception and as this happened she lowered herself onto the bus stop bench right next to her and held her head in her hand. She smiled and let out a long sigh as she pulled up her feet onto the bench and sat, all curled up, her head now resting delicately between her knees, her arms laced around her legs, and she smiled. She was crying inside and out, but she smiled. Because he was there, in front of her, she smiled. Because he was in the arms of another girl, she cried. The tears streamed down her pale cheek, not yet tanned by the summer sun’s rays, but she took no account of this, too used to feeling her face moist from crying. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for what was to come.
         At that moment they were there, just sitting on a park bench. He had his muscled arm around her shoulders and was covering her face with little kisses as she giggled and fleetingly backed away. They got into a tickle fight and fell together to the green grassy ground, warm from the early afternoon sun. The two lay down there; they couldn’t be bothered to get all the way back up onto the bench, and plus the ground was perfectly fine and comfortable. He stretched his arms, folded them behind his head and exhaled, content.
         It didn’t take much to make him happy, that she knew. A ray of sun fell on him, all smiling and gorgeous, as always, and she breathed, “You’re perfect,” and smiled as well. A frown came and erased her smile as a thought entered her mind. “But she isn’t. She doesn’t think you are; she can’t think you are. Because I do. You’re still mine in my head, you know. She isn’t right for you; she’s wasting your time.” While she went on talking in a small, weak voice to herself, he rolled over and kissed the girl next to him. A torrent of tears poured out from her grey eyes- “they used to be blue. Before him.” -and she shook uncontrollably, nearly collapsing onto the street from her little plastic bench.
         “That’ll be enough, thank you,” she heard her djinni’s voice announce from the sky. A long blue finger traced a circle in the clouds that turned purple and the girl appeared before her djinni. She fell to the hard, unforgiving street, making a huge gash on her face, and cried, and cried, and cried… Her djinni knelt down next to her and placed a lovely blue hand on the girl’s shaking shoulders. “What made you think that this time it wouldn’t turn out this way?” The girl cried evermore. “Come on, honey, let’s get you somewhere safe…” She carefully pulled the frail girl, weakened from all the pain she caused herself, into her comforting arms, a small blue tear falling from her eye at the sight of this poor girl. “She deserves so much better,” said the djinni in a low voice, shaking her head and she flew away, the girl in her arms, and vanished into the horizon.