Snow in white sheets fell across the silent city, and piled in huge banks in the wide, empty streets, and the wind whipped up the flakes into a wicked frenzy, and the world, in frigid awe, looked out towards the snow and silently cursed the cold.
It was almost Christmas Eve, and all the stores across the city were open late to combat the surges of last minute shoppers, those who had waited too long, or those who had forgotten altogether, though the blizzard and unexpected drop in temperature kept most in doors, away from the howling wind and ice.
Few cold souls dared to wander those frozen, glacial streets, and those who did would later regret their decisions and head home in a rush after only half their errands had been run. And those, poor, unfortunate wretches living out on the streets cursed them in their heads, “Damn, lucky bastards.” They’d say and then they’d huddle under corrugated cardboard and old wooden crates to keep warm, anything to block out the damp, miserable cold.
One such wino, an older fellow, a man who had seen countless winters, didn’t bother to take shelter in any damn alley, he just kept walking. ‘Cuz he knew walking was the only way to keep death from knocking on your door, unless of course, death was what you really wanted, and in that case, he’d just laugh, ‘cuz walking out in the middle of a damn blizzard will do that to you too.
His feet were frozen solid and the soles of his shoes did little to stop the wafts of cold air from finding its way in, and his bones were brittle from malnutrition, and he smelled of urine and sweat and icicles hung from his beard and mustache.
And he pulled his knit hat tighter over his head as the wind blew fiercely around him, bitterly, and unforgiving, but the wino soldiered on, stepping through the miserable drifts of snow, his feet and legs slowly numbing from the cold.
“If death should take me,” he thought, “it should take me now.” And he sighed heavily, and groaned with disgust as a blast of ice and snow pelted his face and bare hands. He wanted nothing more than to die, die cowering in some drafty basement, or abandoned warehouse, die in a heap of rags with a bottle of some cheap alcohol clutched in his hands, as if the alcohol were some simple, all-powerful savior, a god that men had forgot.
All the old wino wanted was an old bottle to crawl into and die, his fingers held his coat closed, and he cursed his rotten, rotten luck.
Though despite the wino’s angry pleading, his luck was about to change, for there in the alley ahead of him, peeking out from beneath an old plastic milk crate, a bottle lay on its side, frosted and smoked, and the wino pushed his way closer, licking his frozen lips as he went.
A bottle was a bottle was a bottle.
And he lumbered towards the alley, picking up the bottle in his cold hands as he did, his eyes glowing as if he’d found the holy grail itself.
“Nicky, your miserable luck is about to change.”
The alley was not much warmer, though the buildings on either side did protect ol’ Nick the wino from the gusting wind and pelting snow, and he sat down behind a green metal dumpster, fingering the bottle as he did, a grin on his stupid face.
“The luck of the Irish, that’s what this is,” he said, “Whiskey, vodka, gin, it don’t matter. S’long as it takes the chill off these useless bones, s’long as I forget to feel.” And he popped the cork and put his lips to the spout, and waited, but nothing came.
“Empty?” He cursed, and was about to throw the whole foul thing against the brick wall when all of a sudden, a thick, dreamlike smoke began to pour from out from the bottle, like fog rolling in off the bay, and the wino squealed in fear, as the smoke, now spreading across the whole alley, began to form a man, and the man reached out for him with a strange, exotic grin.
“Ah, my master, it’s so good to see you.” The fog said, and the form shifted and the djinni in the smoke smiled, “Well,” he said, “then shall we begin?”
The wino backed up, closer to the cold, concrete wall behind him, his fingers clawing at the dirt below. The djinni approached, “You know how this goes, don’t you? Three wishes, that’s all you get, but three wishes can change your life, my master; and three wishes, let me say, can make you very happy indeed, especially for a man like yourself.”
The wino just fondled the bottle in his hands then, his grey eyes never leaving the face of the strange, smoke-like demon before him. He opened his lips to speak but no words came out, and he fumbled in his mind, searching for the keys to complete sentences, then he finally spoke, a toothless grin, “The luck of the Irish, that’s what this is,” he said, “Whiskey, vodka, and gin, it don’t matter. S’long as it takes the chill off these useless bones, s’long as I forget to feel.”
And the djinni, with his large, exotic smile, with his arms spread wide, was more than happy to oblige.
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©2010 Michael Treder
Michael Treder is a playwright and filmmaker currently living in Montreal. His short-stories have appeared in several online publications, such as the Cynic Online Magazine, Death Head Grin, and Quantum Muse.
www.michaeltreder.net
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