This story is perfumed by the scent of almonds roasting on an open fire, it tastes of the glow of apricot, ripened in the rays of an Arabian sun. The sound is of laughter, as feral dancers chaotically mimic the swirl of the Dervish. This, is the court of Suleiman the Magnificent, Suleiman the brave, Suleiman the blade.He arrives in splendour, zigzagging across the tumbling sand dunes, his horse bedecked in rose garlands. As he dismounts, a ragged boy quickens from his hiding place behind a collection of terracotta vessels, which hold the severed heads of Suleiman's defeated foes.
The boy kneels and presents above his bowed turbaned head a blue narrow bottle, caped in gold. The child's bare feet are black with dirt, his face, hidden from Suleiman so deep the kowtow holds, is pock marked from the outrage of disease. His muffled voice calls,
"Lord, I bring you this, a gift from the Land of The Jinn."
Suleiman takes the bottle and holds it to the sun. It is empty. He squints back to the motionless boy.
"There is nothing inside."
"No Lord." Suleiman opens the bottle and sniffs it.
"It holds no scent."
"No Lord." Suleiman rubs the bottle, but no Genie flies out.
"It releases no magic."
"No Lord."
"It is worthless, you waste my time boy." Suleiman throws the bottle against one of the terracotta vessels, then lifts the boy by the scruff, but feeling the filth and disease about him, drops him again and sweeps away saying,
"This is the worst of bottles, charmless, magic free, useless." and he disappears inside, to the cool of a tent.
As the sun strikes through the blue fragments of glass, there is movement in the refracted colours on the sand. The boy lingers over them, and sees in one shard a twist of dark curling hair, another splinter holds a freckle, and in one other, the curling mound of a nostril.
As he sits and pieces together the remains, the boy realises, here are the shattered remains of a face.
The genie was not within the bottle, it was the bottle.