A Beauty Blogger’s Three Wishes

I have always wondered what a beauty blogger’s 3 wishes would be if she ever had a magic lamp and was able to summon a genie. More invitations to events? More goodie bags? More attention so that everyone will read her blog? Less competition in the beauty blogging scene? Of course, one doesn’t have to be a beauty blogger to want 3 wishes but sometimes wishes can backfire and one should be careful what one wishes for as we can see from this short story by contributor, The Blue Flamingo.

Wyndee was an aspiring beauty blogger. She had started a beauty blog not too long ago and her blog was called Pandora’s Beautiful Box. However, these days the local beauty scene in which Wyndee was in had become ultra competitive, more young and upcoming bloggers were entering the local beauty scene. Her fellow rival bloggers were all mostly envious and bitchy. They grouped together and formed various cliques and their petty jealousies ruled her world. Wyndee found that she was often alone at events as she could befriend no one. To escape from the dreariness of it all, Wyndee had a secret weapon, an old magic carpet which could fly. Wyndee named the flying carpet, Kaarpet.

Whenever Wyndee was on Kaarpet, she felt like Scheherazade, the queen from One Thousand And One Nights.  Kaarpet enabled Wyndee to fly high above everything else in the world, and soar in the wind, her beautiful long waist length black hair blowing in the wind. Whenever she flew, Wyndee felt  as if she was bird, with a bird’s eye view of the world.

One day, Wyndee was riding on Kaarpet as it was flying over the Namibian Desert when she suddenly spotted a gleaming object on the desert sand. She waved her hand to signal to Kaarpet to descend towards the gleaming object. As Kaarpet began to descend and hover above the gleaming object, she noticed that it was an old lamp, partially buried in the desert sand. Wyndee got down from Kaarpet and picked up the old lamp. It appeared to be made of brass, but the metal was badly weathered and looked rather discoloured. She started to rub discolouration off from the lamp when all of a sudden there was a loud swishing sound and a puff of smoke, and then a genie appeared right before her eyes.

Wyndee was startled by the appearance of the genie. The genie spoke to her with a booming baritone voice, “I am Ahmeddin, A Genie of A Thousand Wishes. I am your most humble servant, at your service, …. Since you have been so kind to have released me from this Fortress of Perpetual Solitude, I am obliged to grant you three wishes. But, of course, do be careful of what you wish for, as wishes granted by me cannot be rescinded and I have a condition which will be revealed after you have made your 3 wishes.”

Wyndee was all wide-eyed and began to jump with joy. She started to rub her hands with glee. Three wishes, now this was her chance to banish and be rid of all her frenemies bloggers and competitors, once and for all. The genie continued, “How then can I be of service to you?” Wyndee replied, “I wish to be the Most Famous Beauty Blogger of Them All.” The genie replied, “Granted. What is your second wish?”, to which Wyndee replied, “I wish that all my rival bloggers and competitors would disappear off the face of this earth forever!”.  The genie replied. “Also granted.” Then the genie continued, “What then is your final wish?” Wyndee replied, “I wish that I would be noticed by everyone and be held in high esteem by all the beauty and skincare brands.” The genie replied, “Also granted. There, your three wishes have been granted. As always, I am pleased to have been of service.”

Wyndee thanked the genie, who bowed to her as a gesture of servitude. Wyndee was about to climb back on to Kaarpet when the genie said, “Before you leave, you have to be back here tomorrow at dusk with an item of personal sacrifice.” Wyndee was puzzled. What did the genie mean by “an item of personal sacrifice”?

The following day, Wyndee attended a skincare product launch which held at a prestigious hotel. To her surprise, none of her usual rival bloggers were there at all. In fact, all of them were nowhere to be seen. At the registration counter for the event, everyone knew Wyndee by name, and to her surprise, the organisers and their media representatives all seemed to acknowledge her presence at the event. She was presented with a large bouquet of flowers and a huge goodie bag which contained RM5,000.00 worth of skincare items. This was the largest goodie bag which Wyndee had ever received in her life. The skincare items in the goodie bag was worth a few hundred ringgit each. In fact to Wyndee, it was the Mother of All Goodie Bags! Wyndee was overjoyed as she had never ever received such a generous door gift from any of the skincare brands.

Wyndee was then ushered and escorted by the organisers to the front row facing the stage which had special VIP seating and on one of them, her name was pasted on it. To her surprise, instead of being ignored, which was the case on numerous previous occasions, everyone knew her and wanted pose for photographs and take selfies/wefies with her. She was now famous beyond her imagination. Even the reporters from the local beauty magazines and print media who had often snubbed her in the past, greeted her and called her by her name. Wyndee felt as if she had conquered the entire beauty scene. She had indeed become The Most Famous Beauty Blogger of them all, and she was treated like royalty.

At dusk that very day, Kaarpet bought Wyndee to the same location in the Namibian Desert when suddenly with a loud puff, the genie appeared once again. He spoke with the same booming baritone voice, “I am Ahmeddin, A Genie of A Thousand Wishes, I am your most humble servant, at your service,…. Have you brought an item of personal sacrifice for me? Wyndee took the goodie bag which she was given earlier in the day and handed it over to the genie. The genie shook his head and responded, “This is not an item of personal sacrifice.” Wyndee replied, “But, Mr Ahmeddin, it is a great personal sacrifice for me to give you this goodie bag as it has skincare items which are worth RM5,000.00 in it. This was the first time I have ever received such a generous goodie bag, …. And I am now giving it to you.”

The genie continued, “My dear, if you have not brought an item of personal sacrifice for me today, I would have to take one from you. Now the question is what should I take from you…….?” By now, Wyndee was very worried. What was the genie going to do? What was he going to take from her? The genie started to chant, “Al ka di no alla ….. al ka di no walla ka….”, and then there was a swishing sound. All of a sudden Wyndee’s beautiful long black hair was gone, her head was shiny and glistened in the sunset. It was horrible. It took Wyndee more than a year to grow her hair that long and now it was all gone.

Wyndee began to sob uncontrollably. The genie continued, “My dear, I did warn you yesterday that you had to be careful of what you wished for and that wishes granted by me cannot be rescinded. There is a price for everything in this world. In life nothing comes for free.” And with that the genie vanished into thin air. Wyndee was now very upset as it would take ages for her hair to grow back to its original length. Now, beyond doubt everyone would indeed notice her for sure, and she would be famous, for being the one and only beauty blogger left in town and the one with NO hair.

How could Wyndee even attend all the events she would be invited to and how could she take selfies every hour of the day?

By The Blue Flamingo  

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Copyright @ Juniper’s Journal