Foot Prints in the Sand

Gin appeared in the living room of James’ apartment, as soon as he arrived Kate activated in the center and turned to him.

“Good morning Gin, would you like to review the morning news?”

“No thank you, Kate,” Gin nodded and noted that the apartment was already up and running and turned to her in question. “Is James up?”

“I can confirm that he is.”

Gin frowned, “How long has he been up?”

“He has been up since eight AM.”

“That’s unusual for him.”

“Correct, he does not normally awaken until 9.40 AM.”

“What’s he up to?”

“Working on his laptop,” Kate answered flickering for a moment.

“Doing what?”

“James is currently working on a fantastically fictional pirate story,” she said. “I have clocked him at over a hundred words per minute.”

“Blimey,” Gin scratched his chin.

“I have alerted James to your presence.”

“Thanks.”

“Gin,” James barked loudly. A grin slashed across the handsome dark being’s face and he nodded at Kate and walked to the bedroom. There James was sitting up in bed, glasses perched on his nose as he stared down at his laptop, fingers dancing across the keyboard.

“Morning James.”

“Morning,” James responded back.

“You’re looking perky.”

“Feeling it too,” he looked up. “I’ve been up since eight.”

“Kate told me.”

The old man inclined his head and hit enter, “Story three posted.”

“Since eight?”

“It’s amazing,” James said. “All the information was just stored in my brain, ready to go, I just needed access to it.”

“Very nice, how about some breakfast?”

“Cool,” James closed his laptop down and got out of bed, while Gin cooked breakfast instead of magically flicking his fingers and making it appear. James went to the bathroom and stripped, Kate already had the water running at the temperature he preferred. He gingerly climbed into the bath and stood under the water, letting it wash over him. He had always liked having a hot shower and could never get it hot enough that was until Trump’s second term. Of all the stupid shit he had done and caused and the stupid tweets he had sent that had set precedent for Emilia, the one good thing he had done was to allow the laws to be changed with regards to power and heat on showers.

‘I like my showers powerful,’ Trump had stated on the hearings, James had laughed at the time, sure he was no Frank Underwood, but Trump knew what he liked.

James hoped he wouldn’t have the pleasure of meeting him if he decided to run for President in the new timeline.

He hadn’t set on that course just yet.

He washed down, waved the water off, his hand flicking over the sensor that turned it off, and then got out of the tub. Steam rose off him as he grabbed the towel and dried. He trudged into the bedroom and put on casual wear, since he figured today would be his last day in this timeline.

James could already smell the food coming from the kitchen and arrived as Gin was plating it up, he pulled up a stool and the two dug in.

Fully sated, the two sat while James watched the morning news for a moment.

“God I would’ve fucked Carol Kirkwood.”

Gin blinked and looked at James, “The BBC presenter?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Sorry about the non sequitur.”

Gin chuckled and inclined his head, “it’s alright, I imagine the first wish has knocked a few things loose in the ole’ brain of yours.”

“Yes, we got access to the BBC through the magic of the internet when I was in my forties and goddamn she was gorgeous, massive tits that I got used to watching, even in her old age they were huge. She got leaked in the infamous fappening incident.”

“Fappening?”

James sighed and explained about the leaked celebrity nudes that were posted all over the internet, “I was thinking about her then it pulled the picture out of my mind, and sat here thinking about her meaty pussy lips.”

“Fair play.”

“When I’m famous, I’m going to fuck the absolute shit out of her.”

“Good for you,” Gin grinned. “Have you thought about your wishes?”

“All fuckin’ night,” James grinned.

“And your thoughts?”

James mused, “I have two problems awaiting me.”

“Yes?”

“The first is trying to prove to my family that I’ve changed and the second is keeping that promise,” James said. “I can’t just go back and say, Look at me I’m Mr. Meeseeks, I’ve changed, they’re going to think I’m nuts or full of shit.”

“Or both.”

“Absolutely.”

James turned to Gin, “Nothing wins loyalty more than an air of bravura. I, therefore, need to cultivate an air of bravura.”

“Your first wish has made you somewhat wiser.”

“Thanks,” he grinned. “To continue the motif of expanding my mind, I think my second wish should build on that with knowledge.”

“Okay.”

He sighed heavily.

“I’ve never considered myself a genius, but I never thought of myself as an idiot, either. However, it’s now clear that while knowing what I know will be handy, it’s not enough,” James mused. “I only know what I know. There are things that I know that I don’t know. But there are also things that I don’t know that I need to know. Does this make sense to you?”

Gin thought about it for a moment. “Actually, it does.”

“I don’t want to remain someone who is blissfully ignorant of reality. And it’s clear that there’s a lot that I need to know if I want to make better decisions the second time through.”

Nodding, the djinn agreed with James. “Realizing one’s shortcomings is the first step to self-improvement.”

James completely agreed with that.

“I looked up some information about different careers that I had an interest in and I found that there’s a lot that I didn’t even realize that I needed to know. When I return to the past, I might decide on a career path that I would have originally never considered. While I can rely on my enhanced brain and the memory palace technique to easily pass any class, there’s a lot of information that isn’t taught in school.” He then pointed and waved his finger at everything. “All of this looks nice, for a retiree, but it’s almost everything I have to show for forty years of work. I would like to say that it was all because I wasn’t willing to take chances, but much of it is because I made a lot of mistakes. When I was a kid and heard older people talking about the school of hard knocks, I just thought of it as having to learn through trial and error instead of school. I didn’t realize that it’s the most expensive way to learn, because you’re not only wasting opportunities, you’re also wasting time. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

Gin nodded sagely. “Time is priceless. If you hadn’t found my lamp, you wouldn’t have been able to get any more time.”

James looked grim. “To me, part of enjoying my second time through is working for those rewards that I could have had. But I don’t want to waste time either, so I’d like to have access to information about everything that I need to know in order to succeed. A big part of that will be academics, like mathematics and science, but I’ll also need to know more about how the real world actually works in whatever fields I choose.”

Thankfully, the djinn didn’t laugh. “Most people don’t realize how little they know. But ignorance and greed are often how they get taken advantage of.”

“That’s for certain. Of the people that I’ve had the misfortune to meet, most probably weren’t looking to rip me off from the very beginning, but they saw an opportunity to get ahead and took it, even if it was at my expense.”

Gin cleared his voice and spoke in a formal manner: “We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

“Who was that?”

“Viscount Palmerston, a British statesman.”

“Yes, that probably describes a lot of people that I’ve known.” James nodded. “But if I’m going to use a wish for this, I shouldn’t limit it. I also looked up some things that I was interested in and found out that I didn’t know half as much as I thought I did. That included sex and porn.”

The djinn raised an eyebrow.

“No, I wasn’t looking for porn--not really,” James defended himself. “I was trying to figure out much I really knew about sex and how much I didn’t. Simply put, I don’t have very much sexual experience.”

“There’s more to life and relationships than just sex.”

“True, but it’s an important part of both.” James shrugged and plowed on. “In my case, I can’t pretend that I was any good at it. Hell, I didn’t manage to lose my virginity until college. Aside from a little bit of kissing and foreplay, it was all the old in-and-out in four basic positions. So, there’s a lot about sex that I don’t know about and that I haven’t experienced. And frankly, most of it can only be learned through experience.”

As James scratched his head, Gin laughed. “I understand. There’s a big difference between knowing how to just kick a ball, being able to play decently, and being able to play like Pele.”

James nodded in agreement. “That’s what I mean. If I’m going to live my second chance at life to the fullest, I don’t just want to know how to do the basics. I want to know how to please and seduce any woman, read and understand her body intimately, and know how to get her off so spectacularly that I’ll be the guy that she’ll always remember. The talent of a modern-day Casanova.”

“But you’re not just talking about sex,” Gin clarified.

“Right.” Thinking for a moment, James elaborated, “There are a lot of things that I wished I had done. Or that I wished that I had the talent for. Whether it is academics, athletics, martial arts, sports, or even the military, there’s a lot that I wanted to try. But I didn’t, so I didn’t know if I could have been any good. I’d like to fix that on my second time through. But I don’t just want to do ‘normal’ things. I’ve always had an interest in more esoteric skills, such as art, cooking, dancing, massage, music, playing games, street magic, and reading people ... I guess that a couple of good examples for the last skill would be the FBI profilers in ‘Criminal Minds’ and Patrick in ‘The Mentalist’.”

Gin stroked his chin and nodded. “So basically, your second wish will be knowledge?”

“Yes,” James affirmed. “I think that Thomas Jefferson said, ‘knowledge is power, knowledge is safety, and knowledge is happiness.”

Gin nodded. “That’s a very wise saying.”

“Yes, I came across it when I was researching,” James nodded. “But what I want to know is, can it be done? I want more than knowledge, I want understanding and wisdom.”

“With magic, anything is possible. But once again, it’s all about the wording.”

James let out an exasperated sigh and got a laugh from Gin in response.

The two of them went over the required dialectic construction to complete the wish. The wording took several revisions to complete as well. No doubt that the djinn could be a serious contract lawyer if he ever wanted a regular job.

When they were done, James picked up the piece of paper with the complete wish. Looking it over, he knew that this would forever change his future ... Well, his future and his past.

“I invoke my second wish...”

When James completed reciting the wish, the djinn nodded his head and intoned, “Wish granted.”

James blinked. It took less time to notice the difference than it did the first time around. He attributed this to the improvements that the first wish made to his brain.

“Wow, this is incredible! I had no idea that there was so much involved in throwing a football or even climbing!”

Gin grinned, “What do you think?”