"LOOKING FOR COSMIC GODS INSIDE OF TRINKET SHOPS" By DANIEL LOUIS KRONE.

:Looking for Cosmic Gods Inside of Trinket Shops:

By

Daniel Louis Krone

….

Stars are merely the catchlight in the eyes of great cosmic gods.

...

Dev was looking for a god, it was the only thing that kept him going.

Dev stared out at the sparkling desert and blew the ashes of his cigarette into the wind remembering so many dandelion petals he’d blown in the past making wishes that had never once come true.

Dev sat far away from the nearest civilization cradling a small black moleskin notebook in his hands as though it were a newborn. It was not a lamp, bottle, or gemstone like he’d seen in so many stories but a small notebook he’d found in a shop tucked far in the back of a bazaar a few days ago. A few tears dripped out of Dev’s head onto the notebook currently leaking ink. Perhaps they were a few tears of it’s own.

The notebook just stat as Dev tried to scrawl the incantations onto it’s pages. He felt like an idiot attempting to rub in through such a benign and placid thing.

Then suddenly small tufts of ink black smoke almost invisible like steam began to pour out of the pages of the book, now fluttering as if alive. The smoke began to flood surrounding Dev. A monsoon of fog enveloped the entirety of the landscape around Dev. Then the notebook itself faded into the fog and two large golden glowing eyes floated just above Dev and where the notebook was. A voice as large as lightning bellowed through it causing giant wakes in the fog that opened up to the visage of a great floating man dressed in platinum, opal, and silver. The face looked the shape of an elk or that of a giant goat or both.

Dev was frozen not in fear but strangely enough aghast in a strange climaxing of his ego.

The Djjinn sat upright legs crossed and arms crossed looking like a worn out fisherman’s knot with horns. As he stood upright his old bones began to crack and each crack erupted like a thunder strike.

‘He’d done it’!

And just as the Djjinn stood up a sound deflated Dev.

A laugh…

…a laugh like Dev had never heard before.

The laugh was very clearly mocking him but the robust voice of a man beyond age, no not of a man, an animal that learned to talk. The voice laughed a hearty laugh that shook Dev down to the bottom of his soul in a way he’d never felt in the entirety of his life. A life that to the Djjinn was no longer than the subtle blink of a hummingbird’s eye.

Dev’s awe deflated as quickly as his heart dropped. The Djjinn was not this thing to be mocked. Dev realized suddenly like he never realized anything in his life. In all the splendor of his chase he never thought he’d actually find it.

Dev’s sudden realization that deep down he never really believed he'd found a Djjinn seized his body and mind full force that outside of focusing on his breathing he could simply focus on the Djjinn’s titanic laughter.

Dev had dedicated the entire latter half of his life to this one moment and it was laughing at him.

Before Dev could even speak the Djjinn did the very last thing he expected. Out of thin air appeared a cigarette, the size of a tree trunk, and a flame erupted from his fingertips, the size of a bonfire, to light it. He took a drag and the lukewarm ashes fell a top Dev. A shower of disinterest.

A yawn slid out of the Djjinn before Dev spoke “….Not what I’d expected, ha”, and like a kite in a squall Dev’s tone fluttered about wildly as he spoke.

His head dropped.

“Dev Burman. 35. Indian American Born in Frankfort, Kentucky. Moved to

Rajasthan 3 years ago, B-Positive, favorite color Orange, favorite flower White Tulip, odd. Now that I’m here...what do you want? A Million Tulips? I’ve been asked stranger things I assure.”

“Want…?”

The Djjinn spoke firm, “Wishes sir. What every man wants, fulfillment…anything. Are you a gluttonous man, vengeful man, lonely man…a modest pervert?”

Dev thought…”I don’t know what I really want right now sir.”

“Well you’ve got 2 more after. The first wish is usually a testing wish anyway. Throw it away. Use it on yourself. You could experience all the pleasures in the world…and for your second wish you could beg me to take it away?”

Dev’s stomach rubbled sharply and as if from a memory coiled up to save his tongue from drying out he belted “A sandwich, um the best Reuben sandwich I’ve ever had.”

Djjinn…”Ahahahahahahahah…one for the books. Game on. It’s been such a long time since I was asked for something so simple so early on. As you wish it sir.”

‘Game on’…Dev thought, ‘This was a game?…How do I win?’

The fog around them evaporated as if cut by the midday sun. They were no longer deep in the desert but a large parking lot with a sign in front of them reading “Hal’s Delicatessen, Butcher, and Grocery Store”.

“Whaaat”, Dev was awestruck by this appearance and yet with all the power it took to create this awe of a moment it faded into novelty as Dev was standing in front of a Deli like so many times before to anyone else a regular daily routine experience.

The Djjinn gleefully grabbed a shopping cart and went down aisle by aisle throwing all the ingredients of a quality Rubin into the cart and checked out like a common customer. No one in the store seemed to make note of his strange appearance. When they were done checking out the Djjinn snapped his fingers and the world around them rearranged itself squishing and resizing, things disappearing, changing colors, and fading in and out into the vague shape of a kitchen. Then it all snapped into clarity. “Ah, pocket dimensions…I’ve not been to that store in ages''.

Dev stood locked into position fixated on the Djjinn now convinced this must be either dream, mirage, or the death rolls of a man’s rattled mind after freezing in the desert…but later he realized it was neither. It was a new inexplicable reality.

“Have a seat”. The Djinn spoke and pointed to a stool behind him. Dev sat. His entire figure moved on what seemed muscle memory alone as this whole experience had rattled him. The Djjinn then toasted the bread and meticulously began arranging the sandwich. He moved like he’d done this 1’000’s before. He served it to Dev on a white styrofoam plate.

Dev took a bite…his face changed expressions deeply. He then scarfed the sandwich down in 4 long sloppy dripping large bites, gulped, and burped loudly as he swallowed the last of it.

“To your satisfaction” The Djjinn said with a smile as beautiful as it was insidious.

Dev began to cry again as a solid wave of realization swung through him. He had the power of gods in his hands.

“Any rules, sir?” Dev spoke in a demure fashion.

The Djjinn’s eye curled upwards in a thick spiral before he spoke. “No! There are no rules. Rewrite history for all I care. I am beyond your realm. I can shape everything around you.”

How long did it take Dev to get out here. How much resources had he spent to travel so far? 20’000$, something around that. Maybe if he didn’t know what to ask for he could just at the very least put himself back to where he started. After all he’ll still have one wish left.

“Um…could I have 20’000$ that’s ruffly…”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAH, the amount you spent on this trip. Done sir.” The Djjinn pulled out a plain leather billfold and one by one pulled out new crisp 100$ bills and piled them into Dev’s now shaking and rattled hands until it added up to 20’000$ .

“What do you want now…a pony?”

Well can I ask questions? Dev muttered.

“Well normally questions, at least the deep ones, are classified as wishes…but I’ll be generous today. I’ll give you a freebie. Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll give you a small plastic toy to go with your Ruben and measly pocket change…hahahaha.”

“Well what’s the meaning of life?” A question Dev always pondered he’d ask God. Since the Djjinn seemed the closest thing he’d ever met to a god he thought he might as well ask now.

“Oh, another easy one. Maybe I should make you my pet when this is all done. I like making sandwiches and answering easy childish questions.” A small ticklish animalistic cackle escaped the Djjinn. “Life is what you make of it. Everything in this world has its own shape, structure, and a unique set of rules around it. They all make the best they can of it no matter how twisted and strange of shapes they are. Where it came from, who designed it, now those are different questions…want to waste your third wish on the blue-prints of the universe? Do you even know how to read them?”

“That’s it!” Dev screamed up at the Djjinn. The Djjin then retorted quickly, “That’s all I thought I’d elaborate on so you don’t have any stupid human follow up questions.”

“Human, you grant wishes to animals?”

“Why yes!” The Djjinn smiled. “I once turned a stag into King Solomon.”

“Don’t think about asking me qualifying questions until you think you’ve figured out how this works. The last man who tried this died before his final wish. I believe his last words were ‘I wish…’, poor thing, never never finished the sentence.” He paused, “Want to know what he was going to say?”

“Meditate on it.” The Djjinn smiled and then closed his eyes, crossed his legs, and began to float gently above Dev. Sand began to slide around them. The kitchen had dissolved back into the desert.

Dev began to do what he’d always done when he got nervous or restless. Dev began to pace back and forth and the tempest in his mind of possibilities became a squall that almost overtook him until he finally settled the storm in his mind and landed on one thought.

“I know what I want!”

The Djjinn opened his eyes and they began to glow and flicker like there were storms fighting within his large pupils.

“What is it, Dev?”

“I want it all, not some rich simulacrum of all but I want to experience it all, every laughter, every breath…I want to experience it allllll!”

Ha, “and so you shall.” The Djjinn lifted his finger slowly to a snap. Dev’s fear of the unknown began to quake his body and he began to dry heave bits of sand that had previously flecked his lips. The Djinn snapped.

SNAP!

And so it happened, suddenly Dev was experiencing everything.

Every baby’s first laugh, the roar of a 10’000 orgasms, the pain of being eaten alive by fire ants, the thrill of being a cloud on the first warm day of spring…everything….then lightning struck Dev’s scrambling shape and suddenly he felt the awe of being reborn a spark that grows to ember that grows to a fire, screams, then withers to ash.”

The Djjinn took out another long cigarette and smothered the Dev shaped ash mound below. He then recoiled into the pages of the notebook after he took the final drag of his cigarette.

The pages of the notebook began to flutter wildly and each turn created a wave of air that kept getting wilder and wilder. Soon after a large sandstorm blew for 3 days straight screaming across the desert in large whips of hot and cold. It took the notebook off into another world carrying a twisted smile leering behind it’s pages.

The surrounding locals said the wind sounded like laughter.