Devin Denardo and the Genie of Brisbane

Written by Matthew Harrison

One blustery afternoon Devin Denardo was getting ready to turn in for the night and found himself walking past his commander's tent. This turned out to be quite inopportune as his commander stepped out just as he walked past the tent.

"Denardo! Just the handsome idiot I was looking for! How opportune that you walked past my tent just now." he said loudly. "Come on in. I need to talk to you about something."

Not sure what to expect, but suspecting he was going to be outed as pansexual and his secret stash of pans would be taken out of his tent, Devin decided the best course of action would be to not tell the truth about anything the commander asked him.

"So," the commander began, "I noticed you've been killing a lot of Emus recently and I wanted to have this conversation before I got anymore complaints."

"Complaints?" Devin asked, confused and now rethinking his game plan for this conversation.

"Well a number of guys have reported that every time you kill an Emu, you do a dance. Is this true?"

Devin was realizing the issue here. "Oh yes," he responded confidently, "that's how I celebrate the ethic cleansing we're committing. I jump on one leg, then do a split in the sand. The last part really gives me horrible chafing..."

"Well you need to stop." The commander cut in as Devin trailed off. "The other soldiers find it very disturbing and they say you do it like 400 times a day. I'm worried your methods are too violent, and I'm ordering a leave of absence."

Devin was floored. He could never have imagined his Wahoo dance could cause an issue. When the albatross had taught him the dance on the way to Australia, he had told him it was the albatross's method of showing respect, so he had naturally adopted it as his victory dance to show respect for the albatrosses.

"Denardo!" the commander yelled, breaking Devin out of his trance. "Do you understand me? No Emu slaughtering for 5 days. After that time we'll sit back down again and see if you've adjusted your psyche properly."

Devin nodded slowly. He didn't know how to feel. Killing Emus was his whole purpose in life. He had never desired anything more than to rid the world of their hideous quasi-beaks and knarred fur-feathers.

As he walked out of the tent, he decided he had to do whatever it took to get back to the war. If that meant no longer performing his dance, then so be it, but in the meantime, he thought he might as well take his days off to explore the city of Brisbane, which he had never seen.


Leave of Absence: Day 1

The following morning Devin woke up a full 37 seconds later than his usual time, rolling out of bed at precisely 0300 hours. He normally needed the extra time to reminisce about his family of nuns who he had't seen in 40 years, but today he didn't care.

He walked to the nearest road and attempted to flag down a taxi. This took a while as the sand was being kicked up into his eyes and causing irritation he never noticed when fighting Emus with their large MK42 turrets blasting holes the size of his pinky toe (which was 33 inches in diameter,) in the barricades he fought behind.

Finally a small green car with a strange looking old woman pulled over next to Devin.

"Oy there kid! Ya fancy a ride to Brisbane?"

Devin wasn't sure how this woman knew he was going to Brisbane, but he got in anyway, and payed her up front like she requested.

"EHE off we go!" The woman yelled as she threw the car violently into gear and floored the gas pedal, flattening Devin against the back seat and causing him great stomach discomfort.

"Could you maybe slow down a hair?" Devin managed to ask through much effort. In response, the woman slammed on the brakes, looked back at him, and said,

"It's not polite to pee yourself in front of customers, I'm terribly sorry you have to watch this." And proceeded to get a strained look on her face and scream as the front seat began to shake with her effort.

Devin quickly jumped out of the car and sprinted the rest of the way to Brisbane on foot.

When he arrived, at approximately 0900 hours, Devin was shocked at the brown color one woman had used as her shutters. He had never seen anything quite so ugly and regretted that his eyes had been subjected to viewing the color at all. As he walked around, he grew slowly accustomed to the buzz of merchants that surrounded him. Strange sights were everywhere. Beams of floating dust were illuminated by the light that managed to slip through the seams in the tents people had set up all along the street.

Eventually Devin found his way to a small café and sat down in an outdoor chair. A waitress came up and asked what he would like, and not knowing what else to say, he responded, "I'd like to kill some Emus."

The waitress gave him a strange look and walked away to help another customer. Devin then began to plan his next couple days. There was a map of the city on his placemat, so he looked at this and based where he wanted to visit off of the name of the area. The only thing he for sure wanted to do was visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, as he had always wanted to eat a koala. He then turned his attention to finding a hotel at which to stay the night.

He walked away from his table and directly into the nearest soup kitchen. Inside, he inquired as the best free 5 star hotels to stay at. The man he asked laughed at him and told him to go to 30 Lookintion street and stay there. Devin wasn't sure why the man had laughed, so he thanked him for his advice and began walking in the direction of the hotel.

When he arrived at the hotel, the sun was going down and his feet were getting sore from walking all day. Additionally, he realized the building at 30 Lookintion was a single run down shack that seemed to be the only building for miles.

Nonetheless Devin had nowhere else to stay so he knocked on the door. It swung open on it's own, which struck his as odd, but he figured it was a time saver for the resident. Once inside Devin searched for the owner. Being unable to find anyone after a few seconds, he decided to simply sleep on the couch and leave his wallet and passport out on the table in the other room incase the owner came back.

Devin lay down on the rusty couch and drifted quickly off to sleep, where he dreamed about Emu unicorns.


Leave of Absence: Day 2

Devin awoke to find a sharp pain in his lower back. He turned over to realize he had gone to sleep on top of what he assumed to be the owner of the hut, who was now only a pile of bones. Determined to not let this ruin his newly inherited home, he dragged the body outside and left it on the back porch.

He went back into the house and looked around the kitchen for anything he could eat for breakfast. The cupboards were bare, save for one small teapot shaped object covered in dust. As he rubbed off the dust on his shirt a strange smell filled the room. Suddenly a purple smoke began hissing out of the teapot.

"Oh no it was full!" Devin exclaimed as he threw the teapot to the ground, thinking it was full of the DMT gas he sworn to never use again. But it wasn't gas, nay, it was something mush worse.

"HE HE HELLO!!" Bellowed a voice from the purple smoke. A small Mexican man stepped threw the cloud rubbing his eyes and yawning. "My it's been years." he said as he stopped and his round belly settled onto the seat of his pants.

"Oh my gosh." Devin said. "You're like one of those leany things."

The man gave a strange look, readjusted his demeanor, and responded, "I am a Genie. I bestow gifts upon those who request it."

"The only thing I wish I had was the ability to reproduce asexually." Devin chuckled under his breath.

"GRANTED!" The man shouted, raising his hands high into the air and bringing them down swiftly onto the table that had just appeared in front of him. "Have a seat."

Devin sat down, a bit confused, as the only time he ever sat was to eat. He began filling out the paperwork the little genie was handing him frantically, as he didn't know what else to do.

"And finally sign there." The genie indicated to a line at the bottom of the final page he passed over. "These documents officially make me exempt from any issues you might cause, and there you go." The genie waved out the front window, and Devin blacked out.


Day 3

A sharp pain pierced Devin's head. He vaguely remembered asked a girl to dance... Then everything came flooding back. As the waves washed him into the wall of the small concrete chamber he was housed in at the moment, Devin began to rethink whether or not he should have ever gotten in the car with that crazy old woman. As he recalled this, he felt the need to sneeze. He did so, and too his surprise a child fell out of his nose.

The child began to cry as Devin picked it up instinctively to eat it. He then remembered his wish and realized this was his child to keep. He could do whatever he wanted with it.

This thought brought more sneezes, and eventually Devin was surrounded by 8 quickly growing children. He noticed they were aging faster than normal children, as the oldest was already in the corner crying about a boy who had broken up with her.

Soon the room was full of the sounds of a money laundering business, and Devin could only sit back in admiration as he watched his children do incredible work. But unfortunately his joy did not last long. The children did not stop aging, and soon they were older than him. He immediately started simulating a full life for each child so they could become well rounded adults.

He took them fishing, taught them each how to sew, laughed with them, cried with them, and took them to cage fights. When 10 minutes had passed, the oldest child was on her death bed, surrounded by her father and all her siblings.

"I'm sorry I couldn't live more for you dad. I wish I could stay around to see all the other amazing people you'll create in your life. You were the best dad I could have asked for, and I'm so grateful for your love and the time you put into making me feel loved even though you knew I was going to die. I'll always be a part of you, please don't forget me."

She then turned to her siblings, some of whom were also quickly losing strength and said, "Those of you who stay around the longest, make sure dad knows he's loved by all of us. Don't let my death end the family legacy. Keep fighting for what's right."

Then she died.

As Devin sat surrounded by his dying children, he felt something he had never experienced before. He turned to the wall and coughed.

"Well that was a new experience." He muttered as he turned around to discover the bodies of his kids were gone. "Well I know they're in a better place." He reassured himself.

"OHHhhHHHhhhhhhHHHhHhhHHhh.!/?!!" Came a sound from the closet Devin hadn't noticed before. He opened it to find the genie moaning.

"You failed so miserably!" He whined into his hands. "You weren't supposed to make 8 children that quickly, only 1. And they weren't even real. OHHhhhHHHhHhhhHHHhHHhHhH."

"Those weren't my children?!" Devin shouted. "I just spent my life raising them!"

"No no dear. They were the test run kiddies. They spawn for the first 34 hours after receiving your power. They are intended to teach you how everything works, but no one has ever made 8 so quickly."

Devin was taken aback. He realized he had much to learn.

Over the next two days the genie taught Devin how to create children without having them die. He showed him the best techniques for different races, and how to choose the child's gender. Devin walked out of the small concrete room with a newfound understanding of life and a sense of purpose that made him feel the same as when he was killing Emus.


Leave of Absence: Over

Devin returned on the 6th day to his regiment, met with his commander, and was reinstated.

He went out into the field and didn't see an Emu for almost 3 hours. When he was walking off to his lunch break he finally spotted a pack, 15 strong, jogging down after an elephant they were planning to eat.

He went to eat lunch.


Devin then realized the Emus were his children. As much as he wanted to kill them, he couldn't make a scene when he did. Carrying this new bit of information, Devin returned to his post in the Emu war and killed thousands more Emus before moving on with his life.

That's not to say he didn't have any other hijinks, but that's a story for another time.

fin

do li yo li tr to ca to ot pe ne. ca to ot pe ne be yo ca as pa of yo li.