The Wheel turns, and what has gone before will come again. The turning of the Wheel takes thousands of years to return to ages long past. For some turnings of the Wheel it does not take long to return to what has gone before. Some things never change, or rather people rarely change. For better or worse, mostly worse. At this moment Bob feels like he is strapped to the Wheel as it rolls through a muddy road.

Bob sat meditating on a large sand dune, collecting his thoughts and sorting through the day's events that had transpired. Well, it would be considered meditating if a twitching eye, and shouting language that would shock a sailor qualify as meditating. Bob wasn't sure what it was, but he found the shouting quite therapeutic. The eye twitching, the reason for the shouting came about due to the company he kept. Every evening he would wander off to shout out obscenities to help calm down his eye, which at times felt as if it was about to pop out of his skull.

During Bob's meditation Rhodric had gotten bored and decided to start playing with a magnifying glass. Earlier he had noticed that their camp was right next to an anthill. He hated ants, so Rhodric decided to have a little fun while Bob was doing whatever he does when he is alone. He was merrily burning ant after ant, but one was a little to fast for him. The ant ran, and right behind it Rhodric follows it with his deadly magnifying glass.

So wrapped up in his pursuit of the fast ant, Rhodric doesn't notice when his magnifying glass passes over their pack containing all of their supplies. Suddenly a ball of flame shoots up at Rhodric.

“Woah!” He yells, he then laughs. “The little bugger must have eaten some chili.” He then notices that the pack is what was on fire, not an ant fart.

“Oh crap!” He yelps as he begins to kick sand on to the burning pack. “Oh crap! Oh crap! Sk is gonna kill me.”

Seeing that the sand was doing no good Rhodric grabs up the canteen of water and begins to dump its contents on to the flames. It takes the entire canteen to finally put out the flames. Suddenly Rhodric drops the canteen in horror that was the last of their water. He jumps at the pack, canteen in hand hoping to drain what little water their was left back into the canteen.

There was little water left, and Rhodric sat down next to the ruined pack dejectedly and begins to cry. He then looks over and sees a shiny object in the sand that had been partially uncovered while he had been kicking sand on the pack. Curious, Rhodric slowly crawls over to the shiny object. He begins to brush away the sand slowly, and then even more quickly as the shape begins to reveal something only from fairy tales.

Finally it was uncovered, and Rhodric holds it up to the fading sunlight. It was a lamp! To him it looked more like a gravy boat, but in the stories lamps always looked like gravy boats. Excited he jumps to his feet and runs to where Bob had ran off to when they had set up camp. Coming in site of Bob, Rhodric is assaulted by a barrage of words he had only heard from soldiers and sailors. He stops for moment, listening to what Bob was saying to see if he could learn anything new.

“Sk, err, Bob!” He then looks at Bob quizzically after thinking on a few of Bob's words. “Interesting choice of words, I've never quite heard some of them in that order. I am not even sure that is physically possible. I could try.”

“What do you want Rhodric?” Bob demands as Rhodric lifts his leg and arches his back. “I hope it is important, I was relaxing.”

“That was relaxing?” He asks, and then shakes his head. “It is important, I was burning ants with a magnify glass again and I accidentally set all the food on fire.” Rhodric said, explaining.

“Not again!” Bob yells, lifting his hand to whap Rhodric upside the head, but then drops his had losing the will to whap Rhodric.

Rhodric lifts his hands to ward off the attack from Bob that ever comes. “But that wasn't what was important.” He said quickly. “When I was kicking the sand on the packs to put them out, I uncovered this.” He extends out the hand carrying the lamp towards Bob. “It is a magic lamp!”

“Give me that.” Bob cries and grabs the lamp. “There is no such thing as magic lamps, they are only fairy tales.”

Rhodric refuses to let go so Bob grabs it with both hands. A tug-of-war ensues. Smoke begins to emerge from the lamp, slowly at first but faster as the tug of war gets more heated. With a well-aimed hook to the jaw Bob wins the tug of war, and sends Rhodric sprawling flat on his butt on the ground.

“Now listen here Rhodric…” Bob says, but is interrupted by a cough. He looks over to see a woman wearing a faded pair of jeans and a Metallica t-shirt. “Who are you?”

The woman just smiles at him. “I am the Raolin of the Lamp.”

Rhodric and Bob look at each other confused, then look back at the woman. “You don't look like a false-Dragon.” Bob says.

Raolin crosses her arms under her breasts. “So, the Dragon has to be a man does he? Are you sexist? Name one thing that a man does that a woman can't do better?”

Again Rhodric and Bob look at each other. “Scratch his balls?” Rhodric says.

“Mow the lawn.” Bob adds. “Take out the garbage.”

“Yeah!” Rhodric yells getting to his feet. “What about burping and farting?”

Raolin opens her mouth, and outs comes and explosion sending both Bob and Rhodric flying to the ground. She then looks at the two men laying on the ground. “I trust you don't want me to demonstrate the fart?”

Both men are beside themselves in saying the burp was enough.

“You know, you're to gorgeous to be a trapped in a lamp.” Rhodric says and gets back up on his feet, and then winks at Raolin. “Why don't you let me pull up to your bumper, and slap that monkey.”

Fast as lightening Raolin's foot is in Rhodric's crotch. Rhodric doesn't even have enough time to scream or moan, he just falls to the ground laying in the fetal position, wheezing. “That is what got me stuck in the lamp!” Raolin then looks at Bob. “Do you want to try it as well.” Bob just crosses his legs and shakes his head. “Good. You have three wishes, what are they?”

Rhodric then yells, regaining his voice. “I wish you hadn't kicked me in the balls!”

Raolin sighs, then snaps her fingers. “Very well, it is done. How do they feel”

Rhodric sits up, then starts rubbing the front of his pants. “They feel great!”

Bob walks over to Rhodric and whaps him upside the head. “Knock that off, none of us want to see that.”

Rubbing his head Rhodric looks up at Bob. “Sorry.”

Raolin then coughs to get their attention again. “What is your next wish? Make it quick, Jeopardy is on in ten minutes.”

“I wish I was on a beach somewhere in the Bahamas!” Bob says. “I wanna be sitting on a beach chair, sipping on a Mai Tai!”

Raolin nods, then snaps her fingers. “It is done.”

Bob looked around, and in fact he was sitting on a beach chair, wearing a pair of sunglass, shorts and a Hawaiian t-shirt. In his hand was a Mai Tai. “Now this is the life!” Bob proclaims.

“You have one more wish.” Raolin says. “Make it snappy.”

“I've got one!” Rhodric says quickly. “I want to know who Bob is! I think he is Sk, but he denies it.” Raolin snaps her fingers. “Very well, that is your final wish. You will know who Bob is.”

Rhodric looks over at Bob. In jerky motions Bob's hand goes up to his face, and grabs his skin. Slowly he begins to pull it away. It wasn't skin, it was a mask! The mask pulls away slowly, revealing who it really was. The face under the mask makes Rhodric gasp.

“You're not Sk!” He yells in startlement. “You're Aludra!”

She looks down. “You're right, I disguised myself as Sk and took on the name Bob. It was all just to get close to you Rhodric. You were always slapping Sk's butt, no matter how he protested. Just once I wanted you to do that to me, just once, but you never did.”

“This is insane!” Rhodric gasps.

Raolin dusts her hands off on her jeans. “My work here is done. I will taking my leave now.” She started to dematerialize, but then rematerialized. “Before I go, I wanted to inform you that you are on a deserted island, you will be spending the rest of your lives here. Together.” She then smiled. “Be so kind and throw my gravy boat into the ocean so the next sucker can find me.” She dematerializes, and the smoke goes back into the lamp.

Aludra looks over at Rhodric, and smiles. “Remember what I said I would do the next time we met?”

A look of horror crosses Rhodric's face. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

The End
 
 By Shadowkiller