Howard awoke to beeping and pain. Man, what had he even done last night? He had had a weird dream about a fish driving a car and some guy with a funny voice. He began to turn over to snooze his 6:30 alarm just like every other day only to feel something drive into his head.

  Opening his eyes, he found he was covered in gold coins and James was beeping angrily at him not to move. The previous day's events came back to him in a blur as he regarded the fish driven beetle that had just run into his head.

  “So not a dream then huh buddy. Maybe sleeping on a pile of hard gold coins like a dragon wasn't such a great idea.”

  As he tried to sit up James beeped at him angrily again prompting Howard to look around. Howard discovered that James had piled gold like sand at a beach around him into the shape of a mermaid tail.

  “Ha ha, very funny you dumb fish,” Howard said, tossing a handful of coins at the hysterically beeping Beetle.

  Before he once again attempted to get up and ruin James' masterpiece, Howard felt a slight pressure behind his eyes as he received what seemed like a notification. Intrigued, Howard mentally tired to open the notification.

  Much to his surprise it worked, reading:

  Idle Anomaly

  Day:1

  Collect reward?

  What was this, some sort of game mechanic? First treasure behind waterfalls, now consistent log in rewards. He only hoped there wouldn't be loot boxes. This world sure was a stupid place.

  “Uhhhh sure,” Howard said as he attempted to accept the reward. The notification suddenly dissipated as new words filled his vision.

  LMAOOOOO you thought……

  Hahahahah

  I can't believe you fell for it…..

  “Dammit, not again you stupid useless text! Quit messing with me, it's bad enough I got stuck here, now you gotta be an ass too!”

  Lol wait until the others here about this……

  That's not how this works lol…

  Hahahahah

  Howard, annoyed by the second silly prank in a row after waking up from a night of uncomfortable rest, was not having it. He picked up a handful of gold and flung it at the words.

  The gold went considerably further than he had intended, impacting against the ceiling and raining back down in a rain of coins as a burning sensation began on the palm of his hand. Looking at his palm he noticed one of the coins had stuck to it. The coin was embossed with the strangely smiling masked figure from the mural. However, Howard wasn't given much time to ponder this as the coin began to warp and melt, searing and seeping into his palm. Howard cried out in pain desperately as he tried to shake the rapidly melting coin off.

  When waving his hand around like a lunatic didn't work, he tried to wipe it off on his clothes. While admittedly a poor choice, Howard had begun to panic. He tried everything he could think of as the pain grew and the gold continued to fuse with his skin.

  The burning sensation had begun to travel up his arm like venom coursing through his veins. The pain had even reached as far as into his shoulder as flashes of pain coursed through him. It felt as if he had accidentally poured 300 degree McDonald's coffee on his hand, except the heat never stopped.

  Looking around for anything at all that could alleviate the pain, his panicked vision flew to where James was digging in the gold. James, having been unaware of anything, was happily driving in the gold until Howard’s pained yell. Once Howard had yelled out in pain the beetle had immediately begun to search for something.

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  Hadn't he seen a lamp thing before where James was digging? Maybe it had water or something that could stop the burning.

  Diving over with an anguished yell as his burned hand landed in the gold, Howard began to desperately dig for the lamp. As the pain continued to mount, Howard’s digging got more frantic before his searching fingers found the lamp's handle. Already desperate and unthinking, Howard tipped the lamp forward over his burning hand.

  A curious blue mist began to seep from the lamp onto his hand, cooling and soothing the burning. Looking down in relief, Howard realized that the coin was now gone, but it left a slight imprint like a circular burn scar.

  As his addled mind finally began to process his actions now that the pain was gone, his train of thought was abruptly halted by someone clearing their throat. Strangely the throat clearing denoted a strong boston accent which shouldn't have been possible with a simple clearing of phlegm. Howard mentally shrugged at this realization.

  “I guess regionally accented throat clearing isn't the weirdest thing I’ve seen in the past 24 hours,” Howard thought to himself.

  Looking up, Howard saw what could only be described as a blue pointy-eared Mr. Donnovan wearing baggy golden pants and a Boston t-shirt. Howard didn't know who this Boston was but he did vaguely know this Mr. Donnovan guy. Something about bad coffee and maybe cars?

  In an epiphany, Howard realized that this guy must be the same guy from the murals. He was weird and blue after all. The only thing missing was the mask.

  “Listen, sorry if this is your treasury or whatever but im calling dibs now,” Howard said to the blue dude.

  “Bud, you think I care ‘bout the money? Yous just freed me from years of imprisonment in that friggin’ lamp! Now if you could clean up the Sox, you'd be better than me for miracles. Listen, they're decent right now but they're not like they were in 1912. Lemme tells ya, those guys was wicked good!”

  “Wait, the Red Sox like the baseball Red Sox? How do you know about baseball if you've been trapped in a lamp?” Howard asked, thoroughly confused by this point.

  “Well obviously I'm friggin’ magic. The golden pants and being trapped in a lamp weren't enough of a clue for yas? Anyways, as I was saying about the Sox, 1912 was a wicked year…”

  Howard let him rant for a while about the 1912 Red Sox before clearing his throat and saying:

  “So uhhh, who are you? Are you like a leprechaun or something?”

  “First of all, that's a bit racist of you bud. Just cause I gots the accent suddenly I'm a Leprechaun? Besides, those guys suck. If you ever meet a leprechaun, don't share a drink with him, worst night of my life.”

  The blue guy seemed to be half talking to himself. Howard just kinda let him rant since he seemed not to have talked to someone for a while and he let Howard call dibs on all the sweet loot. Howard and the blue guy both seemed to have realized they zoned out before the blue guy introduced himself.

  “Anyway, names O'Donnovan but you can call me Mr. D or Donny. Anyways, as thanks for freeing me from the lamp I’ll grants ya some wishes.”

  “First off, I got some rules…”

  “Yea yea no love, no revivals, etc. etc. lemme get to wishing already. I’ve watched Aladdin after all,” Howard cut off the genie.

  “What!? Not even friggin’ close bud. Again with the racism from yas. First leprechauns and now Aladdin! I shouldn't even be granting yas wishes, ya jaggoff. Lemme tell ya, that movie has done so much harm to the image of the genie community. Robin Williams' portrayal was stereotypical at best….”

  Taken aback by the genie's venomous rant Howard realized that he probably should have kept his mouth shut. At least he wouldn’t have now had to tune out the genie's rant about Robin Williams, whose portrayal of the genie in Aladdin Howard had found both funny and charming. Howard had been one of the rare souls who had even seen Aladdin 3 with the original cast and Aladdin's hot dad, the king of theives.

  Finally finishing his rant about the movie, the genie continued as Howard tuned back in.

  “Anyways If yas woulda let me finish, I woulda been able to tell yous the actual rules for wishing.”

  “You know what, James and I are sorry. I should have been more culturally sensitive. Please, mighty and powerful Donny, tell me of the rules-” Howard started, and would have said more if it weren't for James II driving into his leg in indignation at being included as an offending party in Howard’s apology.

  “That's right, yas should be sorry! Anyways, where was I? The Sox?... Nah… Oh right, the wishing rules. OK, rule number one: No infinite grilled cheese sandwiches. You would not believe how much trouble that got me into last time.”

  “Weird, but OK. Would that rule apply to steak as well, or is it only cheese based foods?” Howard asked.

  “Listen here, wise guy, no infinite foods. And before yas ask, no I'm not going to change the name of the rule, I called it that because of how awful it was the last time.”

  “Rule number two: No wishing for the Sox to win the World Series. Don't get my hopes up, it don't work. You need stronger magic than what I gots to do that. Listen they win enough, like in 2018. They did a good job that year, not like they were in 1912, but they won. But yea also it gets to be a whole thing with interdimensional sports betting organizations. They don't like it to say the least.”

  “Last but not least, rule number three: No interdimensional travel. Not my jurisdiction, you gotta find someone else for that. Anyways kid, now that you finally heard the rules, what's it gonna be? Bmw Z4… Nah, not really your style. Hmmm… Giant airship? Perfect hair forever? That's what I'd wish for if I was you.”

  The genie continued on this vein for quite a while. Some of his wish ideas were pretty interesting, but Howard really didn't know how any of it would help him in this situation. As far as he knew, he could be dead. With that thought he came to a decision and made his first wish.

  “ I wish I knew what was going on.”