Night Owls

Jerry glanced down at the photograph in his hand, then back up again at the woman sitting alone at the back of the cafe.

He definitely didn't like the look of her. She shifted in her seat too much, fully absorbed in a paperback novel. The cover art? A handsome male vampire in a suit with a myriad of grey gradients-- tame information when compared to the fact he was wearing a solid gold cowboy hat.

All at once a blinding light coursed through the space. Jerry and the woman froze. And then a creature appeared, seemingly from the air itself.

It was a genie, arms folded across its chest and smug grin on full display, "What is thy wish?" Jerry couldn't react fast enough, but when he opened his mouth to speak his will to power, the essence of possibility itself was laid bare before him. Time froze: Elegant suffocation.