My first story starts here! I’m so excited, even though there’s still so much more to draw, and I feel out of practice. I hope everything goes okay!
September 22nd, 2024
Eight o’clock. Bedtime always comes too early. Jacob and I didn’t even finish building the block castle, and tomorrow’s Wednesday. We had to take it down. I mean, Cristal’s really strict about this. “No buts. Early to bed, early to rise, makes you wiser than your old man.” Hey! I’m plenty wise. Ah, forget it, at least it’s my turn to tell the story; Cristal’s are boring. Except The Chronicles of Narnia, I like helping her read those. I made Jacob put the blocks in their box while I chose what to read from the living room bookshelf. On Sunday I read a Ghostbusters comic, and we had a lot of fun. But tonight called for something different. I’m ashamed to admit I can’t talk about shooting ghosts with spooky energy beams and expect my own ghouls to stay still and shut up while. “But, Dad, if they’re already dead, why are the Ghost-dusters gonna shoot ’em again? And how do such big ghosts fit in those little boxes?” Sure, they’re good questions, but sometimes you gotta take things for granted! Fairytales do it all the time, especially The Thousand and One Arabian Nights, weird things kids think are normal. Or, well, I thought they were normal when I was a kid… On the other hand, they still sound normal to me. Maybe people are just getting more boring?
So, then, we could use a little excitement, right? And that’s why Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp seemed fantastic. After taking a volume of the Thousand and One Arabian Nights from the shelf, I sat in the middle of the sofa and leafed through to find it while the munchkins were brushing their teeth and putting on pijamas.
They got back too quickly for my liking, but their breath smelled okay, so I didn’t complain. And then Cristal sat to my left with Rachel, and I looked at everyone with pride. “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” I began, showing everyone the picture on the first page. There was an old oil lamp that reminded me of a teapot. A genie was coming out in a puff of smoke, and I didn’t like his happy face one bit. Nothing a touch of marker can’t solve later.
Then I started to read.
What say you?