Amir was an unruly kid, the kind most parents came close to resenting, but didn’t.

“Wake up already! Don’t you dare be late to school”, a commanding voice declared.

He had no alarm to help him know that the day had begun – he couldn’t afford one. Besides, his half-blind father did the job willingly. Having lost Amir’s mother at the time of his son’s birth, he had no choice but to oblige – the double role had grown to be a habit over time.

Amir and his father were some distance short of a proper place to live and breathe in – having spent most of their lives living on the streets of a bustling Baghdad. A make-shift shanty constituting of a rag and a few sticks was what they called home. His father worked as a cobbler and did his best to make ends meet. Amir never complained, but often scorned at the thought of his daily trudge to school. The journey to and from school, was the only Achilles heel to Amir’s strong resolve.

They had a few schools closer to home, but his father could only afford this one. It was more of a dilapidated building on the verge of a collapse – a facade no one was too proud of. The funds that went into maintaining the school were limited, and as a result, so was the infrastructure.

Amir left from home at 8 am every morning considering the fact that he would roughly take an hour to get to school. The journey was particularly treacherous that day. He hadn’t expected the winds to whip up a sandstorm of sorts and hand it over to him, or more precisely, his face. The grains clung to his face while occasionally finding their way into his eyes. Amir muttered a few abuses, but the sand and the winds were as insouciant as ever.

He never had anyone for company either.A few kids in his locality did attend the same school, but preferred to keep their distance when it came to Amir. Being seen as the arrogant kind had its pitfalls.And although he liked saying he was just a loner, his overly sarcastic demeanour often came across as rude. Simply put, Amir’s social life was long dead, buried and probably way past the final stages of decay. His existence was markedly devoid of hope and filled with frustration to the brim.

At a significant distance into his walk toward school, Amir felt something under his foot. A long hard look at a glossy portion of metal threatening to blind him fueled his curiosity further. He dug into the sand and unearthed a lamp – a shiny black piece, bearing every resemblance to the one Amir had read and heard about. Aladdin was Amir’s favourite protagonist. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was. He couldn’t help but imagine a life full of riches and comforts – of not having to work or glue his eyes onto a book ever again.

“Finally, a way out of this misery”, he exclaimed.

For once, Amir saw hope–and he saw truckloads of it. Recalling Aladdin’s tale, Amir rubbed the lamp expecting a fancy slave to pop out almost immediately.

About ten seconds later, a cloud of black smoke emerged. Everything that transpired in the minutes to follow, diminished any traces of hope or confidence that Amir had gathered.

“I know this is a nightmare,” he murmured in disbelief, expecting his father to splash a sudden stream of water onto his face effectively waking him up.

And there stood the inhabitant of the lamp – tall, dark, with bloody eyes and horns akin to those of an ox.

“You sir, have been tricked. Your tendency to be allured is your weakness, I am afraid. And for that, you shall pay!”, the demon remarked.

“Your prize is replete with three curses:

The first –the phantom phone vibration syndrome, the second – a runny nose, and the third –a pebble in your shoe, one that accompanies you everywhere you go.”

Inflicting his curses, the demon proceeded to return into his lamp. Amir was shaken, and afraid of the consequences the curses could possibly bring.

The following morning, Amir woke up to a stain on his pillow. He had slept face-down all night and soon realised that the second curse had manifested itself.

He wore his shoes while getting ready for school, he realised there was a tiny pebble in it. As he removed his shoe and checked for a pebble, he saw nothing. But as soon as he put the shoe back on again, the pebble was there – declaring its sharp, annoying presence. Amir had expected it to happen, but it still felt terribly creepy.

On his way to school, while he went past the spot where he had last seen the lamp, he was reminded of a curse that was seemingly inconsequential.

“I don’t even have a phone. How is that curse supposed to affect me?”, he wondered.

His question was answered at lunch time. He felt an eerie tingling sensation in his pocket, only to realise there was nothing in it. This happened several times during the course of his day.

A runny nose, a pebble in his shoe and a syndrome that was totally uncalled for –Amir had a trio of problems to deal with, which in spite of the inconveniences they came with, were only mildly annoying.

Days and hours of stress later, Amir eventually got accustomed to every inconvenience bestowed upon him. The pebble in his shoe could no longer trouble him as soon as he got home and took his shoes off, the phantom syndrome was as good as non-existent when he fell asleep, and as for the runny nose – he figured it was something he could put up with, albeit with some amount of irritation from time to time.

Amir soon realised that no curse was really so significant as to affect his way of life, and that no matter how many difficulties he would have to deal with, his resolve would always ensure he wasn’t down and out. Above all, Amir learned that nothing was ever as bad as it seemed to be – and that any tribulation could only be as powerful as his perspective allowed it to be.