Aladin and the Quantum Djinn

A young man finds despair in a dark cave before finding a friend before finding entire new realities.

Photo by The Walters Art Museum on Unsplash

The cave was dark. What made the darkness worse, Aladin thought as he felt tears roll down his cheeks, was the fact that he was going to die in it.

He screamed once, and when he heard it echoed from what must have been an even deeper darkness within the cave, he screamed again. He called out to the magician, the one who had trapped him in here, and apologised at the top of his voice and said he could have his lamp and that all he wanted now was to be free.

When there was no response, a voice within Aladin said that the magician was punishing him for his defiance and that he was going to be back in the morning to get his lamp. Another voice chided him for being a greedy coward.

Then, as the fear shrank back for a moment and gave way to rage, Aladin pulled the lamp out from his pocket and flung it as hard as he could against what he imagined to be the wall in front of him.

A scrape, a clang, and some clattering later, there was silence. But this silence gave way to a humming. It was a metallic sound - as if thousands of tiny bells had been rung at once. Aladin, thankful for something to focus on other than the darkness, listened to it and noted after some time, that he was hearing whispers.

As the whispering grew louder, he could make out words. They did not belong to any language he spoke, or had heard, or had picked up at the port from merchants he was about to steal from, but they were words nevertheless. They had meaning and music and even a kind of urgency.

The music, which he focused on because it was the only thing he could appreciate, grew to fill his awareness. It rose and fell and came to be beautiful to him in the darkness. Then it repeated and repeated and repeated until Aladin knew what to expect next. He was predicting the path the tune would take before the music got there. He failed a few times, but pretty soon he was humming the tune to himself before he heard it.

As he did so, he started hearing words - parts of the song he had so far been incapable of telling apart from the rhythm and the beats. Some were urgent and forced themselves into moments. Others were longer and took up more space. And then...

Aladin stopped humming.

“Who is it? Who are you?” he said, breathless.

When there was no response, Aladin spoke again, “I’m just a thief. I don’t know what is happening here. The magician... he trapped me here in this cave. Am I going to die? Am I dead? Please! I don’t know what is happening here.”

“Explain,” said a voice made out of the notes of the tune Aladin had been listening to. It was calm and perhaps, Aladin thought, a little curious.

“I heard my name,” Aladin said. “In the song. I don’t understand what the song means, but it had my name in it. I heard it like I hear you now. It was there.”

“What is your name?”

“Aladin.”

“I see,” said the voice. “You need not fear me Aladin. I will not harm you. Your name was in the song because... well... every name is in the song. It contains every name of every person, every place, every object that ever existed.”

“What kind of a song is this?”

“It’s the song Aladin,” said the voice, growing warm. “The only song that ever was. The eternal song, the song that plays all the time, everywhere, connecting all times and places, all realities. Everything is a part of it, including you.”

“Did you make this... did you write this song?”

“Hell no,” the voice seemed to chuckle. “It was playing when we got here. Even we don’t know how long it has been playing and when it started.”

“Who... who are you?”

“We are... we are not sure you will understand.”

“Are you Djinn?”

There was laughter in the darkness. Aladin could not be sure if it was one or many that were laughing.

“We are transdimensional beings. We travel up and down the layers of reality. Sometimes, we even go sideways. In some places, we are known as gods, in some they call us spirits or yakshas. Some of us have created worlds in empty spaces that we found. Some of us only exist in spaces where time doesn’t. Some of us choose not to exist at all.”

“I don’t understand,” Aladin said.

“Told you!”

“Can you get me out of here?”

“Out of where?”

“Out of this cave?”

“Define cave.”

“You don’t know what a cave is? We are in one right now.”

“We are on a world, in a universe Aladin. Do you wish to leave the world or the universe? If you wish to leave this reality altogether, we’re afraid we can’t help. There are rules.”

Aladin didn’t want to ask for the wrong thing without understanding what he was getting. That’s how he had gotten himself in this cave in the first place. Almost everything the Djinn had said sounded like it could kill him.

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“You keep saying realities,” Aladin said. “What does that mean? How can there be more than one reality?”

“How can there not be?” said the Djinn. “Realities birth realities. Sometimes by themselves, sometimes when they mate with each other. New realities come into being all the time. This is just one of them.”

“Where are these other realities?”

“You may not understand.”

“Or I may,” Aladin said after wondering if he should give up and then deciding against it.

The Djinn was silent for a good moment before speaking.

“Alright,” it said at last. “Imagine you were a character in a story that was being written or told by someone.”

Aladin nodded uncertainly in the darkness, but the Djinn could apparently see him, because it responded with, “Did that make sense?”

“I think so,” said Aladin. “Who is writing my story?”

“Let’s see...” the Djinn said and fell silent.

“Are you there?” asked Aladin.

“Yes, I am there.”

“Where?”

“There,” the Djinn replied. “Where your story is being told.”

“Where?”

“There,” the Djinn said again, and then added. “Don’t worry. I am also here.”

“You are in... you are in two realities at the same time?”

“Yes,” the Djinn said. “When realities are right next to each other with nothing separating them, I can sometimes exist in more than one. This reality is a direct result of that one, so I can... it’s like turning my head this way and that to see what’s happening here and there... does that make sense?”

“Not at all,” Aladin said. “I didn’t even know you had a head.”

“Right,” the Djinn said. “I kind of don’t. But... wait.”

The darkness began to give way to a blue glow. It wasn’t a lot. Just enough to let Aladin see the outline of ...a man? Or rather, the outline of a man drawn against the darkness with a glowing blue brush. The image did not move, and Aladin found that if he moved, it disappeared from his sight. Only by keeping his eyes at exactly the same place could he see the Djinn.

“Can you see my head now?” the Djinn said. “I am doing my best but maintaining simultaneous form and presence on two levels is a little complicated.”

Aladin had no idea what the Djinn had just said, so he replied, “It’s fine. Tell me what is happening there.”

The Djinn flickered once before speaking, “Her name is Sheherzaad. She is sitting before a man... a king... her husband... and telling him about you.”

“What is she saying?”

“That you are trapped in a cave after having been stranded here by an evil wizard who wanted you to get a magic lamp for him.”

“And...?”

“And that you have accidentally summoned the Djinn from the magic lamp and are now speaking with him.”

“And...?”

“Honestly, you don’t want to hear it from me. She is a way better storyteller than I could be,” the Djinn said. “I wish you could hear her.”

“Can I?” Aladin asked.

“Not possible,” said the Djinn. “You cannot enjoy corporeal existence in any reality except this one.”

“Then I do have to hear it from you, don’t I?”

“There’s nothing more to hear,” the Djinn said. “She is done. And...”

“What does that mean? How is she done? The story can’t be over,” Aladin said with a hint of dread in his voice.

“Wait,” the Djinn said as his form flickered once more. “Her husband... the king...”

“What about him?”

“He’s...” the Djinn said and hesitated. “He is saying... He just said.... Hold on. I don’t understand this.”

“What? What don’t you understand?”

“I need to verify this. I will be right back,” the Djinn said before everything went dark once more.

Aladin couldn’t tell time in the darkness. He was beginning to entertain the suspicion that he had hallucinated the whole thing when the Djinn’s form flickered back into existence.

“What happened? Where did you go?”

“Apologies for phasing out,” the Djinn said. “I had to expand my field of awareness there in order to get a fuller understanding of what the king was saying.”

Aladin waited for more. And as he did so, he noticed there was a little more to the Djinn now than just a blue outline. There were hints of muscle and sinew, and even something of a face. And when Aladin moved, the Djinn’s form remained where it was. It was more real now.

“What did the king say?” Aladin asked when the Djinn didn’t offer anything. He appeared preoccupied.

“The king... he...” the Djinn said fumbling uncharacteristically. “Give me a moment. I am recalibrating my presence. I had to become tangible there to speak with some palace attendants. Copying appearances is relatively easy, but growing a whole new personality from scratch took a lot out of me.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Aladin said.

“Fortunately, you don’t have to,” the Djinn said and started laughing in a way that Aladin thought was new. “Anyway, the thing I heard the king say was somewhat curious and that’s why I had to go investigate.”

“What did he say?”

“He said... Well... He basically told Sheherzaad she could live.”

“She could live?”

“Yes, as in... he gave her permission to live.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The king told her that he was pleased with the story and would like to hear more the following night. Therefore he was not having her put to death.”

“Why would he say that? Who says that? Why would he have his own wife put to death?”

“I asked around. Most of his courtiers said he was the king and therefore could do as he wished. A couple asked me who was I to ask such questions. Eventually I did manage to speak with one of Sheherzaad’s attendants. She said that the king had always had his wives put to death after their first night together.”

“That makes no sense,” Aladin said.

“That’s what I said, but there was no clear answer. I scanned for realities based on stories about the king’s younger days but could only find shallow worlds made of fawning praise and adulation written by cheap court hacks. There was nothing in those stories about how he came to hate women.”

“Did you... did you visit any of those stories?”

“No. I didn’t need to. Sometimes, you can judge books by their covers.”

Aladin wondered if the Djinn had noticed that he was no longer referring to himself as “we”, but decided not to bring it up. There were more important questions on his mind.

“So Sheherzaad is also going to... he is going to kill her?” Aladin asked.

“Some day, yes. When he no longer finds her story interesting.”

“Her story,” Aladin repeated.

“Your story,” the Djinn said. “Although it’s not just your story. She has been telling him tales for hundreds of days now. Each night, she stops mid-story and he has to decide whether he wants to hear more. And fortunately for her, each night he has decided that he wants to know what happens next.”

“Tell me about these other stories,” Aladin said.

“Oh they’re wonderful Ali,” the Djinn said and stepped forward, apparently unaware of the fact that he was now a tall, dark man dressed in the richest silk and gold. “In one story there are forty thieves and a magic cave. Another one has a brave sailor. It’s all... it’s really quite spectacular.”

“No wonder the king keeps wanting to hear more,” Aladin said. How was he, a thief trapped in a dark cave, to compete with all these strange and enchanting worlds?

“I hope...” Aladin said at last. “I hope you realise that this story, my story, my life, the story Sheherzaad is telling the mad king right now... I hope you realise that it is also your story.”

The Djinn was silent for a long while before he said, “I guess so. I guess... you are right.”

Then he clapped his hands and broke into a thunderous laughter. As the light of a thousand suns banished darkness from the cave and Aladin shielded his eyes, he heard the Djinn say, “How do you feel about defeating an evil magician and winning the heart of a princess?”

“If we must,” Aladin said.