Aladdin

My name is Aladdin and I live with my parents and my father’s brother. I used to live with my parents in a different house until I was nineteen. We were happier there.

My parents and I have always been close, even though I was still close to my friends and I hung out with them all the time. When I was younger, my parents used to take me and my friends on trips to the beach or to an oasis and we would have a great time. There was a ton of things my parents taught me and my friends on those trips. My friends and I always liked to hear those things.

Then, my parents lost their jobs on the same day. They thought we would be okay, but we had almost run out of money and they still hadn’t found new jobs. So my father suggested we go live with his brother, who was rich and could let us stay with him for a while until my parents found jobs and made enough money to support us.

They had saved enough money so I could continue going to college. I wanted to learn to fight with a sword, but we couldn’t afford lessons and my uncle, Ashraf, refused to pay for them because he wanted to be mean to me. My parents comforted me by saying that once they got jobs, we would be able to afford lessons. I wanted these lessons because I liked the feeling of being able to protect myself.

We were desperate or we wouldn’t have lived with Ashraf. Even Father wasn’t close to his brother because Ashraf was never nice to him. Ashraf never had a single nice moment with me since I was born. He was always disrespectful and I always had to defend myself angrily. I didn’t have a single good memory of him. After living with him for three years, I still didn’t. In fact, neither did my parents.

Father never confronted Ashraf and avoided him as much as possible. Mother attempted to have nice talks with him and the rest of the family, but he only disrespected her so it never worked. She once told me and my father that she would have given up a long time ago, but she continued to try because we were forced to live with Ashraf and she wanted to make things easier for everyone.

My parents kept looking for jobs, but every time one of them would find one, they would lose it somehow.

I went to school and learned to be an architect. I received my degree two months ago and I was looking for a job too. I couldn’t stand living with Ashraf anymore. He always bullied us.

According to the law, anyone who had power had the right to use it any way they wanted, even if that meant bullying other people. No one had the right to stand up to that person. Ashraf used that. He was always telling me and my parents what to do and we had to listen to him. He made us do chores and go to the grocery store and clean up after meals. Sometimes he denied us things we wanted for no other reason than he had the power, like with my sword fighting lessons. He always spoke to us in a disrespectful way. He didn’t care about making us happy or comfortable.

We all hated that but I was the only one who stood up to him. My friends used to come over to my old house, but one time, they came over to this house and Ashraf was mean to them. He said they were not allowed to come by just because he didn’t want them to.

I had challenged him.

“Are they bothering you?” I asked.

“No.”

“Then, what’s your problem?” I demanded.

“I like to use my power.”

“You could just tell them when to come over instead.”

“I don’t want them to come over at all.”

So, my friends stopped coming by. We could still hang out somewhere else, but I was angry at Ashraf for that. My parents and I had been living with him for three years.

Ashraf knew a lot about magic and had a lot of magic. Today, he learned a new spell. There were plenty of times when I made Ashraf angry by standing up to him and he would try to use a spell on me. (Spells were encased in small purple balls.) One of my parents would always protect me with a counter spell. They didn’t know as much about magic, but they protected me. Ashraf also learned years ago how to fight with a sword and he still practiced.

One day, Mother came home looking upset.

“What’s wrong?” Father asked her.

“I lost my job,” she explained.

“How?” Father asked, confused. “You only had an interview.”

“And that went great, but when I went in today, they said they didn’t want me anymore.”

Father held her.

I looked at her sympathetically.

“I don’t understand,” Mother continued. “They were avoiding me, even though they seemed to like me before.”

I was confused because this kept happening to my parents. I didn’t understand why they lost so many jobs. Or why the people at those jobs seemed to like them at first, then changed their minds.

We talked about what happened for a few minutes until Mother felt better.

“So what are you going to paint with Father today?” I asked Mother.

I was trying to cheer her up. My parents loved to paint, sometimes separately and sometimes together.

Ashraf walked into the room.

“Get everything ready for dinner,” he said, coldly.

He didn’t help us because he wanted to exercise his right to bully us.

“And stop looking for jobs,” he added.

I was angry. I knew the only reason Ashraf wanted us to stay at his house was so he could continue to bully us for as long as he wanted to. My heart went cold when I realized we could be here for the rest of our lives, if Ashraf had it his way.

“Mother is going through something,” I told Ashraf. “Don’t give her chores now.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

“Show some sympathy.”

“I’m not sympathetic.”

“You’re a jerk,” I spat.

“Don’t talk to me like that, “ Ashraf ordered. “The law forbids you.”

“I still think you’re wrong.”

“Go set the table.”

I didn’t want to listen to him. I had to, because if I hadn’t, my parents would have had to do all the work.

That night, after my parents had painted for a while and I had read from a book about animals, I went to their room and told them about a job I was excited about getting. We hung out in my parents’ room for a while.

Sometimes we stayed there or in my room or we left the house to go hang out somewhere else so we would get away from Ashraf.

This was my first job and I was going to be an architect. I didn’t tell Ashraf about it because I didn’t like him. I was only going to tell my parents and my friends.

My parents smiled at me.

“What is the job?” Mother asked me.

“I could get a job with a company where I could be an architect.” Then, I drew out the suspense. “But that’s not all.”

“What then?” Mother asked.

“What else do I like?”

“Lots of things,” Mother said, rolling her eyes, even though she was smiling.

“Animals.”

“What are you talking about?” Father asked.

“I might be able to help animals with this building they need.”

“How?” Father asked.

“Because it’s being built to teach people about animals,” I explained.

“You mean it’s a school?”

“Some sort of school for adults.”

“That sounds great,” Father said.

“And perfect for you,” Mother added.

“And I qualify.”

“What are the qualifications besides having a degree in architecture?” Mother asked.

I told them what I knew about the job and what I wanted to ask during the interview the next day.