The cold winter weather breezed snow and wind that howled through the edges of an apartment window. The cold was letting itself in through the weather seal that had given out almost as soon as it had been installed. The ‘warming’ sun hadn’t been seen for days it seemed, the overcast sky hiding the light from the surface of the motherland.

The wind that blew awoke a man in the small minimalistic apartment. His eyes fluttered open and revealed the brown iris within the bloodshot of someone who had the thousand-yard stare. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in what seemed to be an eternity. He sat up and looked at the window before letting a sigh escape his lips. He uttered the words “Chert-okno.. Freezing to death..” His arms closed around his chest as he reached to fiddle with the latch, the howling breeze becoming silent.

The man oriented to sit up on the cheap stained brown couch. He’d glance down at himself, he sleeping fully clothed in his brown baggy slacks and button up shirt that was untucked over a white dress shirt. He had loops on his pauldrons that indicated what pins and medals on his chest did already. He was a soldier, decorated and folded up like a gruff scratchy blanket in the back of a Lenin closet.

He stood up off of the couch onto his bare feet, bruised and covered in sores. He only groaned as he stood and walked into the one single small counter that had a brown bag standing up on it. He reached into this bag and pulled out a loaf of bread that was half molded green and a slice of cheese that was of the same quality. He took the best of both and smeared a quarter of a slice of cheese onto the good end of the loaf and sighed, saying “Bol’noy der’mo.. Ugh.”

After his quality meal, he walked back into the main room, a grand journey of a complete one hundred eighty degree turn, and started to look for his boots, saying “Damn boots.” He walked over to the couch and pulled them from the side and handled them as he sat back down. He put his left foot into it before tightening it, sockless and messy as he rearranged the tongue and the laces to factory settings. He moved to put his right foot into the next one, his toe testing it as if it was a pool of water; he shouted “Cuto-Blyad’?!” as he quickly pulled his foot out of the boot and reached in with his hand.

In his fingers came the handle of a bronze, almost heavy looking 16th century oil lamp. He held it up and looked at it in his hands as a trail of blue smoke streamed out of it and into the center of the tiny room. Smoke filled the room and quickly cleared out, the window unsealing and howling again as a human-like ghost creature took form in the middle of the room, his voice emitting the sound like a filthy capitalist “FREEDOM!”

The man dropped the lamp, it crashed on the floor as he shouted back in English of all languages, “What are you?!” He quickly put his foot in the boot, leaving it free as he sprang up onto his feet and stared into the clearing smoke.

The form moved in front of him, a bearded blue man emerging from the smoke and said “I am free! I am out in the world once again! Thank you, Ivan!”

The man looked startled at the figure as he asks “How.. did you know my name?” an expression of panic as he stared up at this magical being.

“Your nametag.” He pointed at Ivan’s chest and chuckled humorously. “You, Ivan Antosel, are the beneficiary of three magic wishes!” He flailed his arms up into the air as if this was a celebratory thing.

Ivan only looked at the genie confused. “W-Wishes? Wait.. Bozhe moy, I can have anything. I wish I knew what to pick- Wai-” Before he could restrain himself after realizing what he’d said, his fate was sealed.

The genie snapped his fingers. “Done. You’ve got two left.” Ivan sighed as he said “I still don’t know what I want though.” The genie only replied with the words “Of course you don’t! I was kidding, You’ve got three still.”

Ivan sighed a heavy sense of relief as the genie looked at his watch. “I’d love it if you would hurry up though, I’ve been in there for a long time. Wanna get out. See the world!” He had been doing movements and motions as if he’d been sitting in an eternal road trip that hadn’t ended since someone had wished for the ability to turn water into wine and cure the sick.

“I want rubles, thousand-No, Trillions of rubles! I don’t like living poor..”

The genie snapped his fingers again, this time a spark emitted from his fingers. “Done!” Nothing happened, the room looked a little nicer and fancier, the place got a slight facelift.

Ivan looked around. “Where are my rubles?” The genie chuckled. “You live in Russia, Ivan. Your money is everyone’s money.” Ivan said, “Choyt. I should’ve thought about that.” The genie nodded. “Regardless, you’ve got two left.”

Ivan thought about it. “I want food. Good food.” The genie nodded saying, “You certainly look like you could use it.”

Ivan looked down at his uniform and thought about the last time he’d eaten before the cheesy loaf edge he’d crammed down his throat. He looked up at the genie after glancing down at his stomach that had shrunk ten-fold since the time he’d enlisted a decade ago. He said, “I wish I would never go a day hungry.” The genie, doing what genies do best, snapped his fingers and made it so.

There was a brown bag on the counter with a stream of blue dust and a zap from the genie, it had more food in it, unmoldy and fresh as the genie said, “It’ll always have food in it.”

Ivan thought for a moment and said, “I wish the Cold War would end.”

The genie thought about this for a moment before snapping his fingers as he made it so. Out the window, the courtyard that was three stories down with the fountain in the center became quickly the opposite. The fountain flung up with an explosion-like hiss of air and flew down the street to reveal a hole in the ground. Through the hole in the ground, a missile launched and fired quickly into the sky.

Ivan watched this and turned to the genie. “What did you do?!” The genie chuckled and said, “There can’t be a Cold War if there aren’t any countries to fight it out.”

The apartment, as Ivan and the genie knew it, exploded into trillions of subatomic particles. Everything but the genie and his lamp completely vaporized leaving a 50 mile crater all the way around them. The Russian soil was turned to charred rock from the nuclear blast of a Minuteman 3 shot from American soil back at the Russians after the genie let one loose to America.