There hadn't been a busier day at the library for as long as Emily could remember. She wasn't sure if it was because of the torrential downpour outside or because of the free coffee inside, but suddenly, the library was the most popular place to be. Okay, that was a lie. Emily was sure it wasn't for the free coffee that everyone was suddenly in the library, because the coffee was always cold and tasted burnt. Still though, even on other rainy days, Emily had never seen the campus library this busy. Patron after patron had come in looking for one book or another.

Finally, when it was almost time for her to go to lunch there was a lull. Emily hailed her boss, Angela, and gestured letting her know she was going to head out for lunch. Angela gave her the "okay" sign and headed toward the desk. Emily reached under the desk and grabbed her purse and thanked her lucky stars that Angela was the type of boss that she was. Emily had worked under bosses before that seemed to live to make everyone miserable and only knew how to stir up drama and cause trouble. Angela wasn't like that. Angela tried to make sure that everyone working for her was able to get along. She listened to their opinions and tried to take everyone's feelings into account, when it was feasible. Having grabbed her purse, Emily made her way around the circulation desk and waited for Angela to reach her.

"You want me to grab you anything?" Emily asked when Angela reached the desk.

"Not today. Ralph made some crazy macaroni concoction that he wanted me to try so I promised I would have that for lunch today," Angela stated, a slight grimace on her face.

Ralph, Angela's husband used to be on track to be the CEO of some company, but when he hit 45 a couple years back, he suddenly quit his job, deciding he wanted to be a chef. He was currently working his way through culinary school and often used Angela as his guinea pig, sometimes much to her chagrin.

Emily giggled at her expense, having had the honor of trying some of Ralph's concoctions before. Angela shot her a look that very much communicated she should shush if she didn't want to be a co-guinea pig again. Emily instantly sobered, remembering the "dessert quiche" Ralph had sent for the library staff a couple of weeks ago. Marshmallow fluff, sour cream, and eggs. Emily shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

"Hopefully today's venture will be better than some others," she said optimistically.

Angela heaved a sigh, "I can only hope. So, what quirky music are you going to be testing out during this lunch break?" she prodded.

Emily smiled brightly. No one really got her enthusiasm for random, bargain bin albums, by lesser known bands, so any time someone asked about them she was more than happy to share her excitement.

"Well," she started enthusiastically, "This time when I went to Tracks they had just gotten in a shipment of new music and some of the albums they order off of the internet for the bargain bin and I found this one album called Wishes by DJ Inn. It took me a minute, but then I realized it's a play on words. DJ Inn. . . Djinn. Get it??"

Angela gave her a blank look. "No. . ." Angela answered. "What am I supposed to be getting from that?"

"You know. Djinn. Genies? The album is titled Wishes?" Emily explained patiently.

Angela gave her a very dry look.

"Only you would recognize something like that and buy an album based off of that observation," she deadpanned.

Emily couldn't help but laugh at that statement. Angela wasn't wrong. As much as she loved random, bargain bin albums, she also loved puns and clever plays on words. Angela gently reached out and pushed her in the direction of the exit.

"Go on," Angela said, a smile evident in her voice. "Go get your lunch and jam out to your genie music."

Hefting her bag higher on her shoulder, Emily waved happily at Angela. Turning, she walked towards the exit, when she suddenly remembered the torrential downpour from this morning. Heaving a sigh, she looked toward the wall of windows that made up one side of the library. She heaved a sigh when she saw that it was still raining. Knowing it was probably futile, Emily rifled through her purse. She usually carried a random assortment of emergency items, an umbrella being one of them, but when she got this purse and was transferring her items from one purse to the other she'd had to make hard choices concerning which emergency items would go in her new purse. She now remembered that the umbrella had not made the cut.

Emily leaned her head back in defeat. Tipping her head forward again, she fished her keys out of her purse before zipping it shut and made her way to the exit. Steeling herself, she lifted her purse over her head and pushed her way out of the door. She sprinted to her car, internally vowing that she would return her emergency umbrella to its rightful place in her purse. Upon reaching her car, she held her purse above her head with one hand and unlocked the door with the other. She quickly climbed inside and started the car. Looking down she observed her clothes and was pleased to see that she wasn't too wet. She quickly turned the heat on low to keep from getting too cold.

Emily considered turning on the stereo, but chose not to. No one really got how she could love music so much yet refused to listen to it while driving, but it was her firm belief that music should be fully enjoyed and if she was listening while driving she couldn't really focus on either the driving or the music. Deciding to ride in silence as per usual, she put the car in reverse, backed out of her parking space, and headed off to get her favorite burger for lunch.

***

"Can this day get any more ridiculous," Emily groaned to herself as she flopped onto her bed, thinking back on the day she'd had.

It was one thing when she had just forgotten her umbrella and it was pouring rain, but it seemed like her luck had only gotten worse from that point on. When she'd reached the restaurant that served her favorite burger, they were closed because there had been such a rush that they'd run out of food. Her second choice, her favorite Chinese restaurant, was also closed, randomly, for a family gathering. Eventually, Emily had ended up at a Mexican restaurant where she ordered a chicken quesadilla to go. After paying for her order she headed back towards the campus. She was almost there when she got a frantic call from Angela.

"Don't come back!! Go home!!" Angela shrieked.

"What??" Emily asked in a panic.

"Don't come back!! Patrons started rioting over the coffee. It was cacophony!! Miss Elgenie got some of the free coffee and when it was the same old same old she got so mad she smacked the coffee pot off the table with her cane, climbed up on the table and started yelling about the 'putrid excuse for coffee they expect us to drink.' it was WILD. I think once she started complaining it was the push the college students needed to make their gripes about it known. Campus security came down here to try and escort the rioters out, but it was no use."

At that point Emily had to pull over. This was insane. She pulled into the parking lot at the super center and listened intently to what Angela was telling her.

"And then you know what happened??" Angela continued. "There was apparently a problem with the plumbing and the pipes burst flooding the WHOLE library. So you and I get two paid weeks off work while they repair the library."

Angela was way, WAY too chipper about this. Angela loved the library. It was like the baby she never had so there had to be something up for her to not be a sobbing mess that it was ruined.

"Angela, did Ralph's concoction get destroyed in the midst of all of this?" She asked suspiciously.

"Yep! Miss Elgenie stole it from me as 'compensation for the utter ruination of the coffee she'd been choking down.'" Angela replied, practically singing.

Though Emily knew not having to try one if Ralph's concoctions must have made Angela's day, she also knew there had to be some other reason she sounded this happy. Too happy. Almost forced.

"Angela," Emily probed. "What aren't you telling me?"

Angela chuckled nervously on the other end of the line.

"N-now why w-would you think I was hiding anything from you, Emily?" She stuttered.

"Because I know you and I know that you could never be this excited if something terrible happened to the library."

The line was quiet for a moment before Angela heaved a sigh.

"Remember that huge cataloguing project I had you working on for the last month or so?" Angela said, her voice cautious, almost to the point of being void of emotion.

"Yes. The one you want me to complete on paper before inputting it into the system," Emily answered, not yet understanding where this was going.

"Well, when the library flooded the water kind of, uh, destroyedallofyourhardworksowhenyoucomebackyouhavetostartalloveragain." Angela answered, spitting the last bit out as quickly as she could.

Emily felt her heart drop. She'd been meticulously working on that project so that they could get everything correctly transferred over to their new system. She was so frustrated she could cry.

"Emily?"

"I'm here," Emily answered, voice thick.

"I'm sorry Emily. I know how hard you were working on that project." Angela said softly. "It probably won't make you feel any better, but even if your work hadn't been ruined you would have had to redo a lot of it. Many of the books were damaged so badly they'll have to be replaced, and we may not even be able to find copies of some of the books."

Angela sounded devastated at the loss of all the ruined books.

Emily laughed humorlessly. "I know you're right. It's just frustrating. I'm sorry about all the books, Angela."

"I'm sorry, too. It'll be alright. In two weeks we will be able to get back in here and set everything right again." Angela said, still sounding sad, but trying to infuse her voice with optimism.

After a few more minutes they got off the phone. Taking a few minutes to collect herself, Emily decided even though she couldn't truly enjoy whatever music DJ Inn had to offer she really needed a pick me up right now. Rifling around in the backpack she had, thankfully, left in her car this morning, she dug until she found the CD. She opened the case and slid the disc into the CD player in her dash.

Closing her eyes, Emily leaned her head back against the headrest and waited for music to fill the car. Nothing. Silence. Emily cracked one eye open and stared at the display above the CD player. There was no error message and it claimed to be playing the first track. She reached forward and turned up the volume to what should have been an ear shattering volume. Still nothing.

Maybe the CD player is broken, she thought.

She rifled through her backpack again until she pulled out another CD. As soon as the disc went in and started playing, Emily's hand shot out, turning down the volume.

"Seriously?" Emily mumbled darkly.

So it wasn't the stereo after all, it was the CD itself that wasn't working. Reaching into her purse, Emily pulled out her wallet and flicked through her receipts until she found the one from Tracks. Surely she would be able to return it, they were always very good about standing behind the items they sold. She scanned the receipt, finally her eyes found what she was looking for, the return policy. Annoyance settled upon her when she realized she was outside of the return window so all sales were final. She mentally slapped herself for having bought so many CDs when she was in there last month. She'd been so inundated with new music to listen to that she had completely forgotten about this one until that morning when she had been grabbing a couple of CDs out of her "To be Listened to" pile and there it was.

Rolling her eyes, Emily grumbled, "Djinn? Pfft if you were really a genie you could turn this mess around."

She took one last look at the CD before tossing it in the back seat and shifting her car into drive before heading home.

Emily squeezed her eyes shut in frustration. What a day, she thought sourly. Emily rolled off the bed and walked to her entryway where, upon entering, she had dropped all of her bags, including her now cold lunch. Finding the Styrofoam container that currently housed her food, she padded to the kitchen so she could heat up her food and finally fill her growling belly. Standing on tiptoes Emily reached up into her cabinet and grabbed a plate. She set the plate aside on the counter and popped open the take out container. She grabbed the quesadilla and deposited it on the plate before popping it in the microwave. She started the reheat and then went back to her room to change into something more comfortable.

The microwave started beeping, signalling her food was done as she was trying to shove her other leg into her sweat pants. She hopped around on one foot, and stumbled into the door frame, internally vowing to always turn her clothes right side out before putting them away from now on. Finally managing to get her pants situated, she padded to the kitchen to retrieve her food. After grabbing her food from the microwave, she made her way over the couch and plopped down. As she scarfed down her food, Emily scrolled through her social media mindlessly. On one of her musically minded pages the people were discussing what new music they had listened to today that had really stuck with them. Emily internally grumbled thinking back to that stupid DJ Inn CD and how after her ridiculous day she hadn't gotten to really enjoy any new music, which was a first for her. As annoyed as she was by the faulty CD she was still intrigued enough that she wanted to listen to the music on it. She opened the music and video app on her phone and searched DJ Inn. Rather than immediately pulling up videos for the album immediately like she expected, the page continuously showed the loading icon. After waiting for a few minutes and growing impatient, Emily closed out of the app and tried again, only to be met with the same thing. Setting her empty plate aside, Emily hoisted herself up from the couch and crossed the room to where her router was stationed. Reaching to the back of the router, she unplugged it, waited for a few moments, and plugged it back in, sure that the internet was just acting up. So she tried searching DJ Inn again and this time the page did finally load, only to say "No Results Found Matching Your Search."

"Seriously?" Emily grumbled.

She knew from the cheesiness of the entire album, from the packaging, to the artists name, and the songs that the music obviously wasn't from a well known group or company, but this was ridiculous. Closing out of the app, she opened up the browser on her phone and searched for DJ Inn. This time she was met with many results, mostly about djinn and not an artist. Still, Emily scrolled through the search results until she found one that sounded promising.

"Wishing Well Music Group?" Emily mumbled, as she clicked on the link for the website. As the page loaded she was met with graphics that reminded her a whole lot of late 90s early 2000s social media what with the sparkles in the background and cheesy mythical creatures dispersed throughout the page. She navigated around the page until she found a drop down tab labeled Artists. Clicking on it brought her to a page that made her choke back laughter. She was met not only with DJ Inn, but also Mint Leprechaun, a trio called FAE, and a rap duo called Shooting Stars. Every single one of these groups was named after something that would supposedly grant wishes, which considering the name of their label shouldn't have been much of a surprise, but Emily was still deeply amused by the whole thing.

Clicking on the link for DJ Inn, Emily hoped she would find a way to listen to the album and this time was not disappointed. There was a sample of the album she could listen to. Clicking on the sample Emily waited in excitement for it to load. As long as it was taking to load, Emily was sure she was going to be met with the same debacle from earlier that day and there would be no music. Her thoughts ran away with her, Maybe the label went bankrupt and they had to quit making music. Maybe the label is so small they can't afford much help and their quality control is really poor. Maybe-- Suddenly, a loud piercing screech emitted from her phone, startling her so much that she fumbled her phone and dropped it on the floor. The screech continued as she quickly retrieved her phone from the floor. Just as suddenly as the screeching had started, it stopped. Emily stared down at her phone in shock. She was relieved that hadn't come out of her stereo earlier when she had already been stressed. How was it even possible that the website AND the CD were faulty?? She would think it was her phone if she hadn't been on the phone with Angela earlier that day, and the screeching certainly couldn't have been because she dropped it considering she had dropped it BECAUSE of the screeching.

"This is stupid." Emily growled, standing up from the couch and marching to her backpack. Reaching inside her backpack she pulled out the CD and made her way to the kitchen, intent on throwing the hunk of junk in the trash. When she reached the trash can she looked down at the CD case one last time. She had had such a good feeling about this CD. She had been sure, in spite of the cheesiness, that there was something about the music that would speak to her. She hadn't even planned on buying anymore music than what she had already chosen, but as she was checking out it had been like there was something calling out to her. Not one to ignore gut feelings, she had looked around the store before her eyes fixed on the bargain bin. She almost couldn't help walking towards it, and when she reached it the album was sitting there on top, almost as if it was meant for her to find it. Without a second thought she bought it, sure that there was something special about it. Apparently not she thought, sighing as disappointment surged through her. Dropping the CD in the trash she made her way to her bedroom to sleep and escape from the absolute absurdity of the day.