Do Not Remove This Tag Piers Anthony Nate stared at the purple tag. DO NOT REMOVE THIS TAG. There was no other information on it, so what was the point of it? It was on the second-hand mattress he had bought cheap, all that he could afford, and the mattress was not very comfortable. In fact it was lumpy, and the lumps tended to poke him almost as if self-animated. He was getting ready for bed, dreading another bad night’s sleep, with the night yet young, and in no mood for arrogant tags. It was bad enough existing on unemployment and limited savings; he didn’t need this.
What the hell. At least he could deal with this annoyance. What could they do, throw him in jail? He took hold of the tag and pulled.
It resisted his effort. “So it’s like that, is it?” he muttered. “Well, we’ll see, you self-important little piece of fluff.”
He went to fetch a pair of pliers. He fastened them on the tag and yanked hard. It ripped out of the mattress seam with a pained noise of separation. It truly had not wanted to be removed. But it had tangled with the wrong person.
Then mist issued from the small tear where the tag had been. Purple mist or smoke. Was the mattress on fire? Fascinated for the moment, Nate watched the vapor curl out and spiral upward, thickening and expanding. There was evidently a lot of it inside the mattress, now released by the slit. It became a dark cloud eighteen inches in diameter, swirling internally.
The vapor formed into a horrendous face with cauliflower ears, beetling brows, a crude vent of a mouth, flame-like hair, and darkly smoldering eyes. “So, mortal!” it rumbled. “Thou hast released me at last, thou foul son of a she-dog!”
This was weird. It was also insulting. “Listen, airhead. If you’re what inflated the mattress, get back in there and do your job. The damned thing is bad enough without going all the way flat.”
“I be the Ifrit Ibraheemstukobritch,” the face said, or something that sounded something like that. “Three thousand years have I been trapped in this vile container. Other ifrits got confined to fine glass bottles, but no, I was stuck in this ill bag. King Suleiman, may the gods defecate on his name, doubtless had a sense of humor I share not.”
This was one of the genies the ancient Israeli king had confined to bottles so they wouldn’t bother human folk? That didn’t make sense. “How come? He must have had a reason.”
More of the demon formed. Now he was a complete figure of a supernatural spirit, with muscular limbs and an impressive naked torso. “Know, O foolish mortal, that I always had an eye for the damsels. The queen was one luscious creature, but her suite was warded to repel ifrits like me. So I sneaked into a mattress that was being delivered to her bedroom, and when she sat her bountiful bottom down in it, I gave her a little poke up through the cloth.” He illustrated by poking a single ham-finger up suggestively.
“That wasn’t smart,” Nate said, smiling.
“Mayhap not. Her scream roused the entire palace staff, including the king, who was not much amused. He was in his night dress, with a disheveled concubine trailing behind. ‘O foul spawn of hell,’ he swore, ‘since thou does like mattresses so much, be thou forever confined to it.’ Suddenly I was locked in, with a magic tag for the seal, and the mattress was heaved onto the trash pile. I could hear what passed outside it, but could not see, and of course I could not escape. It were not the mattress that confined me, but the seal, which I could not remove from inside. The mattress passed from beggar to beggar over the centuries, and each insisted on using it despite my efforts to make it uncomfortable. It was in my mind that I might torment someone into burning it, and when the flame made a hole I would escape. But the infernal thing was fireproof. Thus I remained, until this moment thou didst free me. So thank thee, mortal, and now begone.”
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