Last night I watched the Twilight Zone version of Charles Beaumont's story, The Howling Man, about the devil locked up in a monastery in Germany where an American seeks refuge. He is in the guise of a man, and so David frees him, because he does not believe the head of the monk order. So, he spends his life trying to lock the devil back up.It is also interesting because it is post WWI in the story. I would be interested in when, because it implies that the devil getting loose causes WWII. The monk says, "wherever there is persecution, I have seen him."
The Man in the Bottle is another interesting short story, which I read in one of my anthologies. However, when I researched, I could not find the author's name, of the original story. I know it was around the forties or fifties, because it is about a couple who own an antique store. They are very broke and unhappy. An old woman begs him to buy an old wine bottle worth nothing. He gives her a dollar for it when she starts to cry.
It turns out the bottle has a genie, that comes out when it falls. They get four wishes. He wishes for the glass to be fixed on the case. It is. He wishes for a million dollars. They give most of it away, because they are nice people, but then they get audited and have to pay the rest in taxes, and only have five remaining dollars.
The genie returns. He has two wishes left. He wishes to be a ruler of a country, who cannot be voted out of office, anywhere in the world. He is suddenly Hitler, at the end of the war, being brought a vial of sianide poison, but just before he kills himself, he wishes to be back to who he was, his last wish. His wish is granted. The rules are you can wish to change the wish, I suppose.
He and his wife are so happy to be in their little antique shop. They accidently break the case again and laugh. Then they sweep up the broken genie bottle and throw it away. Then it puts itself together in the garbage on the street.
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