Case Number: AT 04/05/01 3072 ~ fiction by Roopa Raveendra

Case Number: AT 04/05/01 3072
Incident: Foiled hiatus breaker attempt
Reporting Officer: Ibrahim Badran, Police Constable
Date of Report: 10/2/2020

At about 12:10 on February 10, 2019, I met with Mr. Djinn at Al Majdool Road regarding a foiled hiatus breaker attempt.

Mr. Djinn said that he was a suspended djinn. He stated he was on hiatus and spent his days brushing up on his charm and hunting for a prospective muse that would break his hiatus.

Mr. Djinn said that he spotted Miss Aria at 7:50 AM at the bus stop outside Al Rasool Street on February 3, 2020, and decided on the spot that she would be his hiatus breaker. However, a week later, at 12:10 AM, he discovered that her soul had a strong, metallic stench, thus rendering her incapable of fulfilling the role of a hiatus breaker.

Mr. Djinn described her as an olive-skinned girl with grayish-green eyes and scents of orange blossom, cinnamon, and a hint of rose water. Based on her sweet scent, he estimated her soul to be sweet-smelling and said that this made him decide to pick her as a hiatus breaker.

Mr. Djinn told me she was the first hiatus breaker he had seen in twenty human years. He said that he followed her for a week. During the week, she appeared to be a quiet girl who kept to herself. She had a fixed routine. She stayed in an institution for young women and went to school in the mornings. She didn’t have any friends and ate all her meals alone. He now believes that perhaps she displayed signs that he did not take seriously. He said that she spent a lot of time in the bathroom on some days. Mr. Djinn also said that he overheard Miss Aria’s classmates say she was not normal and displayed zombie-like behavior after her parents’ death in a car crash. He also said that as a suspended djinn, he had followed all the hiatus rules including only sniffing and snooping around prospective hiatus breakers, zero communication with potential hiatus breakers, and not indulging in scorching or burning any detractors.

On the night of the incident, Mr. Djinn stated that Miss Aria didn’t behave differently. She quietly ate her bowl of soup before retiring to bed. However, Mr. Djinn said that her bed was empty just after the midnight gong, and he could no longer smell her.

I surveyed the crime scene and found her lying still, foaming at the mouth with her eyes wide open. There was a needle on the floor which has been retrieved and will be sent for further testing.

I got a sworn statement from Mr. Djinn and provided him with the Case Number and Information Leaflet 88/05 (“How to spot the perfect hiatus breaker”). I entered the loss of Aria as a hiatus breaker in the station database. I will conduct further investigation to find out if her failure to fulfill the role of hiatus breaker was intentional or accidental.

Progress Report will follow.

Roopa was raised in Kochi, India where swatting mosquitoes at dusk is considered a life skill, to be honed and perfected. Currently, she lives in Dubai with her daughter. Some of her stories have been published in Corium Magazine, Nunum, Tiny Molecules, Crow & Cross Keys, and elsewhere, and have been nominated for Best of the Net and Best of Microfiction. Her debut middle-grade fiction, Chandu and the Super Set of Parents has been published by Fitzroy Books. She tweets erratically @RoopaMenon1.