THE JINN

(Trigger Warning – Suicide discussion)

I had thought of a million and one ways to kill myself. I knew better than to slice my wrists sideways- to ensure I did it long ways- but it was messy. I knew if I hung myself, it would take a while, or I’d just pass out or only break my neck. The thought of living as a cripple after such a thing made me sad and angry.  

I pictured the gravestone with my name, RICO MENENDEZ, 1978-2022. A name and a brief entry in the local paper about how “he died suddenly.” I’d been secretly wishing to die in my sleep for most of my life. A simple death – no mess – easy peasy.

That never happened. I’d taken medication and gone to therapy. I never revealed my death wish to anyone, though. They’d lock me up and throw away the key. I didn’t want to cry out for help. I just wanted to cease to exist. A clean skate. I’d donate my body and soul to someone more in need if I could, like a kid with cancer. Kids have so much potential and are full of hope and possibilities.  

I’m 45 years old. My empathy for the human race died a long time ago when I saw my father choking my mother after he was coming down off cocaine. 

Sometimes it’s those minor traumas like coming home from school, and the gas was turned off because your father failed to pay the fucking bill.  

There were bright moments like the family trip to the Smoky Mountains. But after a failed marriage- no kids – I decided I just didn’t want to wake up to another morning of hearing Mr. Haskins, my boss, make the same stupid fucking joke about having the Mondays. Shut the fuck up, Mr. Haskins nobody gives a shit, you sad fucking piece of flesh.

If there was a way to kill yourself, I pretty much thought of it. Sadly, I was too lazy for most of the methods. I could only hope for a serendipitous event.

Then it happened. 

My job consisted of traveling quite a bit, so I was stuck in traffic headed south of the big city one afternoon.

I decided to exit the highway and take the long way. If anything, I could stare at some beautiful scenery. The small town I was driving through had a downtown filled with local shops and one in particular- a very unique antique shop.  

I was staring at the shop when I felt the hit behind me. 

Fuck

I had been rear-ended.

I looked behind me, and some guy in one of those big pickup trucks got out, apologizing profusely.

“Man, I’m so sorry!” He was saying.

“It happens,” I said. What I really wanted to say was, are you fucking blind? 

“Let’s pull in over here at the antique shop,” he said, and I got back in my vehicle and pulled into one of the spots directly in front of the shop.

As I did, the guy sped off.

“What the hell? Come on, man!” 

By now, I saw an older woman come out of the antique shop wearing a blue lace cape and a long blue dress.

“I took down his license plate! Come on in, I’ll give it to you; I have whiskey in the back, too, if you need it.” She said, smiling.  

The older woman reminded me of my late grandmother- dark brown dyed hair- red lipstick, and she was at least in her late 70’s. I got out of my Sedan and went into the little shop. She was a nice enough woman, but I just wanted to get the license plate of my hit-and-run assailant and sue the pants off of him.

“You look upset, as you should be.” She said with an empathetic expression.

“Yeah, I can think of a few feelings I could express, but I think I’ll save that for when I get a lawyer. My entire back end is scratched!” I said, not noticing when she started pouring a whiskey into a shot glass with a cat on it with a third eye in its forehead.  

She put it up to my face. “Drink,” she said.

I didn’t argue as I took the shot and then began to laugh.  

“I can certainly say I never expected my Monday to go like this,”

“Hey, it happens. Here’s the license plate and a coupon for one free item of your choice!” She grinned as she poured another shot and drank it herself.

“Oh, thank you so much, but you have already been kind. I couldn’t take anything out of here for free.”

“It’s on the house!”

I looked around the shop, not seeing anything I could want. Then, my eyes settled on a pretty perfume bottle. It resembled the one my mom always had on her dresser. It was small enough and didn’t look expensive. 

“How about the rose perfume bottle?” I asked.

Her eyes looked at me for a moment. “Eh, why not this pretty mirror with the moon on it instead?”

“Oh, no, it’s far too large. I’ll just take the old bottle. My mom had one of these on her dresser. It will remind me of her.”

She nodded, smiling at my sentiment, and put it in a pretty bag.

I watched her hand me the bag hesitantly, and then she released it.

“Remember, you can always change your mind.”

I thanked her again and went home. When I got there, I sat the old bottle on my fireplace and went to unwind for the evening. 

Later that night, I woke up to my blankets being ripped off me and my body shivering. I looked around and couldn’t see an immediate reason for the cold. I sat up, looking around to see if I had left a window open. Nothing. 

I got up to check the thermostat. It was down to fifty- two degrees. No wonder I was shivering. 

I turned the heater on and then stood to wait and see if I heard it kick on. Then suddenly, I noticed the smell of roses. Not just any kind, but the smell of my late mother’s perfume. I took a deep breath and walked over to where I sat the bottle when I got home.

I noticed it looked as if someone had knocked it over. The lid was lying on the floor. As I went to pick it up, I heard a deep voice.

“THERE YOU ARE,” the voice seemed to boom inside my house.

I wondered if I had left the TV on.

“THE TV IS NOT ON, I’M HERE, AND I’M VERY REAL. I THINK I CAN HELP YOU.”

“Who is there?” I asked angrily.

Then, from the shadows, I saw a man. His skin was dark, and his eyes were golden. His hair was long and curly but held tightly against his head and neck in a finely manicured way.  

“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“I am here to serve you. I will go once you tell me three wishes.”

I blinked twice and then began to get angry.

“Listen, man, if you don’t get the hell out of my house, I’m calling the cops, or I’m going to shoot your ass.”

“No, you won’t do any of those things. You see, I am here to grant your wishes. I already know about your impending death wish. Only to die, you must first ask me.”

“What do you mean?”

I was getting scared now. It was something nobody on this planet knew.

“Your wife had an indiscretion, and you decided it wasn’t worth continuing a loveless marriage. You hate your day job, but you must stay a few more years till you can retire to collect everything you are owed. Let me see,” he rubbed the tiny hair on the tip of his chin. “You wish you could cease to exist. No blood loss, no pain, a simple, clean death.”

“Yes, but-“

“I am your Jinn. Your Genie in a bottle- literally.”

“How can I believe this is real?” I asked, still thinking I must be dreaming.

“Watch,” he said. He suddenly pulled out a fire flame from nowhere and then began to burn his entire body. I watched as the flame covered him in bright orange and red before it calmed down into a pink aura. The smoke of his body smelled like rose incense. 

“How did you get here?” 

“How does anyone get anywhere? What does it matter?”

“Tell me how you can help me.”

“You must make a wish. You must tell me your wish, and I will grant it. When I am done, I will return to where I came from.”

“That easy?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?”

“I have seen enough television shows and movies to know all Jinns are liars and demons from hell.”

He laughed. “I love a good story as much as any mortal, but I can assure you I am not here to harm or send you to hell. It does me no good to bring harm to you. You see, I am what you might call a merit system. The more good deeds I do, the more years I shave off my punishment of remaining inside of this bottle.”

“Why did you end up there?”

“It isn’t vital, but I was not a good mortal, so I was punished by staying inside this bottle until I did enough good deeds to get out of it.”

I somehow found myself believing him. Then, I thought mercilessly of my first wish.

“I wish that the man that hit my car gets punished. The worst kind allowed given his circumstances.” 

“As you wish,” he said. With that, he disappeared.

“Hello? Where the fuck did you go?”

I waited a while, then when I didn’t see him, I figured I really had dreamt it and went back to bed.

The following day, I woke up to my phone ringing. When I picked it up, it was a cop asking me if I was involved in a hit-and-run. I told him what happened, and then he explained the man who had done it died after being killed in another hit-and-run. He had a dash cam for the insurance company, and on the SD card, it had the driver’s video of him hitting me. Miraculously, the insurance company decided to pay me because of it. I had never heard of anything like this, especially since the guy died. Why would they even bother to help me?

I thought about it and remembered the interaction I had with the Jinn. I gulped, almost sick to my stomach, knowing I most likely wished for this guy’s death.

I smelled roses again, and when I looked up, there he was.

“I have granted your first wish, but you still have two wishes.”

“Yeah, but I only wanted justice. I didn’t wish to kill anyone. Doesn’t that go against your merit system?”

“I am here to serve you. I can continue with the last two wishes if you believe justice was served. I will also have years taken off my time in this wretched bottle. To save me time, please let me grant your final two wishes.

“No, I don’t trust you.”

The Jinn smiled at me. I could see he was concealing his imminent rage. Yet, I refused to budge.

“What if I tell you that the man that died would have killed two other people if he had lived. He was not a good man. His soul is rotting in its designated place.”

“What do you mean?”

He suddenly showed me the man who died stabbing a woman with a knife. He had cut her throat, and then he cut her apart in a bathtub. The following image was of him tossing the bags in the back of the car he hit me with. I was shocked that maybe the reason he didn’t stay was because he had one of his murder victims inside the trunk of the car.

“Fine. I believe you. But for me to agree to let you grant me the last two wishes, I must first ask you if I am allowed to specify how I die.”

“Yes, of course.”

“So assisted suicide doesn’t cause you any demerits?”

“It is your wish. If you believe that your death is just, then I must comply. Tell me, why do you wish to die?”

“I lost everything that made me happy in 2018. My stupid job had me working so many hours that my wife, Bethany, slept with the guy next door, Jake. They fell in love, and she left me. I still have the shitty job, but not the wife or the happy life I imagined. I just want to end it. I want people to forget I ever existed.”

“Easy Peasy,” he responded.

I nodded. Then I got angry.

“I wish to die quickly, and I wish-“

“Remember, you only have two wishes left. I will grant your wish to die quickly.”

“But-” I could no longer speak.

A strange thing began to happen to me. I could feel my blood coursing through my veins. I could feel my heart stopping inside of my chest. This was it. This was what I had wanted so badly. Yet, as I struggled, I realized it wasn’t the death I wished for. Before I could die, I muttered one final wish.

“I wish things would return to how they were in 2018, with a happy life and my wife!”

I woke up in bed, and my wife was beside me. It was the day I went to work overtime after I promised her I’d stay home and spend the day with her.  

The phone rang. I looked over at Bethany, and I saw it was work calling. I ignored it and went back to sleep.

I smelled roses.

When I finally got out of bed, I could hear my wife talking to someone in the bathroom. When I went to open the bathroom door, I could hear that fucking Jinn. He was in there talking to her.

I tried to open the door, but it was locked.  

“Bethany! Bethany -open the door!”

Suddenly, I began to change physically. I felt my body change, and I fell to the ground. I was lying there thinking I had had a heart attack when Bethany opened the door. Next to her was the Jinn smiling.

“Oh my god! He looks just like Jake!” my wife exclaimed happily. 

I stood and looked into the mirror. I was staring back at myself as the man my wife had slept with- the stupid neighbor Jake. 

“No, no, no!”

The Jinn winked at me. “You said you wanted a happy life and a happy wife.”