A scream penetrates the foggy air, not the first I heard since I got here. I jerk awake to her loud wailing. Turning to the side, I shut my ears with my pillow but to no avail. Her pain is too much to shut out.
I walk out as my ears now thump with the screaming and I look at my aunt in dismay. “Why have they brought her out? Her pain gives me gooseflesh.” “I don’t know, beta,” she replied and went back to doing her chores. Was she so used to the wailing that it didn’t affect her anymore? How was that possible?!
-----x-----x-----
“She cries so much, ma, and her shrieks don’t let me do anything. It is so painful to hear all day long. I wake up to her screaming and sleep to her crying. Is it wrong to hope she dies so that her pain ends?”
“No, it isn’t,” ma replied. “She is frail and her body has given up the battle against cancer. Her soul, however, is not ready to let go.”
“I am not able to take it. Her screeching is much too prominent and the helpless is driving me crazy.”
“You know? Her mother-in-law was in the same state as she is right now. She never treated her properly. In fact, she made her work. During the coldest winters, she used to sit out in the open,
washing utensils and clothes while she screamed at her.”
I gaped. Karma?
-----x-----x-----
We were sipping our evening tea when we heard yet another cry. “The woman has been in this condition for 2 years,” I exclaimed. “Not 2. 4,” my uncle said quietly. I shrieked. “Yeah,” he continued, “Four years and no sight of reprise. She continues to suffer each day.”
The misery in this information is still too much for me to digest.
-----x-----x-----
“I want to go home,” I complained to my visibly shocked aunt. “Why beta, are you not happy here? Is something wrong?” I immediately felt guilty and dropped my gaze to the floor. “No, it isn’t like that. I just can’t hear the woman scream and wail round the clock. I am not strong like that.”
“Sweetie, I know what you mean and you may think we are heartless but you need to be practical here. She is beyond help. Her family is doing what they can but they can’t take away what the cancer has done to her.”
“Is it wrong to hope she dies and it ends for her,” I asked mom that night over the phone. “No,” she repeated her answer. “We have all hoped the same for her at some point but she has, perhaps, not paid her dues yet.”
“Karma?” I whispered.
“Karma,” mom repeated.
What goes around comes around. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You can never, ever get away with misdoing. Whether you call it misguided judgment or cold disapproval, here’s proof that Karma has its way of making you pay for what you do. You can’t escape without paying for your deeds. What you do here, you pay for it right here. Hell’s right here for he who deserves it.
