The pamphlet had a picture of a large old-fashioned wooden water wheel submerged in a river. Overlaid on it was a faded yin-yang symbol, and when I looked closer I saw that the inside of the water wheel was made up of an ouroboros (a snake biting its own tail).
In fact, the longer I looked the more details I was able to make out, until I started feeling like I was falling into the picture; I heard the sound of rushing water as the wheel started to spin, picking up a scoop of water and then depositing it back into the same river again, an endless cycle.
I quickly turned the pamphlet over and jerked back in surprise, short of breath and dizzy, and a spray of water came out of the pamphlet as it spun in my hands, soaking the nightstand and the far wall.
Woah.
Somewhat apprehensive, I turned the pamphlet over again and peeked at it carefully. The wheel was still, and while the picture had water in it, the paper was completely dry... it was just a picture of water, not the real thing. I ran my finger along the cover of the pamphlet, and it was smooth and glossy, with no hint of where the water came from. Maybe a hidden hose somewhere? I looked up, but there was nothing but a plain white expanse of ceiling running from one wall to the next.
I opened the pamphlet and took a look at the first page.
Congratulations! You have achieved a high enough Karmic balance to qualify for the Great Cycle of Reincarnation!
Below this was a table with a bunch of numbers on it, displaying my name and age sorted by years. The first entry was blank, showing a zero Karmic balance. The rest were all increasingly negative, until the very last column. What the hell! What did I do to earn a negative Karmic balance? And starting at 1 year old no less! That made no sense.
Looking closer, there were codes beside each number, and a note to refer to the Appendix. Flipping to the next page, I compared some numbers, my eyebrows raising. Wow… starting from Age 1 I was penalized for polluting the earth, thereby causing harm to all living creatures, with a modifier for my age (apparently you are forgiven more when you are younger?).
There were a bunch of different entries for each year, especially when I started getting older. I got some positive (0.0401 Karma for smiling at a stranger, 0.1550 for trying to be a good employee for a whole year), and some negative (-13.2151 Karma for driving a gas-powered car for a year, -0.0942 for swearing at someone who cut me off). Holy hell this was concise.
And when I kept looking at the list, the tally kept going on, page after page, for each year... I flipped through dozens of pages, but when I held the pamphlet up to my face horizontally it looked like it couldn't be more than five sheets thick. This just made less and less sense...
But there was nothing else interesting in the room, so I opened up the pamphlet again. Then there was a summary by age, followed by a total at the end.
One year old: -382.1459 (0.0014) = -0.5350 Karma
Two years old: -341.9659 (0.0021) = -0.7181 Karma
All the way to:
Twenty-three years old: -484.5496 (0.6429) = -311.5169 Karma
Twenty-four years old: -219.6546 (0.6985) +776254.8546 = +776101.4259 Karma
Total Karmic Balance: +770442.7471 Karma
Apparently, Karma was calculated to four decimal places…
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The last year was by far the most interesting one, with the usual host of negative numbers (-65.4665 for eating unethically sourced meat), the much shorter trickle of positives (+21.0568 for planting trees), followed by a huge positive with a few smaller entries tossed in.
Special Event:
For minimizing the suffering of hundreds of thousands of individuals and saving tens of thousands of lives, modified for choosing to sacrifice your own life to help others.
+170982.5485 (4.2424) = +725376.3638 Karma
For polluting the ocean and killing marine life for hundreds of years, modified for not having a better choice at the time and not being complicit in the planning of the event.
-25606.6910(0.04965) = -1271.3722 Karma
For ending hundreds of lives against their will, modified for not having a better choice at the time.
-486.000 (1.000) = -486.000 Karma
For ending the lives of dangerous individuals who were planning to murder thousands more, modified for choosing to sacrifice your own life to help others.
+600.000 (4.2424) = +2545.4400 Karma
For ending the life of a mass murderer and child killer, modified by not knowing he was present.
+2000.000 (0.5000) = +1000.000 Karma
And that wasn’t even all of it. My eyes paused on the last entry though. So apparently killing a serial killer is worth more than killing a terrorist? That made no sense to me.
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It suddenly struck me that I had been spending the last few minutes flipping through dozens of pages in this 5-page pamphlet, and every time I turned a page to look for something it was right there. It felt so natural when I was reading through it that I had nearly forgotten how strange it was.
Blinking, I looked at the open floor-length window leading to the garden, then back to the pamphlet. Wait... what window? What garden?
I slowly looked up again, not quite able to believe that I had missed seeing the sun shining in from a large window that lead into a lush beautiful garden. Was... was that there before?
Setting the pamphlet back down on the nightstand, I wandered to the window and placed my hand on it, feeling the cool smooth texture of the glass contrasting with the warmth of the sun shining in on me. I hesitantly tried pushing on the glass, wondering if the window was also a door, since it was taller than I was, and went all the way down to the floor.
The glass smoothly pushed outward when I applied pressure, and I took a hesitant step outside. My feet were bare, and I didn't see any shoes or slippers around, but the glass looked well-tended and inviting. The sun was shining and warm, the grass was soft and cozy, and the garden seemed endless. I mean, I could literally see flowers and trees all the way to the horizon in all directions. Nice, but kind of weird at the same time. Usually, you can just see the few trees in front of you, and they block most of the rest, but here I felt like I could see miles away - as if I was in a very gradual valley, or the earth was curving up instead of down.
Looking behind me, all I saw was a white single-room shack; the same room I had just walked out of. There was a closed door on the far wall, which I was certain I hadn't seen when I first woke up, but when I hesitantly walked around the shack (cabin?) I didn’t see a door on the far side, just a blank white exterior wall, covered in what I guessed was some kind of textured plaster that looked distinctly European to me.
Was this heaven? If so, it sure was boring (except for the magic windows, doors, and pamphlets) - was there even anyone else here? I didn’t feel hungry, but I did notice there were fruit trees scattered around the garden if I needed a snack. Something kept me from calling out – it was just too peaceful. In fact, I couldn’t even bring myself to speak in a loud voice.
Returning to my little room, I studied the door for a moment, before deciding to finish reading the little pamphlet first. Right under the entry for my total Karmic Balance, it said:
Negative Karmic Balance: Souls are sent to Purgatory, then recycled for parts. No rebirth allowed.
Karmic Balance between 0 & 1000: Souls sent to basic level rebirth, D class animals or less, divided by rank.
Karmic Balance between 1001 & 10,000: Souls sent to basic level rebirth, A class animals or less, divided by rank.
Karmic Balance between 10,001 & 100,000: Souls sent to Divine level rebirth, divided by rank.
Karmic Balance between 100,001 & ∞ : Souls sent to Celestial level rebirth, divided by rank.
Ok, that was new. I quickly checked for a glossary (which I found on the first page I checked…) and it explained that class D animals were Horses, Dogs, Wolves, and the like, going all the way down to class Z animals. I won’t mention what class Z animals were, but… ewww.
Next, I looked up class A animals, which included any sentient animals, such as Dolphins, Cats (really??), and of course Humans. Interestingly, Crows and Ravens were class B, while most monkeys and apes were split between B and C. Sloths and Cuttlefish were class B, huh, well whaddya know?