The Scales Shall Be Balanced, The Debt Will Be Paid

A short story that illustrates the interwoven nature of karma, destiny and rebirth ~ g

When the left wing of the chemical plant in M. blew up, Margaret was sitting at her desk. It felt like an earthquake. She saw the huge flames erupting like a volcano, engulfing the cisterns and everything around. There was immediate panic. People were screaming and running about in mayhem. Then a new loud detonation concussed the entire area. Margaret was thrown into the air. Sharp pain sliced through her body...

She saw a tunnel and she made her way through it. As she advanced the light at the end grew stronger and brighter. At last she was in the open. It was bright. Millions of little twinkling lights glittered in the air. There were lovely colors, flowing colors, many of which she had never seen before. She felt light as a feather. As she looked around she saw thousands of people floating in the air like herself. She knew them. They all worked in the plant.

Below saw the plant, consumed by raging gigantic flames. Thick smoke billowed into the sky.

“What happened?” asked a secretary in horror, passing by in the air.

“I am not sure, ”Margaret replied. “It looks like an accident.” As she viewed the scene, panic grabbed at her heart.

She saw fire engines approaching from all sides. People were running about in every direction. Chaos reigned.

Margaret remembered her children with a constricting chill. She flew as fast as she could to the school where she had left them that morning. They were sitting calmly, doing their lessons, unaware of the disaster that had just occurred. Soon the bell rang and they ran out into the school yard. She followed and called them, but they paid her no attention. They were busy with their friends. She hovers over them for a while.

“My husband!” she thought suddenly, and rushed toward his workplace. She saw him driving his car in the nearby street, heading towards the plant. She passed through the windshield, sat on the front seat, and began talking to him:

“Its okay dear. You won’t find me there. I am here—sitting next to you.”

But his face remained worried, pale, and nervous. He was listening to the radio that was giving non-stop reports on the inferno. “It looks like there are no survivors...estimated number of deaths about 5000...” The voice of the announcer bordered on hysteria. The announcer’s voice was broken. Overcome by emotion he unable to continue.Then her husband broke into tears.

“So that is what happened,” Margaret thinks. “I am dead...”

By evening the President had appeared on TV and declared the event an act of sabotage perpetrated by a separatist group known as the “Movement for Liberation,” comprised of the Fenkushy people, which had been responsible for many other terrorist attacks, though none approached this magnitude.

Calls for war were heard from many respectable citizens. “We have to revenge the death of those innocent people,” urged the Secretary of State with strong conviction....

Despite her state of near panic, Margaret was fascinated by her ability to fly, to defy gravity. It was a new sensation. And she found she could be anywhere almost instantly simply by thinking herself there. Her colleagues also flew around. Some exchanged words, but most of them were distraught and disoriented.

“Why don’t they hear us?...Can’t they see us?”

After a while a procession of fair Beings on what appeared to be ethereal chariots appeared from on high. Everything around them shone in strong light. In front of the first chariot stood a youth with a trumpet who began to play a solemn fanfare. The chariots encircled the distracted people from the plant. The Being from the first chariot, embellished with golden ornaments, rose to address them:

“Brothers and Sisters, welcome to the Beyond. We have come to take you to our Ceremonial Field. Please, follow us.”

His chariot took the lead, the people from the plant following. Some gathered in groups, holding hands, afraid of what they couldn’t understand. The most adventurous were in the front rank. Some of them attempted to converse with the leaders. The procession passed through the clouds and rose further and further. Everywhere there was a lovely play of glittering lights and colors flowing in myriad directions.

After a while they came to a great vistas of gardens planted with thousands of beautiful, vividly-colored flowers. Their many scents were delightful and invigorating. Strangely, they had faces, kind and smiling. Stranger yet, all the flowers could talk.

“Welcome, dear brothers”...“Welcome”... “Welcome, ” was heard from all directions.

When all the people had arrived, they were seated on comfortable and ornate chairs with arm, head and foot supports. The chairs were in a clearing facing a huge stage. An upright gigantic Book with a golden glittering cover occupied most of the stage. Its upper margin was lost in the sky. Margaret heard whispering: The Records of Nature...

Again the boy who sounded the fanfare appeared and played a ceremonial passage.

Then the leader of the procession came to the front. He was an old man with a wise face. His robe seemed to be woven with living light, adding to the brightness of his person. He solemnly declared:

“Let the reading begin.”

The Book opens slowly to the accompaniment of deeply affecting music. An enormous panoramic screen appears before the gathered people. The wispy glistening clouds of Time descend from everywhere. The people are transported on a fast journey through Time, back through the centuries. Among the roiling clouds the contours of a fortress gradually begin to appear—nebulous at first, then more and more clearly. Its stone walls are strong and high. There are guards on every post. The interior contains a city with prospering features. There are beautiful houses, estates, and government buildings. There are four grand gates on each side of the city. It is a warm summer night and most of the people are asleep. Only a few are wandering in the streets. They are wearing light clothes and robes. The sky is clear and the stars are twinkling, though their light is beginning to fade. The year is 978.

The city is under siege. Around the fortress there is a huge camp of enemy soldiers—about 5000.Most of them are sleeping around fires that have been reduced to glowing embers.

Somehow Margaret identifies herself with one of the soldiers. He is awake, thinking about the coming battle. A huge blanket covers his friend and him. He is not afraid. He has been through so many battles.

“That’s me!”—her colleague from the plant, sitting on her right, exclaims.

“There I am!”—Margaret hears from the left.

“That’s me!”...“That’s me!” in chorus people shout from everywhere. Soon everybody from the plant recognizes his former self among the soldiers.

Suddenly a signal is given. The soldiers awake and soon they are ready for the forthcoming attack. In the receding dark the first faint signs of the breaking light are visible on the eastern horizon.
Traitors are opening the gate on the North side of the fortress. What happens next is hard to bear. Brutal killing, horror, screams of terrified people fill the entire area. Pools of blood, bodies of soldiers, maimed and mutilated women and children everywhere.

Margaret sees herself killing people... So do her viewing companions. A few hours later when the fortress is taken, there is silence—only terrified cats and dogs are running around, until they too are killed.

The soldiers gathering in the center begin a frenzied celebration....

The clouds slowly gather over the scene and engulf the ruins of the fortress, the victims, and the conquerors. When they disappear, the Giant Book also is nowhere to be seen.

Grave silence falls on the people of the plant. Now they know that they are not innocent. They understand why they died in the inferno. All of them were involved in the killing centuries ago, all of them are now together in death. For a brief moment they saw the faces of the people of the “Movement for Liberation.” They were the same people who were in the fortress, who were killed by the soldiers, by Margaret and her associates in their earlier life. The situation is now reversed—but in another era, in another land. The victims had become the executioners.

No one is able to say a word. No one can look in the face of the others. They stand accused. They are dumbfounded. They all sit in silence, for hours, brooding over the event, all to themselves.

—Marcia Malinova-Anthony

It has been said that "The wheels of Karma may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine". If a person goes through life thinking that his actions, the causes that he puts in motion, 'do not matter', that person is dead wrong. Everything you do today will return to you tomorrow, no matter how many lives it may take for that "tomorrow" to come.

Please, live consciously.

~ g
.
.