Fiction

KARMA

Oh, the grotesque indignity, the cosmic jest that flayed my soul! The first assault upon my reborn senses was a stench—a rancid miasma of damp fur, sour milk, and a cloying sweetness, like roses rotting in a sun-bleached ditch. I, Maurice Grimsthorpe, once a colossus of commerce, a man who could shatter empires with a glance and send underlings scurrying like rats from a sinking ship, was now a puppy. A mewling, writhing, flea-riddled pup, my dignity stripped, my grandeur reduced to a tangle of clumsy paws and ravenous hunger! Reincarnation, that absurd fable peddled by mystics and fools, had snatched me from my throne of glass and steel and cast me into this canine calamity. A dog! A cur with a coat like sodden ash and eyes that gleamed with a cunning I had yet to master.

In those early days, puppyhood was a fevered dream, a delirium of sensation that almost, but not quite, dulled the sting of my fall. I tumbled with my littermates, a squirming knot of fur and needle-sharp teeth, nuzzling the warm, yielding flank of our mother. Her milk was a primal ambrosia, flooding my tiny frame with a joy so pure it shamed the cold triumphs of my human life. As Maurice, I had been a titan, a predator in tailored suits, striding through boardrooms with the swagger of a conqueror. I crushed rivals with a sneer, signed their ruin with a flourish of my pen. Women, too, bent to my will, or broke, their defiance no match for my desires. I took what I wanted, always, and the world knelt. Until that cursed morning on the golf course, when my heart, that treacherous, meaty traitor, stuttered and failed. One moment, I was king of the green, my chest swollen with victory; the next, the world dissolved into a void as black as a lawyer’s heart.

But here I was, reborn as a mongrel, my fur a dull smear of mud and shadow, my eyes sparking with a mischief I didn’t yet know how to wield. The puppy days were a chaotic whirl of play and slumber, a carnival of mock battles and naps in a heap of warm, wriggling bodies. Yet this fleeting Eden was shattered by the arrival of an old woman, her face a crumpled map of years, her voice a grating coo that scratched like sand on glass. She lifted me from my siblings, her bony fingers probing my ribs, and bestowed upon me a name that was a lash across my soul: Boo-Boo. Boo-Boo! The word was a mockery, a grotesque caricature of my former majesty. I, Maurice, who had dined with lords and broken men with a glance, was now Boo-Boo, a name fit for a jester’s lapdog.

Her home was a suffocating labyrinth of faded grandeur—doilies draped like cobwebs over sagging furniture, floral wallpaper peeling like the skin of a forgotten fruit. The air was thick with lavender and the musty stink of mothballs, a scent that clung to my fur like despair. She wasn’t cruel, not exactly; kibble appeared in a chipped bowl, and her gnarled hands scratched my ears with a distracted fondness. But she had rules … rules! I, who had once sacked a man for a fleeting scowl, was expected to debase myself on sheets of newsprint. The Guardian, no less, a rag I’d scorned in my human days for its sanctimonious drivel. Pissing on its pages was my small rebellion, a fleeting spark of spite that warmed my canine heart. Yet when I forgot myself, when I marked her precious rugs or shredded a slipper in a fit of rage, she transformed into a shrieking harpy. “Bad dog! Bad Boo-Boo!” she wailed, her voice a piercing blade, wielding a rolled-up magazine like a scepter of wrath. I’d slink beneath the kitchen table, tail tucked, loathing her, loathing this frail, furry prison that betrayed me at every turn.

Servility was alien to my nature. As Maurice, I had been a giant among men, drunk on power, my will a blade that carved through resistance. I’d crushed men, ruined them with a click of my fingers. Women, too, had felt my dominion, none more so than Jill Fowler, sixteen and fierce, her eyes blazing with defiance like embers in a storm. I’d sorted her out, as I liked to say, certain she’d yield in time. She was my final conquest before that fatal golf game, when the world snuffed out like a guttering candle.

But something was wrong. The old woman’s hands trembled as she clipped a leash to my collar, her voice softer, tinged with guilt. “It’s for your own good, Boo-Boo,” she muttered, and a chill rippled through my fur. She drove me to a place that reeked of antiseptic and dread, a sterile hell of cold tiles and posters of grinning dogs, their eyes vacant as polished glass. A man in a white coat, his smile too wide to trust, took my leash. His badge read “Dr. Hensley.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Fowler,” he said, his voice slick as oil. “Castration’s routine. Boo-Boo’ll be right as rain.”

Miss Fowler. The name was a thunderclap, dragging up memories of that girl, that night, her fiery gaze. And castration? The word was a blade, slicing through my fogged canine mind. I yipped, a pathetic cry, and lunged for freedom, but the vet’s grip was iron, the leash a noose. The old woman, Jill Fowler, knelt, her eyes wet but hard as obsidian. “You’ll be a good boy now,” she said, her voice heavy with a vengeance that wasn’t merely an old woman’s whim. It was retribution, cold and precise.

They dragged me to a sterile room, the stench of disinfectant choking my throat. I was Maurice, damn them, not some stray to be neutered! But my body was weak, a traitor, and the vet’s assistant pinned me to a cold metal table. I snarled, thrashed, but a needle pierced my flank, and the world blurred. As I sank into oblivion, I saw her, not the withered crone, but the girl, sixteen and fierce, her eyes promising a reckoning.

I woke in a cage, a dull ache throbbing where no dog should ache. The assistant scribbled on a clipboard, indifferent to my rage. I, Maurice, Boo-Boo, burned with a fury that seared the drugged haze. Jill Fowler had done this, hadn’t she? Found me in this wretched form and orchestrated my humiliation. I’d make her pay.

Days crawled by, and Boo-Boo healed, but my mind grew sharper, darker. Jill Fowler’s kindness was laced with distance, as if she knew my secret. Her hands shook as she poured her tea; she’d stare out the window, muttering, “You got what you deserved.” My ears pricked, my heart thundered. She knew.

One moonlit night, I struck. I’d gnawed through my crate’s latch, a triumph of patience and spite. The kitchen was dark, heavy with lavender and fear. I padded to Jill’s bedroom, my nails whispering on the hardwood. She lay asleep, her face slack, and for a moment, I saw the girl, vulnerable and young. A flicker of guilt stirred, but I crushed it. Maurice did not do guilt.

I leapt onto the bed, lips curled in a snarl. Her eyes snapped open, and we locked gazes, dog and woman, predator and prey. But she smiled, a cold, knowing smile that chilled my blood. “I’ve been waiting, Maurice,” she said, her voice not the frail croak of age but the steel of that sixteen-year-old girl. “You think this was chance?”

Before I could lunge, she struck, swift as a serpent. A syringe flashed, and a sting pierced my flank. The room spun, and as I collapsed, her face loomed, her eyes ablaze with unquenched fire. “You took everything,” she whispered. “But I’ve had years to plan. You’re mine now, Maurice. Forever.”

I woke in the crate, the world tighter, as if my soul was stitched into this fur for eternity. Jill hummed, her hands steady now. “Good boy, Boo-Boo,” she said, and I howled, a cry of rage and despair that shook the walls. But no one came. No one would.

In the end, I learned powerlessness. Jill Fowler, the girl I thought I’d broken, had won. And I, Maurice, now Boo-Boo, would live at her feet, a prisoner in fur, haunted by my sins and the price I’d pay forever.

Posted Aug 04, 2025
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1 like 1 comment

Swami Buddhaprem
11:27 Aug 14, 2025

That's the way karma works. Maybe if Boo Boo learns to be a good dog, humble and servile, in his next life he will be a respectful and loving human. Then he has learned his lesson and will be able to find a fulfilling relationship with a woman in love.

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