Karma's a Bitch

 For centuries now, Karma has been left in charge of humanity. Her expert canine senses feel the energy each one of them puts out and herds them to where they belong. A wound inflicted on a fellow human earns the perpetrator a sharp nip, sometimes a proper bite. Those who share the forest’s bounty-fruit are subtly led to more sweet and satisfying bounties for themselves, and those who tend to hog them often find their fruit vanished, or else drowned in a pool of urine. The unruly herds have flourished for years under her control.

She was so adept at her job, the Universe Shepherd turned to other pursuits. They traversed their own lands, exploring new concepts, discovering myriad complexities to be released into the world and to add to its growing progress. The sun shone brighter every day, and the Shepherd revelled in it, never considering the fact that they might have become just a little blinded.

But now, they have returned to the fields of humanity, and Karma is nowhere to be seen. What’s more, upon viewing this region up close after so long, the Shepherd can sense a disturbing imbalance. Had they really glanced away for just a moment of carelessness, only for millennia of meticulous handiwork to fall apart? Bounties are now hoarded and hogged disproportionately with no retribution, while others starve for no apparent reason. The Shepard longs to amend this atrocity, but they know they cannot, for it is not their place. Still, Karma is not keeping watch over the herds with her usual skill, and it has gotten so drastic that the Shepard finally has to investigate.

Agilely they leap up onto the fence of space-time perception that surrounds the human enclosure. Putting a finger to their mouth, they give a long, shrill whistle that rings out over the wide pasture, and wait for their loyal companion to come bounding eagerly up. 

Instead, they are answered with an distant howl of pain.

“Karma?” they call, suddenly on edge. “Where are you, girl? Are you hurt?”

No response. The Shepherd grabs their staff, vaults over the fence, and sprints off through the masses of selfish success and sadistic suffering in search of their faithful herd-dog.

They pass a cluster of humans bleeding profusely from horrific wounds. Although Karma’s teeth are as sharp as any canine’s, the Shepherd knows she would never have caused a massacre such as this. Not even the wildfoxes of the wood, responsible for all mass tragedies by way of natural disaster, would have done this. Pesky as they are, their activity is at least natural, and this is anything but. Something has invaded these pastures, the Shepherd thinks. Now I’m sure of it.

As if on cue, another wail of anguish breaks the silence. A small group of humans are surrounded by a larger crowd of their own kind, and are being roughly cast from one attacker to another, each delivering a brutal blow--knee to the stomach, elbow to the ribs, fist to the jaw--coldly and cleanly, before just as calmly turning away. Eventually all three of them crumple to the ground, and the assaulters slowly depart, stepping on the bruised bodies as they leave as if they are nothing more than brittle twigs.

Only one form remains standing, and it is not a human. Could it be her? the Shepherd wonders as they see the canine silhouette. The dog had been snarling and snapping in the thick of the conflict, overswept by the violent fray. But now Karma has surely come to set things right, to lick the wounds of the innocent victims and hopefully deal the attackers the punishment they deserve.

Instead, the dog pounces on them, tearing into their throats. The Shepherd is shocked breathless. What has caused it to confuse attacker with victim so? Whatever this animal is, it is no herd-dog. 

Finally, several more people arrive and laboriously drag the beast away from the unfortunates on the ground, kicking the thrashing creature into submission in order to help their fellow humans up. These are the first people to display kindness, and yet the dog savagely bites at their heels as they leave.

The Shepherd is reeling. What in the universe was that creature? It couldn’t have been a wildfox. Besides the fact that what had just occurred was not the work of Chaos, the animal was clearly collared, tags jangling away. Who had given it that collar, trained it for such backwards brutality? The humans themselves? The Shepherd thinks of the placid look in their eyes and a shudder runs through them. It was worse than anger, worse even than cruelty: those humans had been completely indifferent.

This thought driving them to move faster and faster, the Shepherd soon enters a clump of dense thicket near the heart of the fields. As soon as the sunbeams become intercepted by layers of dappled branches and the warm air gives way to a prickly chill, they slow.

There, lying on the ground, is the broken, emaciated body of an achingly familiar herd-dog.

Karma.

“What have they done to you?” They look into her bloodshot eyes, and gently stroke her crusty, matted fur. Her heart beats faintly but determinedly, and in it, the Shepherd can hear echoes of the abuse she has suffered alone in the past years. “It’s okay, Karma, shh, it’s okay, girl,” they say softly. She shuts her eyes and whimpers, and absorbing this wordless account of her story, the Shepherd finally understands.

It all began with Ego. The male dog, the intruder, the stud, the sire--he was where everything had gone wrong. The humans had raised him, trained him, and set him free in her territory.

But back then, Karma was strong, and Ego was still weak. She could have killed him. She would have, if not for the way he seduced her, the charm, the skill with which he set her up and brought her down. They morning after they mated, he was long gone, returned to the humans who nurtured and coddled him, and she was already pregnant with his vices.

The puppies began to torment her long before she even bore them. They thrashed within her, rendering her sluggish and confused. She couldn’t do her job anymore, and could only watch as Ego led his mortal masters to the sweetest bounty-fruit, completely disregarding the fact that they had to earn it, and disrupting her delicate balance right before her eyes.

Her three sons were born with tiny sharp teeth that tore at Karma’s flesh. Constantly breaking skin, the milk they drank was tinged with her briny blood. She nipped them, cast them aside, and did whatever she could to escape them and resume her work herding the flocks. Eventually she abandoned them altogether. 

But the humans took the puppies in and raised them as their own, just as they had with Ego. Soon they had new names, and new ways to undermine Karma’s system. Prejudice favored the humans who had raised him, leading them in vicious attacks against any who were at all different. So that was the dog from the clearing, Life realized. Prejudice’s brothers, Violence and Mental-Illness, were constantly at odds over who could be the most destructive. Except for the days when they worked together; those were without a doubt the most horrific the lands had ever seen.

Fed by the humans, those three grew stronger by the day. Karma desperately tried to maintain her sacred role, but even she wasn’t invincible, and was eventually overpowered as Ego led his sons to take her down. They then proceeded to violate their mother, impregnating her one, two, three times. Each birth spawned more devilish offspring, who were trained by their fathers and adopted by the humans as their loyal pets. Soon there were more than a dozen of them, and by now Karma knows all of their names. 

Assault. Abuse. Murder. War. Terrorism. Violence leads them all in one long, neverending, bloodthirsty crusade. A vicious cycle that obliterates everything and everyone, even those Karma was sworn to protect.

Depression. Anxiety. PTSD. Bipolar disorder. Schizophrenia. Psychopathy. They follow the insidious Mental-Illness and strike randomly and destructively, shattering even the most sheltered of communities.

Racism. Sexism. Classism. Ableism. Heterosexism. Prejudice goes against everything his mother stood for to an extreme, setting his brood against anyone and everyone remotely different from his power-hungry trainers. Karma does what she can, but she cannot save them all. She cannot even come close. 

And most of all, Ego, the start of everything. The tipping point, innocent and alluring at first, but revealing himself to be the the father of limitless suffering.

They are enemies of Karma, defying everything she stands for. They have overthrown her precious system, wounded her, raped her, and are now back for more.

But they won’t stop there. No, the Shepherd knows they will come for the lands beyond, spreading like a disease and consuming the defenseless. Even now they are drawing nearer, hot breath, scrabbling claws. They cannot truly kill any herders, but they can twist, maim, and mutilate to the point of unrecognition. They can weaken them, trap them, and then take their place. The Shepherd could flee, and save themself. But they would rather die than leave Karma now.

They blink sadly. The humans have bred and raised their own undoing. As the circle of snapping jaws closes in, they turn to their loyal best friend. “We’ll take them together,” they rasp. “We’ll keep fighting forever if we have to.”

Silence.

Then a low growl of assent as the former herd-dog rises to her feet with ruthless resolve in her eyes.

Karma may be a bitch, but she has to be. She battles the worst kind of monster.