The pamphlet had a picture of a large old fashioned wooden water wheel submerged in a river. Overlaid on it was a faded ying-yang symbol, and now that I looked closer the inside of the water wheel was made up of an ouroboros (a snake biting its own tail).

In fact, the closer 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 water wheel started to spin, taking up water and then depositing it back into the same river again, an endless cycle.

I quickly turned the pamphlet over, 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... I turned to the first page and took a look.

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, 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 .04 Karma for being nice to someone, negative 13.21 Karma for driving a car. Positive 0.155 for working hard, negative .0942 for swearing at someone. Holy hell this was concise.

Then there was a summary by age, followed by a total at the end.

Age 1 year old: -382.1459 (0.0014) = -0.5350 Karma Age 2 years old: -341.9659 (0.0021) = -0.7181 Karma

All the way to:

Age 23 years old: -484.5496 (0.6429) = -311.5169 Karma Age 24 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…

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 (+71.0568 for being a good father - this was my favorite one), 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 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. +1000.000 (1.000) = +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.

---------------

I suddenly realized that I had been flipping through dozens of pages in this 3-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 that I didn’t even notice it at first.

Blinking, I looked at the open floor-length window leading to the garden, then back to the pamphlet. Setting it down, I wandered to the window and stepped into the grass outside. I was wearing a comfortable white suit, but my feet were bare, and I didn’t see any shoes around.

But 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 frightening at the same time. Looking behind me, all I saw was a single room shack; the same room I had just climbed out of. There was a closed door on the far wall, but when I walked around the shack (cabin?) I didn’t see a door on the far side, just a blank white painted wall.

Is this heaven? If so, it sure is boring. 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 info packet first. Right under the entry for my total Karmic Balance, it said:

Negative Karmic Balance: Souls 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, this was new. I quickly checked for a glossary (which I found the first place 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?