The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

I Am Called Karma
by Angela Yuriko Smith

He crushed a bug upon the stair, a simple act, heartless, he thought nothing of it except to congratulate himself on making the world a better place by eliminating the nonaesthetic. He was a hero in his own mind, a killer of spiders, a valiant foe of beetles and extinguisher of all that his society does not deem lovely. O, what a mighty man of men as he set foot upon the roach, crushing exoskeleton and life beneath his heel. His only regret was there were no witnesses to praise his deed…

…but I witnessed, and I send him attention that will wither his skin until it cracks upon his frame of flesh. Where he took pleasure in the cracking of the shell, I will take my pleasure in his softening bones, disintegrating as powder in a tangle of failing veins. An eye for an eye, a break for a break, the pain he delivers is the pain that he takes.

I am called Karma.

What you send into the world

I return ten-fold.

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Fiction © Copyright Angela Yuriko Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com.

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Angela Yuriko Smith is a third-generation Ryukyuan-American, award-winning poet, author, and publisher with 20+ years in newspapers. Publisher of Space and Time magazine (est. 1966), two-time Bram Stoker Awards® Winner, and HWA Mentor of the Year, she shares Authortunities, a free weekly calendar of author opportunities at authortunities.substack.com.