'System’s Problem' by Anup Adriym

“Time to go.”

It was the emissary of Yama, the God of death and justice.

I looked at my mortal dead body one last time. Peaceful sleep. There was contentment in the face, a life lived well. I had done good Karma. Surely, I was going to heaven. The thought thrilled me and overpowered all the senses of loss of leaving my dear ones.

It was a long journey, but the laws of science were different from Earth and we reached the celestial realm rather quickly.

He stopped at the dark doors of Hell. I wondered what terrible wrongs I had committed. Each moment of my life swirled across my conscience.

“No… Why… I have done nothing wrong,” I said.

“Everyone says they’ve done nothing wrong. I just follow orders.” He handed me over to the two guards at Hell’s door and left.

The guard with long hair of white smoke read my details, shook her head, and mumbled, “Karma!”

“You manifested it. Sin! So many sins,” the burly one with a thick mustache of orange flames said rather loudly.

“What? Manifest? No. How? What do you mean?” I said.

“You’ve sinned.”

 “But you said I manifested sin?”

“Haven’t you heard that what you write manifests?”

“You mean I manifested my sins by writing it?”

“Yes. You wrote the word ‘sin’ over a million times. You have sinned on so many angles and degrees.”

“But I’m a mathematician. I taught trigonometry.”

The smoky-hair guard replied, “Maybe it's a system’s problem. With a huge human population, and our limited resources, the instructions are automated. Tell the top boss when he calls you to the Court.”

Then they grabbed my arms and pushed me inside the prison of Hell, into a dark abyss of fragmented confusion.