Abigail knew very well what she had done. It lied somewhere in the thin line between intention and reaction. She knew he deserves to be hurt but didn’t realize until it had been done but she was going to be the agent of that pain. Regardless, it had happened. That meant, at least to Abigail, that it was meant to happen.
Abigail was an extremely interesting woman. For one, she had never met another Abigail. Secondly, she was a practitioner of a nameless faith. she didn’t believe that her faith needed a name or needed any named deities. She prayed and when she did she spoke to “the Universe” and it was certain that it listened. It was her absolute authority.
Authority was immensely important. Without a standing authority, phrases like “everything happens for a reason” didn’t stand stiffly enough. Authority needed to be in place to assign these good reasons. A decider. She wasn’t a woman without trauma, and this design helped her to be at peace with the life she received. It wasn’t arbitrary, neither was it cruel. She also wasn’t cruel for what she had just done. It was an act of cosmic necessity.
His nose was still bleeding even while Abigail walked away. Incredulous profanity poured from his face far faster than the blood. She paid no mind to it. Actually, in her heart, she even said a blessing to him. Wishing him peace. Wishing that he’d come to know better. Abigail abhors violence and harm of any sort. As a practitioner of yoga, she follows a concept called ahimsa, which means not to harm. That’s why she absolutely had to do what she did.
She was walking past the City Market, just a few minutes away from the college. She wore a Bohemian skirt and carried a book against her chest with her arms across it. It was an international studies textbook. She was a student at the college at the time. It was both her favorite and least favorite series of courses. She loved the idea of being a global citizen but hated the politics of war and killing that surrounded global awareness.
“What the fuck is this ugly bug?”
The man had yelled at the sight of a wheel bug crawling from some brush on the sidewalk. A few steps ahead of him. She turned with her brow raised at the sound of the exclamation to see him step on the bug with a stomp. She asked herself what drove him to kill. “Oh my God, what the hell is wrong with you? Why did you do that?!” Abagail screamed, her stance stern, almost maternal. Disciplinary. That should have been his first warning.
“Because it was an ugly ass bug,” the man started. He didn’t get to finish. The answer was enough for Abigail. He didn’t have a reason. He saw something he didn’t like and so he killed it. He’s just like a war monger. The kind she couldn’t forgive. That’s when she threw the book at him. It hit him squarely in the nose with the force 75 years of geo-political strife.
She never minded the disciplinary follow-through. She knew she was validated and that what that man did was wrong. That was 16 years ago. She’d nearly forgotten it, honestly. There was a dead bug on the ground in front of the City Market again. The sight filled her with a sense of sorrow. Mid-stride, she reflected. It is sad, but it will be okay. Because karma is justice. And everything happens for a reason.