The Place Where Karma Originated

The sign outside the monastery reads: “Near this spot, karma first entered the world.” - beside it, a small slot in a wooden box painted white, with “DONATIONS” in red letters scrawled across the top. The cobbled track between the stalls & shops is both narrow & steep, a maze of potholes & ruts, karma’s answer to ‘tourist traps’ - a holy obstacle course for the pressed & dressed & impeccably plain, coming & going outside the money exchange, where dogs & beggars compete with American Express in 15 languages, & lunch is a handful of flies & stones next to an old woman working her fan, frowning over a brazier whose coals are eyes. When they’ve discovered I’ve been to the edge, to the village where karma originated, they’ll want to know what it’s like, so I’ll tell them: it’s the coldest, darkest place I’ve ever seen, full of the meanest people I’ve ever met, grasping for change. Like all those other places where karma originated. A memory of footprints, every trace of hand or hair, at every corner a familiar smell, a fall from grace, every beggar an answer, meting out an earned revenge. All places are recognizable in time. Outside the place where karma originated, I ask someone if they’ll take my picture as a kind of souvenir, something to see, evidence I was here, or there, or anywhere. They hold my camera upside-down as if to dare the logic from its cage. No smile. No cheese. The shutter shudders, the light burns in & the smallest part of me escapes into the prison through which we all must pass in order to be free.