Only as Karma Would Have It
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I

Once upon a time there was a donkey and an elephant. The two were preparing for a competition, so they took polls to figure out what their odds were for winning. Before the campaign, the newspapers compared them to the tortoise and the hare. The donkey complained how this analogy was against the laws of nature: "The hare is faster than the tortoise." The elephant rebutted, "No matter how fast I am, I know that I am going to win."

The race started and the donkey charged ahead. The polls converted; so did the newspapers. As their pseudonyms shifted, the public did not know who was the unlucky hare. Neither the elephant nor the donkey could decide on how their campaign should be run, but it intensified and their ratings increased.

Down the stretch, neck in neck, the two, in all their campaigning, realized they had forgotten who they were.

II

Karma enjoyed beginning his stories with "Once upon a time." He did not believe them. For such tales were imagination, but they interested him. Some were true; some, real. Karma could not differentiate between the two. As his life evolved, he wanted to distinguish the romantic and the factual: the "could be" from the "to be" and how they affected his meaning and direction.

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