Retribution always comes late because it is not yet time.
When the time arrives, it does not knock.
It collects.
—
Once, he had everything.
A small apartment that smelled of cooking oil and laundry detergent.
A wife who laughed too loudly at bad jokes.
Two children who ran to the door when they heard his keys.
He was not rich.
But he was enough.
Or at least, he thought he was.
—
Money left first.
Slowly.
Like water leaking from a cracked jar.
A failed business. A debt. Another debt.
Pride told him he could fix it.
Pride always lies gently.
When the savings were gone, he began borrowing.
When borrowing failed, he began hiding.
When hiding failed, he began shouting.
The house grew quieter.
Not peaceful.
Tense.
The children stopped running to the door.
His wife stopped laughing at his jokes.
—
The night he saw the messages, something inside him tore.
Not the flirting.
Not even the intimacy.
But the way she described him.
As if he were small.
As if he were something to endure.
Humiliation is a sharp thing.
Sharper than hunger.
Sharper than debt.
It cuts pride first.
Then reason.
He hit her.
Once.
Then again.
The children screamed.
He remembers that sound.
He will always remember that sound.
He hit them too.
Not hard enough to kill.
But hard enough to fracture something that cannot be repaired.
Trust.
—
The next morning, there was no screaming.
No argument.
Just absence.
She left.
Took the children.
Changed her number.
Moved to another state.
No note.
No goodbye.
Only silence.
And silence is louder than anger.
—
For five years, he existed.
Drank.
Smoked.
Worked when necessary.
Spoke when required.
Alive.
But not living.
He told himself she betrayed him.
He told himself he lost control.
He told himself he was pushed.
Excuses are warm blankets.
They do not stop the cold.
—
On the fifth year, on a night thick with alcohol, he stumbled across the street.
Head spinning.
Vision blurred.
And then—
A child.
Six years old.
Standing frozen in the road.
Headlights.
A truck.
Losing control.
In that instant, time stretched.
And for the first time in five years—
He was sober.
He did not think.
He did not calculate.
He ran.
He threw the child aside.
The truck did not slow.
Metal met bone.
And everything went black.
—
Retribution always comes late.
But it never forgets.
—
There was no pain.
That surprised him.
No burning.
No crushing.
No sound of sirens.
Only silence.
He opened his eyes.
There was no sky.
No ground.
No body.
He did not feel arms.
Did not feel breath.
Yet he was aware.
Suspended in a boundless darkness that was not dark and not light.
Then—
A voice.
Not loud.
Not soft.
It did not travel through air.
It existed inside him.
"Consciousness confirmed."
He tried to speak.
No sound came.
Or perhaps sound was no longer needed.
Images unfolded.
Not memories.
Records.
The first lie he told his wife about money.
The night he ignored his child's fever because he was too tired.
The moment pride mattered more than patience.
Each scene did not accuse.
It simply displayed.
"Intent acknowledged."
Another scene.
His hand rising.
Her flinch.
The children's screams.
The tremor in his son's shoulders.
The way his daughter stopped crying suddenly—
The silence of shock.
He tried to turn away.
There was nowhere to turn.
"Violence enacted."
The five years of decay.
Self-pity dressed as suffering.
Blame disguised as justification.
"Responsibility evaded."
He felt something then.
Not pain.
Weight.
As if invisible threads tightened around him.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Some thin.
Some thick.
Dark.
Twisting.
Binding.
"Karmic debt quantified."
He did not argue.
He did not shout that she betrayed him first.
Because now—
There were no excuses.
Only sequence.
Cause.
Effect.
Then—
Another image.
The road.
The truck.
The child.
His body moving before thought.
The shove.
Impact.
Darkness.
A pause.
The threads trembled.
"One act of selfless preservation."
A faint thread of light appeared.
Thin.
Fragile.
But real.
The darkness did not lessen.
But something balanced.
"Merit recorded."
Silence returned.
He understood.
Not fully.
But enough.
Retribution always comes late.
Because it waits for the total.
He gathered himself.
If this was judgment—
He would not beg.
"I understand."
This time, his voice existed.
Calm.
Steady.
"I will pay."
The threads tightened once more.
Not punishment.
Confirmation.
"Rebirth authorized."
"Debt unresolved."
"Repayment mandatory."
Light appeared beneath him.
Not warm.
Not gentle.
Just inevitable.
As he began to descend—
He asked:
"If I accumulate merit… can it be given to my family?"
A pause longer than the others.
"Merit cannot be transferred while bound by karma."
The light pulled stronger.
"Unless you transcend karma itself."
For the first time—
He smiled faintly.
Not ambition.
Not challenge.
Acceptance.
Inside his heart, a whisper:
Wife…
My children…
Wait for me.
I will right all the wrongs I did to you.
The void fractured.
And he fell.
—
It rained the night he was born.
Not a storm.
Not a blessing.
Just steady rain against a leaking roof.
The hut was small.
Mud walls.
Wooden beams warped by time.
A single oil lamp flickering as if unsure whether to continue living.
Inside, a woman screamed.
Outside, a man paced.
He was not a warrior.
Not a scholar.
Just a laborer whose hands were cracked from carrying stone.
He did not pray.
He did not curse.
He just listened.
Each scream tightened something in his chest.
The midwife muttered instructions.
Cloth tore.
Water boiled.
The rain continued, indifferent.
"Push!"
Another scream.
Then—
Silence.
The kind that makes the heart stop.
The father froze.
The rain did not.
And then—
A cry.
Thin.
Weak.
Alive.
The father exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
Inside, the midwife wrapped the newborn in worn cloth.
Blood cleaned.
Lamp adjusted.
The mother lay pale and trembling, sweat mixing with tears.
"Is he—?" she whispered.
"He is alive," the midwife said.
That was enough.
The child was placed in her arms.
He was small.
Too small.
His breathing shallow.
His skin colder than it should be.
The mother pulled him closer instinctively, as if warmth could be forced through love alone.
For a brief moment—
The baby stopped crying.
His eyes opened.
Not the unfocused wandering of newborns.
Still.
Silent.
Watching.
Lightning flashed outside.
For that fraction of a heartbeat—
Something dark coiled faintly beneath his skin.
Then the thunder rolled.
He cried.
Loud.
Fragile.
Human.
The mother smiled weakly.
"Welcome," she whispered.
The father entered slowly, unsure where to put his hands.
He stared at the child as if looking at something sacred and breakable at the same time.
"We will name him later," the mother said.
Because in villages like this, names waited.
They waited to see if the child would survive the first winter.
—
The rain continued through the night.
Inside the small hut, three lives lay close together.
None of them knew:
The child carried weight older than his bones.
But for now—
He was only a son.
And the world outside did not care.
—
The village mornings smelled of damp earth and smoke.
At six years old, he had already learned two things:
Hunger came regularly.
And strength decided who ate first.
He was smaller than most boys his age.
Thin wrists.
Narrow shoulders.
When the others ran, he fell behind.
When they wrestled, he avoided it.
Not because he was afraid.
Because something inside him disliked the feeling of forcing another body down.
He did not have words for it.
Only discomfort.
That morning, the older boys gathered near the well.
There was a game they liked to play.
The strongest claimed the smooth stones first.
The rest fought for what remained.
Today, the smallest boy in the group—Jun—reached too early.
Jun was five.
All bone and oversized eyes.
A hand shoved him hard.
He fell backward into the dirt.
Laughter.
"Know your place," one of the older boys said.
Jun's lip trembled.
He tried to grab one of the stones again.
This time the shove was harder.
His head hit the ground.
The laughter grew louder.
He stood a short distance away.
Watching.
His chest tightened.
A strange pressure behind his ribs.
The scene felt… wrong.
Not unfair.
Familiar.
He did not know why the familiarity made his stomach turn.
Jun's eyes were wet now.
Not crying loudly.
Just silent tears.
Something in that silence made his breathing uneven.
The older boy lifted his foot slightly.
Not enough to crush.
Just enough to threaten.
The others watched.
Waiting.
He could walk away.
No one expected him to intervene.
He was smaller than the bully.
Weaker.
He would lose.
His mind knew this clearly.
His body knew it too.
But the pressure in his chest grew heavier.
As if something invisible tightened.
He stepped forward.
His voice was not loud.
"Stop."
The laughter paused.
The older boy turned.
"You?"
It wasn't said with anger.
It was amusement.
He swallowed.
His legs felt unstable.
"Stop," he repeated.
Jun looked at him as if seeing something impossible.
The older boy laughed and pushed him.
He fell immediately.
The ground hit harder than he expected.
Dust filled his mouth.
Before he could rise, a fist struck his shoulder.
Not full strength.
Just enough to send a message.
Another shove.
Another fall.
The other boys laughed again.
He did not fight back.
Not because he couldn't.
Because when his hand clenched—
The pressure in his chest sharpened.
Like a warning.
He endured it.
Finally, bored, the older boy spat near him and walked away.
The others followed.
Jun remained frozen.
He slowly stood.
Dust clung to his clothes.
His shoulder throbbed.
Jun approached him cautiously.
"Why…?" Jun asked.
He didn't know how to answer.
Because he didn't know why.
He just shook his head.
"It's fine," he said.
But it wasn't.
Something had changed.
The tightness in his chest…
Loosened.
Not gone.
Just slightly lighter.
He looked at his bruised arm.
It hurt.
But the pain felt… clean.
That night, as he lay on the thin mat beside his parents, rain beginning again outside the hut—
He dreamed.
Dark threads.
One of them slightly thinner than the rest.
He did not understand the dream.
But when he woke—
His breathing felt steadier.
—
Somewhere unseen—
A debt had lessened.
Not erased.
Just acknowledged.