puzzled jonathan bitz Jim was a karma god. In his previous life he was a logician. Everything seemed to work out. His new dig was easy, really. All he had to do was make decisions. Follow the news. Solve problems; balance things out. The days came in flavors. Flavors came as problems. And Jim's problem for today: the life of Rand. In his mind Jim laid it out on a table: the life of Rand. At first it was a jigsaw; and in thousands of pieces. But, tediously Jim went to work, one piece at a time. And by lunchtime, Jim had assembled nearly three-quarters of the puzzle. Rand was what they called in the western world: bad. He was an evil, manipulative, hypocritical, condescending loudmouth who knew everything and was so stubborn that nobody was ever, ever better than him, at anything- even if he lost in competition. Everybody cheated him, is what he'd say. Rand passed his quota of lying, cheating, misleading and suckering of anybody that knew how to love him, well over ten years ago. He even lied to the doctor and stole their cotton swabs. He smuggled ketchup and Tabasco bottles out of restaurants. He ate with his mouth open and had bad flatulence. He never could get past the "I" in anything. And to top it all off, Rand was lucky; nothing bad had ever happened to him. He had never heard a death rattle, himself. And nobody had died around, or away from him. And this was good, because Rand was afraid of death. Nobody ever assaulted his person, stole his money or his girls from him. He always ate at the classy joints. And frequently he was rewarded for things, sometimes for things that he didn't even do. Rand, everybody said, surely had a lot coming to him. The karma gods were going to get him. It was easy enough, obviously, for even a mortal to deduce that karma was going to lasso Rand and drag him into a boiling pit of oil, one limb at a time. There was too much goodness in the life of Rand. And so, without much effort, Jim the karma god, (he threw his job title out at people whenever he could) fit 1,998 of the puzzle pieces snugly together. The last two pieces were the future, and didn't exist yet. The first of the last two pieces, Jim knew, was obviously supposed to be bad; possibly horrific. The second piece could also be more horror. But Jim decided otherwise. Jim saw fit that with the last piece, he should give Rand a small taste of goodness- just to give it all a little more balance and contrast; to make the ugly that much uglier. The first piece was the trick. How horrible and nauseating did it need to be, Jim wondered, to even warrant the addition of another piece? Jim pondered his move for several days in eternal land. Meanwhile, Rand was dressing up in a different costume each day; luring as many people as he could into his lair of lying and cheating. Finally Jim decided on his action: He was going to utilize the height of Rand's apartment and push him out of a window. Jim always thought himself to be practical yet inventive. But, more importantly, Rand would unwittingly kill a couple of the souls that put-up with his deceit and still told others that they loved Rand. Because, what's worse than witnessing death, then having to go on and live? For this grand production, Jim decided that he would shove Rand out the window when Rand had any one of the assorted knives he had littered about his place in his hand, which he would launch into his girlfriend's eye- immediately killing her. Whereby she would drop the pitcher of water she would be holding onto the light socket, thereby electrocuting Rand's young million-dollar sports star of a brother. Then, in his trip, Rand would fall out of his sixth story apartment window, through the trees, kissing every branch on the way down with his twisted teeth. After which he would promptly meet the curb with the back of his teeth, thereby breaking his neck, reducing him to slobber and wet baby wipes to the ass. Nevermore would he become erect. Afterwards, his mind would be fully functional, but he would be completely unable to articulate even the slightest hand gesture. Not to mention complex emotional thought. Moreover, he wouldn't be able to quench his immense desire for sex. He would forever soil himself in restaurants as the scent of diarrhea trailed his every retarded electric-wheelchair spin. Then, after he'd had enough, Jim the karma god concluded that Rand would be given the choice, as to how he would kill himself. 'Maybe he'll get creative,' Jim thought. This final piece of the puzzle (Jim's present) would be composed of the small glimmer of relief Rand would realize, just before he drove himself off a bridge, or in front of a speeding bus. So the night came, when Rand's brother came over for one of Rand's girlfriend's army-sized dinners. Jim sat in what he guessed was eternal world (which, by the way, did resemble a train station). He rubbed his belly and thought about his worth as a karma god. Rand's dinner party went on. And Jim waited and waited, for Rand to walk past the window, with a knife in hand. Then it came: Rand scooted merrily across his wood floors, like an ice skater, singing some lame song. Jim laughed and shoved him, in his diaphanous god-like way. Rand stumbled backwards, hit the ledge with his knees, buckled back over, and because the window happened to be wide open, he flipped cleanly out, without smacking his head and thereby contorting his fall from the window. His knife reeled up, out and away from him; away from his apartment and his girlfriend. And in the wisp of only a second, Rand nailed a double back flip with one and a half twists. Like an Olympian, he threw his hands up and out, in unison with chest, when he stuck it into the ground. It just so happened that the neighbors were having a barbeque, and several of them happened to witness the entire acrobatic accomplishment. With hot dogs in their buns, the neighbors cheered wildly.