1 ~ Voices


It was a whisperthing, that’s all. An echovirus contaminating the metal and fiberglass tube that I
was trapped inside. I glanced around. No one else seemed to hear it, and I prayed for the sound to
go away. I even stopped breathing. But the thumping of my heartbeat became the betrayer. The
whisperthing continued, like a fistful of flesh-eating worms. “Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree,
now does it, girl?”

“Not far enough,” I replied, white-knuckling the armrest confining me.

“Two peas in a pod, I swear. You’re just like me and you know it.”

“I’m not doing this with you,” I hissed, tiny bits of spittle tickling the insipid air. “Not here. Not
now.”

“Shush. Need I remind you about my first runaway fiasco? It was Pearl Harbor’s eve, doll. I was
only twelve. Ah, but you? Sneaking up on thirty-six, slinky bug. Tall number, I’ll say.”

“Get lost,” I snapped, thwacking a plastic tumbler from the asylum of my tray table. But my anger
did nothing to quell her. She maundered on, with a brutal epitaph deluxe.

“If I hadn’t had you, I might have done something with my life.”

“Go away,” I cried, glaring at the invisible onslaught. “Freakin’ leave me alone.” Then something
touched me. I jerked.

“There, there, madam,” an Asian flight attendant calmly tried to reassure, rearranging reality along
with my pillow. “You’re dreaming. You’re talking in your sleep.” Damn it all to hell, I wasn’t sleep
talking. I was wide awake, and she darn well knew it.

“I’m all right,” I lied, thrilled at the vacant seats beside me. “I’ll have another drink. Two Cuervos,
please.” And I rested my head against the portside window. Strung up over the vacillating wing tip
of Singapore Airline flight number 15, grinning down on me like an unrepentant criminal, was a
sliver of a moon. Before I had a chance to blink it away, the sky hostess was back with my booze.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, and she shoved the miniature tequila bottles at me, nodded like a bored
porcelain doll, and moved on. Across the aisle, an elderly Indian woman in a gold silk sari wobbled
her head and sneered. Was she affronted by the small outburst directed at my dead mother? Or just my
stalwart drinking? I shriveled and turned away. You’re dreaming. I wished. Off the Haldol for less
than a week, and it was already happening. The voices. Or voice, I should say. The other voice had
yet to come. But it, too, was on its way.

I was bad Karma right from the start. Or so Mother always told me. An unfortunate accident.
Tubule pregnancy or some baloney. Better yet, I’d probably gestated in my mother’s stomach
rather than in her womb, like an undigested meal scraping ulcers in an embryonic fluid of bile and
unrequited dreams, only to be squirted out into the latrine of life and expected by the whole world
to have more self-esteem than a lousy pile of poo. Hard task for an only child. Well, almost only
child. I have an older sister and brother, but they escaped the humble commode right after I was born,
by way of marriage and the military. Like there’s a difference between the two?

Condemned by the fleshless burden of a name, I tangled my way through a short and abusive
childhood, using pretense as a defense, playing tough girl, because what else can you do  with a
name like Karma? And believe me, I’ve heard it all. Good Karma. Bad Karma. Karma chameleon.
Your karma ran over your dogma, Karma. Instant karma’s going to get you, Karma, no matter
what you do, Karma. You’re bound to be judged, Karma. By no harsher a judge than yourself,
Karma.

So what’s this? A pity party? Not exactly. It’s more a blast through the past to justify leaving my
husband and twin three-year-olds behind for the land of India. I mean, hell, where else would a nut
job with a name like Karma run off to? Cleveland? I don’t think so.

I requested more tequila, and then gazed out at the hypnotic beacon on the bouncing airfoil. The
turbulence was getting worse, inside and out. I thought, hmmf, it would serve me right to go down
in a fiery crash. But no, no, no, I remonstrated. That’s wrong. Too many innocent people on this
flight. Better my punishment should come when I’m off alone, say . . . like in the Thar Desert on
the Pakistani border and I get caught in the middle of an impromptu Indo-Pak gun battle and my
body is violently blown to . . . good heavens, get a grip! The bed was made. Now I had to sleep in
it. Too bad I couldn’t sleep. Taking sedatives never occurred to me and I was drinking myself
sober. I peered out at the moon slice for a little while longer, reached into my laptop case for my
Lonely Planet: India 2001 guidebook, then set my watch forward from 6:30 a.m., Pacific Daylight
Savings Time, to 9 p.m., Indian Standard Time, September 10, 2001. Soon, we’d be landing at
Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, and I couldn’t help wondering, what are my
twins, Chandra and Tara, doing right now? Hard to believe we celebrated their third birthday only
a few months ago. The same day, in fact, that I decided to take my miserable self out of their lives.
It all happened so fast. And no one even noticed my neurotic behavior. Warren, my husband, was
up to his nose hairs in work as usual. It’s his albatross, that damn family business. For peace of
mind, call PEACE PLUMBING! That’s the company blurb. It can be heard on all the stations in
Seattle and the surrounding areas. We were doing well, financially. So I pilfered eight grand  from
our joint account. Not a lot. I mean, hell? I knew women who pissed away more on Botox and new
clothing. My sanity was worth at least that. Besides, after airfare that only gave me thirty-five
dollars per day to live on for 182 days. Six months. I thought, if my novel isn’t completed and the
voice of my dead mother gone by then? Well, then it would be the holy river Ganges for me. I’d
drown my bloody self. Put myself out of my damn misery.

After eating a fourth meal on that long-haul flight, I was stone cold sober. At least the voice of
Mother had not come back, and for that I was grateful. But where was Babaji? Babaji was my
kinder, gentler voice. My guardian angel, if you will. He’d been with me since age six. My invisible
friend when I was a child, the saint on my shoulder when I was older, until I started on the Haldol.
That killed him off quick, and Ma the murderess along with him.

I’d been seeing this shrink ever since the birth of my girls, because Mother’s whisperthing had gone
on full-scale assault. Doc called it a challenging stew of mild schizophrenia peppered with a dash
of lingering postpartum psychosis. Uhh? Hello, Doc? Do you think my head’s a crock-pot? Then
just call it by its proper name, would you? Fricassee of pre-goin’-freakin’-crazy, that's what. I saw
him twice a week, took the prescribed drug, talked while he practiced his golf swing, then went
home feeling worse than before. No more voices. But no more anything else, either. Hardly any
ardor in my marriage, minimal patience with my children, and no creative inspiration for my one
passion, my ambition of becoming a published writer. A novelist. All gone. Dried up. Like a fallen
leaf from a tree, my muse had been widdled on by the neighborhood dog. It was now yesterday’s
compost, and I was utterly devastated. Not that I didn’t have a subject to write on, because I
certainly did. It was just that the Haldol had sent all my characters AWOL.

And that was PART TWO of my insanity—the visions, and the dreams. They were the clues to my
past life. Because, you see, I believe in reincarnation. I was a British soldier last time around. Born
in India, 1884. Fought in World Wars I and II. Commanded two Indian regiments and won many
victories. Lost some, too. Even fell in love with a devadasi, a Hindu temple dancer, then broke her
heart. Hence my obsession with Bharat Mata, better known as Mother India. But a Haldol
prescription took care of that madness. So? Was I totally off my rocker? Of course I was. Knitting
without needles, but that’s beside the point. The real question was, how could I complete my novel
when I couldn’t see my players anymore? And how could I discover what the voices were about
unless I quit the medication and unraveled the mystery of my past incarnation? And how could I be
a good wife and mother if I couldn’t demolish my demons, follow my dreams, and do something
with my life?

Get it?

I guess what I’m trying to say is that it would’ve been preferable to sink to the bottom of the
Ganges than ever to repeat those words to my beautiful daughters, Chandra and Tara, the moon
and star of my world, the words my mother said to me when I was only thirteen, the same words
she was still saying, now that I was off the drug.

“If I hadn’t had you, I might have done something with my life.”

Thanks, Mom. Thanks for the wonderful legacy.

That’s the reason I ran away.