[ WP ] Right before you die , you check your Kill-to-Death ratio . Surprisingly , you have dozens of kills .

The old man shifted in his hospital bed, enjoying the sensation of sunlight and a gentle breeze from his window. The doctors said he didn ’ t have long, but he didn ’ t mind. His family had been by his side since the beginning, and he had made his peace with leaving the world. 
 
 It had been a good life, he thought. He prided himself on the fact that he had made a positive difference in the world. All those years of following a strong moral compass; mentoring and consoling in his community since retirement; before that a career of selfless volunteer work in developing countries. Yessiree, if there was such a thing as karma, his must be overflowing. Though he had never been particularly religious or spiritual, it was somehow a comforting thought. 
 
 It was while he was entertaining these thoughts, basking in their warm internal glow, that he noticed something strange. Several feet in front of him, at exactly eye level, pale letters were beginning to form in mid-air. He hadn ’ t noticed initially, as they almost blended in with the immaculately white wall beyond. But now they were growing more vivid, asserting themselves into the world. 
 
 He looked around for other witnesses to verify this wasn ’ t a hallucination, but his wife and children still hadn ’ t returned from the cafeteria. He felt confident enough that he still had a few days left, and so far had insisted against a 24/7 watch. 
 
 Gradually, the letters became clear enough to read. In fluorescent orange, the message read, 
 
 **Lifetime Statistics** 
 
 **Total Kills: 34** 
 
 **Total Deaths: __** 
 
 The line following “ deaths ” was flashing on and off, as if ready to be edited at any moment. 
 
 He blinked in confusion, processing what these floating letters were claiming. Kills? He had killed someone? Could it mean the handful of animals he had run over through the years? The number sounded too high for that. Surely it was too low to include all the insects he ’ d swatted in his life. This had to be some sort of joke. Kids and their technology these days. And yet…something nagged at him. As he wracked his memory with increasing urgency, more letters began to appear under the Kills line. It said: 
 
 **Breakdown by Country** 
 
 **Cambodia: 2** 
 
 **Nigeria: 7** 
 
 **Sierra Leone: 1** 
 
 **…** 
 
 The litany continued for almost ten lines. All the countries listed were indeed places he had spent time in. He shut his eyes halfway through, trying to block out the numbers, but to his horror the words continued to display themselves in the blackness of his eyelids. His eyes open again, he recoiled back against his bed in horror, aware in the back of his mind that his fragile heartrate was increasing. 
 
 “ If this is some kind of joke, you can cut it out right now! ” he called out sharply, louder than he had intended. No answer. 
 
 And then the list stopped. After the final country name, a new line appeared several inches to the right. 
 
 **View details? Yes/No** 
 
 He hesitated for a moment before, in a faltering voice, “ Yes. ” 
 The list expanded into bullet points. 
 
 **Cambodia: 2** 
 
 **Woman ( 22 ), child ( 3 ) ** 
 
 **Near Siem Reap Hotel** 
 
 **Taxi crash** 
 
 Taxi crash? In all his many odd-jobs, he had never driven a taxi. He felt himself relax involuntarily. All this wasn ’ t real after all. 
 
 And yet… a memory tugged at the back of his mind, slowly lurching, pulling itself forward. 
 
 The day he left Cambodia, he was in a rush to make his flight. When he left the hotel, a young woman and her son were about to get into the only taxi. He was young and his head was filled with grandiose ideas of flying off to the next destination to improve the lives of its inhabitants with his clearly superior knowledge. He considered it an acceptable collateral rudeness as he dashed headlong past the mother and child, into the taxi seat and then away down the road, leaving them at the curb. Another taxi will come soon, he had told himself at the time. 
 
 If this list was to be believed, another taxi did come along. And somehow, either before they even boarded or once they were en-route, it crashed. 
 
 He stared ahead incredulously in stunned silence. Shouldn ’ t those deaths be the taxi driver ’ s responsibility? Did he somehow absorb the blame through his rude action, denying them the safe ride they would otherwise have taken? How far down the chain of causality did karma, or whatever this was, look? 
 
 But he didn ’ t ponder for long, because more bullet points were appearing in his vision. As the description for “ Nigeria ” appeared, he had a sinking feeling he knew what was coming. 
 
 **Nigeria: 7** 
 
 **Men ( 14, 15, 28, 45 ), woman ( 28 ), children ( 6, 8 ) ** 
 
 **Lagos** 
 
 **Bomb** 
 
 As expected, there it was. He had spent years convincing himself there was nothing he could have done, no additional security measures they could put in place, no way to know that the twentieth bomb threat that week would actually be real. 
 
 Again, the pang of grief and guilt it triggered in him was tempered by annoyance. Didn ’ t his boss at the time carry some responsibility, or his other coworkers? Maybe they had seen the same numbers before they died. It was pure coincidence that he alone had left early that day and avoided the blast that consumed the three-story building where their non-profit office was based. Was it something that he himself had unknowingly done that provoked the violence? He had thought back to that week on countless occasions, but had never really considered that particular question. There was never a reason given for the attack, and now there was no way to know. The only thing that was clear was that whatever this unnatural catalogue was, it held him accountable. 
 
 The scrawl continued, each vague description summoning memories that rose from the fog of many years. They seemed to provide only enough information as necessary. To anyone else, they would appear cryptic. To him, they pointed like neon signs to specific moments. The deaths all sounded plausible, though his connection to events was always, to his mind, indirect. 
 
 Never did he pull the trigger or crash the car. But he had been late to an appointment and the client, giving up and going home, met with a gun-toting mugger. Once he delayed a bus by day-dreaming until he almost missed his stop, and then scrounging for the fare for a full minute. It apparently veered into an embankment later that day, maybe driving riskily and trying to shave off time. He never intentionally ignored cries for help, but he did choose not to investigate sounds that may have been distress or may have been a stray cat. 
 
 At the end of it, when everything had been laid out in accusing, bright citrus-colored letters, he could do little else but stare. And then he began to tremble. Not with sadness, but with rage. 
 
 If these were the benchmarks for karma, for leading a stainless life, how could anyone attain it? In the course of a few minutes, his peace of mind in a life lived right had been thrown into disarray, by uncaring glowing letters seemingly spewed forth from the beyond. 
 
 By now his heartbeat had reached a speed that triggered an alarm, and a nurse came hurrying into the room, followed shortly by his family, back from lunch. But try as they might to calm him down, he kept pointing into the thin air in front of him and shouting at the top of his lungs. 
 
 Only when new letters began to appear did he temporarily calm down. 
 
 **End of Statistics. ** 
 
 **Would you please complete a short survey about your experience? Yes/No** 
 
 As the rage at the audacity boiled over, he shrieked a final “ No! ” before collapsing, giving in to the sudden stress and strain that had overtaken his body. It was a small victory, but if it was all that he was allowed at the end, he would claim it. 

