Abortion

After getting out of the area of bleeding trees
I was brought to an even crueler place
Where the land was hazy, with a freezing breeze

There was no evidence of life in the space
It seemed like everything, even plant life, left for the coming winter
There was nothing but giant egg-like figures made of lace

The eggs looked transparent, slimy and flexible like rubber
They were wrapped vertically by spiderweb-like strings
Which rooted to the ground, making the egg hover

At first I did not know what to make of these strange things
They were almost what I would expect a moth's cocoon to look like
A moth that had wings as big as an angel's wings

I looked with perplexity to my Master childlike
Who simply continued walking towards them
And looked over his shoulder, silently beckoning me

As I neared them my blurry vision became clearer
Suddenly, my quivering heart skipped a beat
Inside one of the cocoon was a beautiful, but ghostly women

He skin was sickly pale
Her long black hair looked dry like tree roots
Her body was exposed, but covered by her arms and legs

She hovered in the cocoon, bent in fiddle position
She looked to be a sleep or unconscious
Like a baby in its mother's womb

Enlightenment stirred me as I looked at the whole picture,
All the cocoons imprisoned women
Old, young, middle aged, and babies

I hurried over to my guide, who had been walking a head of me
Looking at my expression, he said to me,
"These are women who had committed the sin of abortion."

I said to him, "But how is that when some of the cocoons hold babies?"
He did not reply but pointed to a random cocoon
Within it was an old hag that looked like she should have dies a long time ago

She was sickly skinny, like a skeleton that emerged from a grave
I looked in horror, and horror still as she began to scream
Her cries sounded like they were from pain

As she yelled her cocoon was bursting
After a while of witnessing this unpleasant scene
The skeleton dropped to the ground lifeless

Her body began to disintegrate into sand
Before I could say anything, my Guide said,
"Keep watching."

I looked again to see something like a sprout growing
From the same spot the dead body reunited with the ground
Wrapped inside the sprout's bud was a pearl-like oval


This passage of the story takes place in level 7 1/2. Here is where those who committed the sin of abortion are punished. The women sent to this part of Hell must step in the shoes of the babies they killed. All of them start off as embryos in the cocoon, and grow into babies. They are never born, however, as the grow into children, then adults, to old women. They can never be born, just as the babies they killed can never be born. The women age until the moment before they die, and then they must suffer through the pain and anguish of childbirth. Just like abortion, the moment the women finally are born they die. Like the bible verse dust to dust, the women turn to earth and again a cocoon grows with them trapped inside. The circle starts over.

Khaya Ramcharita, Period 2