The Guilt Is Eating You Alive

   If you decided to, you would be crying, too. Nara couldn't believe she had just done it. It was the boldest thing she had ever done in her life. She had chosen to turn in her enemy for the crime that she had committed. Nara had stolen seventeen watches from the shop, and blamed it on her worst enemy. Even though it was her nemesis, the guilt was eating her alive.
   Quite literally.
   The symptoms began early one morning. The sun was shining down, the heat was warming Nara's face, and the bacteria were eating on her stomach.
   The itchiness was unbearable. Nara couldn't resist going to the doctor. Nara couldn't resist anything since that morning. She had never liked green peppers, but now she was craving them all the time.
   The doctor ordered x-rays. The doctor ordered biopsies on samples they had taken. The doctor ordered a nephrectomy, or a kidney removal. The doctor couldn't figure out what was wrong with Nara, but something was strangely, undeniably wrong.
   The doctor couldn't find them because the bacteria didn't exist. The bacteria were figments of Nara's imagination, but they were unmistakably there, nevertheless. These bacteria were guilt. Guilt is both a feeling and a medical condition. Guilt is a sickness brought about by your mind, by your choices, but the sickness is truly real. And incurable by anyone else. The only thing that will stop the bacteria from eating Nara alive was herself. She had to right her wrongs, and then, only then, would the bacteria mysteriously vanish.
   And Nara knew all of this. She knew she was the only one to make it better. She knew what the bacteria was. But she didn't want to right her wrongs, for it meant putting herself in a bad situation. Of course, it is just that that she had done already.
   But Nara decided not to. She decided to soldier through her guilt.
   But it only got worse.
   She itched all over, she was always so tired, she was always confused and forgetting things she had obviously known before she lied about her crime. The bacteria must have gotten into her mind. They were driving her mad. She was mentally aging ten years every day.
   But on she went.
   And on.
   And on.
   And the bacteria went on and on.
   Until one day. Nara was 37 years old that day. She got the mail. Inside the stack of junk mail was a letter from her nemesis. She had finally gotten out of jail.
   Nara thought the itchiness would stop.
   But it didn't.
   It went on and on and on.
   Finally, when Nara was 98 years old, the guilt finally got to her and she turned herself in. Finally, the itchiness stopped. The bacteria mysteriously vanished and everything was okay. Nara laid down on the ground and smiled. She was free.
   After all of the suffering, Nara was free.
   She was free to go.
   Nara died with a pure heart.
   Nara died guilt-free.