I was a high school teacher for 38 years. English. Taught them Keats, taught them Shakespeare. Made sure they knew a sonnet had fourteen lines, five feet, iambic. All that structure. Rules. That’s what I lived for, you know? My parents—God rest their souls, they came here with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a worn copy of the Bhagavad Gita—they drummed it into me. Work hard, be responsible. Don't cause trouble. And I didn't. Not ever. My students respected me. My colleagues, too. Even my sister, who always thought I was too rigid, she admitted I had a good life. Orderly. But last night, at 1:57 AM, I was wide awake. Couldn't sleep. My heart, it was just *thumping*. Steady, heavy, like a drum in a funeral procession. I lay there, counting each beat. One… two… three… and for the first time, maybe ever, I felt it. This absolute TERROR. That little muscle, smaller than my fist, working away inside my chest like a cheap clock. And if it just… stopped. If it decided, *I'm done*. That's it. Lights out. Poof. Gone. All those years, all those rules, all that structure… just *gone*. It’s stupid, right? Sixty-eight years old, and this is what keeps me up. Not my dead husband, not the kids who barely call, not the stack of unpaid bills. Just the ridiculous, fragile fact of being alive. I almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. The great Mrs. Sharma, who taught thousands of children the meaning of existence through poetry, is reduced to a quivering mess over a muscle. My mother would say it was bad karma. I say it’s a cosmic joke. And honestly, a pretty good one.