There was a large, black cat that roamed the neighborhood. He was no stray; he seemed well fed and his coat was beautiful. He walked in a haughty manner, and the kids named him Mr. Peabody because they said he was an English gentleman. He came every day and they all waited anxiously for him to arrive. Everybody loved Mr. Peabody—everybody but the neighborhood bully, that is.
Several kids were on the lawn playing with Mr. Peabody when the bully walked by. Without warning, he picked the cat up by his neck and drop kicked him into the overhead electrical wires. The wires made a hissing sound and the cat fell all the way to the ground, with all the children screaming loudly. One girl picked Mr. Peabody up, but he was dead. They all walked away crying, and the bully laughed. Later, he saw them burying Mr. Peabody and laughed louder, which made them cry harder.
The next morning, the bully came out of his house, all bleary eyed and hung over, and there sat Mr. Peabody. He stumbled and then ran back into his house and slammed the door, breathing heavily. It could not be the same cat, he told himself, just a look alike. But he was afraid to open that door. He stayed in his house every day because every time he’d open the door, there sat that damn cat. He would throw things at it, but the cat never left.
Finally, he decided he’d had enough, and he walked out and right past that cat. He didn’t kick that cat though; he was scared and he walked by quickly. He looked back over his shoulder, and that damn cat was following him, keeping the same distance with each step. The faster the bully walked, the faster the cat walked but he never closed the distance.
He was hyperventilating now, and started to run. He ran and kept looking over his shoulder as he ran, and did not even see the car coming that hit him so hard it threw him into the brush beside the road. The car stopped and a man got out to see what he had hit. He saw the cat first, and picked it up. Not a stray, it had a tag. He turned the tag over and looked at the name: Karma.