To keep sane, Mitchell held close the concept of karma, a cycle bigger than everyday life, a slow cosmic rhythm of justice. One could not, he reasoned, get out unscathed. Maybe it would take centuries of birth and death, but sometime, somehow, the mayor’s spirit would come to know what it feels like to be crushed by money. Mitchell needed to at least have a fantasy of justice. All this ambient suffering must surely come back to haunt the powerful who caused it. A mayor who signs documents that cost animals their shelter, that consign young creatures to violent shelters—that mayor should feel pain in proportion to the pain he causes.

Mitchell tried to believe in a slow but churning movement toward justice. But lately he’d been having a hard time with this. He’d become impatient. That day, like many days recently, Mitchell found himself wishing for instant karma.

The universe couldn’t let this behavior go. Could it?

Mitchell pictured the mayor’s elegant office, only a few floors above his own. He pictured a bolt of lightning, a tree falling, the roof caving in, crushing the mayor at his desk. Mitchell wanted Shergar to go down in history as the mayor who tripped over a garbage can and broke his neck. He hoped that a swarm of wasps would slip through an open window and sting the mayor to death. He wanted the horse mayor to shriek and quiver like the simple animal he was. Mitchell wanted some wild cosmic event to bring the horse to a painful and freakish end. Mitchell wanted him to be reduced in his death throes to his basic animal senses, to know in that last instance that none of the money or influence he had accumulated could shield him from physical fragility. He wanted the horse to know it had all been futile and that if he was remembered, it would be only for his pettiness and greed. Mitchell wanted every sting from his fantasy wasps to awaken the mayor to the suffering his wealth had brought others.

Mitchell knew that death wouldn’t end the philosophy of which the mayor was just a symptom. He knew others would emerge to take up the cause the instant the mayor fell. But still, Mitchell wished for it. It just felt wrong that evil assholes all lived to be tottering elders. It wasn’t just that the good died young, it was that the bad lived forever. Few got what they deserved in this life. Think of Hissinger.