Hair of Cat

          Is it possible for a person to be charged for a murder someone else may have committed 120 years earlier? The following story is not confirmed to be true, as of yet…the reporter of this story owns the right to remain anonymous for fear of getting lynched.   

          Peggy Toben is a semi-respected citizen residing in the small town of Balls Mills, Pa. She has lived there most of her adult life, nearly fifty years now. Peggy claims that she has never seen the inside of a mental ward; we will have to take her word on that. She also claims to have never had a run-in with the law, but this reporter located several unpaid parking tickets and a citation for riding a bicycle intoxicated. Oh, there is the time Peggy received a warning for pinning a few disturbing notes on her neighbor’s front door, inciting harm to old man Weatherly’s pet tomcat tiger, saying that if he didn’t keep that darn cat at home… and a few other expletives! ‘Well, you can fill in the blanks.’ Peggy insists that she didn’t want his horny cat mounting her cat princess.  In the back of her mind, there was something else brewing; it was the old man’s mustache and the way he would wax it into a handlebar figure, which just made him look evil every time he would wink at her. From what I glean from the gossip around town, there has always been some disdain between the two neighbors.

           It''s not surprising that Peggy hasn’t been sleeping soundly for some time now, as she keeps having the same night terror repeatedly; it’s so intense that she always wakes up trembling, saturated in cold sweat, and able to recall every grungy detail. In her nightmares, she commits a heinous act against a person that she doesn’t know, but many of her surroundings look scantly familiar, almost like her neighborhood would have looked 120 years ago. She could trace her house and the neighbor''s house in vivid detail.

          One day, Peggy decided to visit a therapist, hoping to discover the hidden meaning entrenched within the dreams. But most of all, she just wanted a good night''s sleep. ‘Isn’t that the way?’ After a few sessions, the therapist noticed a stark pattern intertwined with Peggy’s account of the dreams... So, he ventured over to the town library to conduct his own investigation and found shocking news items in old newspaper clips connecting Peggy’s story to a murder that transpired 120 years earlier at her neighbor''s house next door. While under hypnosis, Peggy described in fine detail taking a shovel to the back of Jon Weatherly’s head, then burying him in his garden. The therapist thought to himself, ‘Why is she seeking help now?’ It must be that these dreams are pacifying Peggy’s conscience, a healing of sorts.