A Story

When I was trying to help my host mom with dinner today, the bad news of the day came. Somebody shot a dog, and it was found lying there under one of my neighbor's trailer houses, dead. Nobody knew whose dog it was. It took me no time to get to my backyard and called all our dogs. We had 3 dogs in all, one mini Schnauzer, one black long-haired German Shepherd and one white mix-bred dog, whom I adopted because somebody just heartlessly abandoned him, and I named him Harley. Harley almost died of a gun shot before so I started calling on him first, fearing that he may get shot again. To my dismay, all the other dogs showed up, but there was no Harley. I grasped my car key in horror and drove up to that trailer house, hoping for the best.

The first thing that struck me when I got there was a foul rotten smell stuffing up in my nose. I knew that smell, a very different smell, the smell of a decayed body. My heart sank. Snapshots of Harley was stirring up in my head-his sparkling brown eyes, his crippled hind leg, his white muddy tail, and most of all, his sweet heart. My stomach got twisted inside of me. That sickening smell got stronger and stronger as I walked near the east side of the trailer. Gathering all my courage, I bent down and looked under that trailer. In front of my eyes was a lifeless body of a black dog with some scant white hair, in a pool of dried blood. The gruesome scene provoked a strong emotion in me. I wondered how the poor creature spent his last moments on earth in such a cruel and humiliating way. It was not Harley, but it was still a beloved pet of somebody; it would be missed greatly, for sure.

Knowing that I'd seen enough, I turned around and went back to my house. Harley greeted me on the way; he was under one of the other trailers, trying to hide from the Texas summer heat.

I didn't know I loved him that much until the moment I learned that I might lose him forever.

And somebody tonight had to suffer the loss of their dog because of somebody else's cold and brutal heart...