“A Dead Dog’s Heart”

I was walking my 8yr old little brother to school this morning. He spots a dead dog next to the curb up ahead. It’s not really surprising I’m constantly seeing dogs running around this neighborhood. My little brother really loves dogs, like a lot, if he sees a dog anywhere any time he’ll usually happily say “Doggie!” with a big smile on his face. He used to say he wanted to be a vet, but he changed his mind because he thought it would be too sad when he had to put dogs down. So anyway, I tell him not to look as we’re passing by it, because I don’t want it to upset him, he’s probably never seen a dead animal, and this thing looked especially grisly, the poor thing. While I’m busy looking at him and shielding his eyes I’m not really looking in front of me. My brother says “Watch out! Stop!” but it’s too late, I look down right as I step on what appears to be the dog’s heart.

Apparently that dog had been ran over in such a way that it’s heart and a few other internal organs had flown on the side walk. Ugh. What disturbed me the most though was that when I stepped on it, it didn’t feel like I expected it to. It didn’t squish or smash under my foot, instead it felt pretty solid, like it was made out of rubber. I walked over to some wet grass to wipe the blood of my shoe. He didn’t say anything about it, I didn’t either. We kept walking, but I was so deeply disturbed by that moment, it’s not like I’d never seen a dead animal before, Lord knows I poked my fair share of them with a stick in my youth, but I was so bummed out about this dog, and I couldn’t shake that feeling of stepping on it’s heart. I felt like I might cry or vomit at any moment. Or both, “cromit”. It just made me feel really uneasy for hours, and I couldn’t stop thinking about stepping on that dog heart.

Um… the end? I don’t have an elegant ending to this anecdote.