I'm not an animal lover; it's just not in my nature and never has been. And I'm especially trepidatious around dogs because i witnessed my brother get viciously bit when i was a little girl.
But last night on my walk home, i watched as a black dog was brutally hit by a car and lay howling by the side of the road making sounds that can only be described as blood-curdling. I watched the car pull over about 100 feet past the accident and idle there for a minute then pull back into traffic as if nothing happened. i looked back at the dog and could see nothing in the pitch dark but my fear was that he had dragged himself over the edge of the road and into the river beneath. I called the police with the smallest hope that they wouldn't laugh me off the phone and might possibly send an officer to help me. They did and i met him on the side of the road. He did a quick search finding nothing in the underbrush and drove off.
i called a co-worker, we bought a flashlight and searched for an hour, finding nothing. I had to stifle a few sobs at the thought of that pooch laying somewhere, dying slowly and found myself choking back tears while picking out mushrooms at the market later that night.
The thing is, I take a lot of heat for being sensitive. I've been called overly emotional, highly sensitive and too demonstrative; people clearly inferring this is a fault of mine. For so long I believed them until i realized that maybe they'd be singing a different tune if it was their beloved pet i was searching for in the pitch dark on the side of a main road at rush hour praying that if we just look a little harder we will find him.
Be careful with the words you choose, be careful not to make someone feel small at every chance because they might start believing it.
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