yesterday.
A dog died yesterday. I can’t stop thinking about it. A motorcycle hit it. I don’t know if it was on purpose. We were just driving past. The dog was alive, and then it just wasn’t. There was no blood. It yelped in pain. Someone took it out of the road. It was there, and then it wasn’t. I’m upset about it. I don’t know why. Such a thing died so easily. There’s not much you can do about that. I thought we could help it. It was maybe two minutes. It was just dead. It made me wonder how often this sort of thing happens. I didn’t want to just leave it there. I called animal control and they came to pick it up.
How often does this happen, but there’s no one to help? I kept looking at the dog, hoping maybe it would start breathing. Its mouth was slightly open. It was a mutt. It had dark brown eyes. I looked at them a lot. I wondered if the dog could still see me, see me standing there, watching over it. I wonder if it saw when I left. I wondered, what if it was a person? I wondered, how often does someone die, and there’s no one there to help them?
It was a stray dog. I don’t think it belonged to anyone. I don’t think it would be missed. I don’t think most people even noticed. And what happens when that’s a person? A part of me thinks when they picked up the dog, they just threw it in the garbage. Of course, that’s probably not what happened, but it wouldn’t have received a burial either.
I don’t know why I’m so upset about a dead dog. It was there, and then it wasn’t. There are people who die all the time, and there’s no one there to help them, to even retrieve the body. There are far more important things to worry about than a dead dog. Most people wouldn’t even care. They don’t want to be involved. It’s not their problem. And dead people are mostly treated the same, aren’t they?
If there was a dead person by the road, maybe they’re just sleeping. How long until someone would notice? Would anyone claim responsibility to their body? Would anyone come to pick them up? Would I feel the same way? Would I even notice them? Would I try and check to see if they were still breathing? Would I be able to stare them in the eye like the dead dog? Would they see me? Who would I even call?
I don’t know why I’m so upset about it. It’s just a dog.
I don’t think it’s even that it’s a dog that died, or that maybe I could have saved it but couldn’t.
I think it’s how casually it happened.
I think it’s how fragile it was.
I think it’s because, it had a soul.