almost crying

He glanced down at the phone lying in the small cubby in front of the gear. The voice said calmly, loudly, ‘in two hundred meters, take a left.’ He looked up, he had come here enough that he knew exactly where he was supposed to go, yet he kept the directions on his phone on. Out of habit, maybe? He turned left, left hand on the gear, tapping the rubber handle. It felt smooth and cold. The rest of him was warm. His hands were cold. The air conditioner was blasting out warm air. He turned it off. His ears felt red. He looked out the window, bored. Stopped for a rickshaw that stumbled out of an impossibly small side road and sputtered as it trudged on ahead of him. The sounds of rickshaw and horns behind him, impatient drivers that tried to overtake them by driving in the lane going in the opposite direction. His tongue was patched. His lips felt flaky. It was cold outside, of course they did. The rickshaw turned into another road. He pressed a little harder on the accelerator and the car jumped forwards. One right turn and he would be on the road where he had to stop.

He made the turn, the voice in his phone reminding him as well.

He slowed down, staring at the side of the toad. At first, he could not make sense of it. Then he did, wrongly. The dog was asleep. That close to the road? No, something was wrong. He looked in the rear view mirror. No traffic behind him. He slowed down even more. The dog was lying sideways. That seemed normal. Then he came closer. He saw the dark liquid around the head and looked around the dog like a shadow. It was crimson. It was gleaming. He shuddered. His heart cried. Even closer. Even slower. He saw the side of the head flattened, and impossibly open. He saw brain. He saw the insides. He closed his eyes and drove on. The image would not leave him. He looked in the rear view. The body looked small from a distance. Peaceful. Maybe that was best. They would murder the dog if he were alive. So maybe it was good that he wasn’t. He shivered, tears welling up in his eyes. Then he reached the graveyard. He parked the car across the road. He crossed the road, not looking carefully on both sides. He did not want to live in a world that did this to a poor, innocent dog. He made it through unharmed. Saw the beggars holding their hands up and went through the small open steel gate. Paid fifty rupees for a bag of pink roses. He could smell how strong they were. He sighed, his heart trying to heal. Breathed it all in and walked over to the grave. It was green, covered in grass, the flowers already there now wilting and weak. He spread some more and stood there. Almost crying.