After we had been in Colombia a month or so we got a little puppy. He was a mongrel of some kind, brown, with floppy ears. He was really cute and I loved him a lot.
One day after the usual summer torrential rain, the pavement was steaming and had that unique smell of hot wet asphalt. I looked for the puppy, and then I saw him in the street. He looked odd, like he was sniffing the road, and then he fell over. I couldn't imagine what was wrong with him, so I went to get him, and his face was stuck to the road. He was looking at me with his big brown eyes and somehow even at age 6, I knew.
I ran crying to the house to get my dad, and he went and picked him up and took away, and I never saw him again. I couldn’t stop seeing those eyes looking at me, saying help me. That smell of hot, wet asphalt, is burned into my memory even now.
My poor little puppy, I can't even remember his name.