Creature

A Short Short Story

We found a dog! Or a dog found us, I should say. Here we are, Amy and I, driving downtown in our VW bus, when the traffic stalls behind a long red light by an overpass. Suddenly I look up at some children who appear to be playing on top of the overpass, five or six little boys, eleven or twelve years old. They are throwing stones at random cars, but then we see they are pushing this helpless dog over the guardrail. It all happens so fast—the dog falls onto the hood of the car in front of us and rolls into the street, screeching and crying out in pain. I jump out in the middle of traffic and yell at the boys: “What are you doing! Are you out of your minds?”