I ran across the street after the old yellow and black school bus let me off. As I ran up the cracked grey sidewalk, I could hear the shrill yaps of my Pekinese-Pug as she perched on the back of the sofa and looked out of the picture window of my house. Somehow she always knew when it was time for me to come home from school.

I ran up the old, green, cement steps, two at a time, and flung open the door.

“Mitzi! Come here, girl!” I called.

The wagging of her curly, black and brown tail caused her body to wriggle as she ran to me. I bent down and stroked her short, brown hair, then tickled the tiny chin of her flattened face. Her eyes watered and tears ran down the grooves on either side of her black nose. She was the only dog I knew of that would cry upon being reunited with her owner after a long absence.

I picked her up and hugged her tightly, but not too tight. Her brown belly swelled with new life. I figured she was going to birth five or six puppies in about a week. I kissed her on her little black lips. Her mouth gaped and she panted between loving licks to my face.

“Good dog! Good dog! I love you, too!” I told her.

I set her down and yelled, “Mom! I’m hungry!”

“I have cookies in here,” answered my mother from the kitchen.

“Yum!” I said, making my way into the bright, yellow kitchen. “Can I eat them on the front porch?”

She nodded. “Then you have to do your homework,” she said.

“Awww!” I said, looking at her. She arched her eyebrow and gave me the look: that universal look parents give when their offspring need to be put in check.

“Okay, okay.” I muttered, impatiently. She continued to hold my gaze.

“Alright! I’ll do my homework after I eat my cookies.” I said with a more respectful tone of voice.

She gave me a small plate with half a dozen cookies on it. I turned to leave the kitchen and went into my small, blue bedroom to grab a handful of comic books. I liked to read while I ate.

“C’mon Mitzi!” I called for my dog to join me. She followed, still wagging her tail, as I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

I sat at the top of the steps with my dog beside me, feeling the cold concrete through my jeans. I set the plate of cookies beside me and shuffled through my comics before settling on Hot Stuff, the little red devil I secretly identified with. I opened the comic book and picked up a cookie to eat as I read.

An unbidden thought vividly pushed aside my focus on the comic. In my mind’s eye, I saw my dog run down the sidewalk, into the road and get hit by a car. I shook my head and torso, rejecting the mere thought that it could happen.

“You’ve been reading too many comic books!” I echoed the grown-up aphorism, designed to dismiss an overactive imagination.

I took another bite of cookie and with my mouth too full to speak, witnessed the unthinkable. Mitzi barked once. She scurried down the six concrete steps of the front porch. She bounded from slab to slab, jumping over the wide cracks in the sidewalk. She raced across the shorn, green grass at the end of the walkway and into the road. I sat on the front porch, mouth gaping, revealing unchewed cookie and watched my dog run into the path of an oncoming car. I heard the deafening yelp upon impact and saw her sail into the air and land on the hood of the murdering car.

I heard a shrill scream piercing the silence of the afternoon. My throat went dry and I realized the scream was mine. I ran down the sidewalk, across the grass and stopped in front of the inert car. I pulled Mitzi from the hood of the car, stunned at the loss of muscle tension in her body. I hugged her to my chest. Her head lolled and lifeless eyes looked into mine. I wiped blood from her mouth and cringed at the tiny broken teeth laying sideways in her flaccid smile.

A woman got out of the car, leaving the door open and walked to where I stood. I gazed into her shocked eyes, taking note of how pale she looked. Static rumbled in my ears, growing louder with every accelerated beat of my heart.

I spoke, a little too loudly, and startled when I heard my voice. “She was going to have puppies next week.” I steadied Mitzi’s sagging head.

The lady put her arm around my shoulder. I wanted to fling it off and call her names for killing my dog. I didn’t. I intrinsically sensed that she was traumatized, too. I let her lead me out of the road, over the broken sidewalk and up the worn steps to my front door.

I knocked on my own door and waited for my mother to answer it. I heard internal dialog asking me why I knocked instead of just walking in and still I waited. She opened the door and saw me standing there, holding my dead dog. I watched the color drain from her face and wondered if her hair would turn white from the shock. I stood motionless as the lady apologized to my mother for hitting and killing my dog.

My mother nodded and held back her tears as she took hold of my shoulder and guided me into the house. She sat me in the chair next to the door. As soon as I heard the door latch close, I broke down. I wailed loudly, tears running down my face as I rocked back and forth in the chair.

“Why didn’t I listen?” was the mantra playing over and over in my head. I knew the vision I experienced just seconds before the accident mirrored the event, exactly. It had been a warning and I ignored it. I ignored it and my dog died. I felt consumed by guilt and unable to tell anyone, because I knew how crazy it sounded.

My wailing accelerated. My mother went across the street and borrowed a nerve pill from one of the neighbors. She made me take it. An hour later, she was able to pry my dog from my arms, wrap her in a blanket and store her in the garage until my father could dig a hole in the ground, under the apple tree, in the back yard.

For weeks, I spent every spare moment sitting under the apple tree, next to Mitzi’s grave, talking to her, apologizing for not acting on the information that was given to me seconds before her death. I slept with her baby blue blanket at night, letting the smell of her soothe me to sleep.

Over time, the pain of my loss subsided, as well as the guilt. But the intensity of that first incident of precognition stayed with me and prepared me to accept the validity of information given to me in the lucid visions I experienced during my childhood.