The New Dogs of Nagtagal
Andrew Drilon
WHEN I WAS eight years old, my mother one day took me to the forest. Her name was Gaudiosa. She was a handsome woman with round black eyes, full of compassion, and when she smiled it seemed as if she was sad to do so. We had set out early, and yet the tropical morning sun had already risen and the smell of new bread wafted in from town. We took the council road that ran behind our little house and turned up a path through a grove of lanzones trees which marked the beginning of the woods. A rushing deep river cut across the path of fine red sand which meandered through the thick and green wild.
We had crossed a wooden bridge and continued walking on the path. I loved the warmth of that red sand; the way it puffed into little clouds that caked my toe
