Cole Burkhardt

It was only once I had time to sit and think about it that it really started to bother me.

Of all the people in this neighborhood, I should have been the first to notice it, observant or not.

I walked my dogs religiously, twice a day, every day.

In recent years, I had also resolved to stop bringing my phone with me on walks in an attempt to curb my social media use.

This meant I would spend at least an hour of every day doing nothing but noticing all the little details of my neighborhood.

If anyone would have seen the mural in the process of being painted, it would be me.

I should have noticed it.

How could a massive mural have appeared out of nowhere?

I still had yet to give my dogs their second walk, which I always did right before sundown, and I decided to take a slightly different route.

Before grabbing their leashes, I rummaged through my closet, eventually finding the high-powered flashlight I normally use for camping trips.

I clipped it to my belt, then leashed up my two dogs and headed out the door.

The wash was pretty easy to circumnavigate.

All I had to do was go west to the crossroads, walk one block north, and then take the next street east.

There was no dead end on that street because it had a bridge that led over the wash, and conveniently, the bridge was right near the strip mall that the mural had been painted onto.

When I arrived, I looked around, then stepped off the sidewalk, leading my dogs towards the west side of the building.

My eldest dog, an Akita-Rottweiler mix named Beefsteak, didn't want to follow me.

I might have chalked it up to the fact that he didn't like walking on gravel, if it weren't for the fact that Nugget, my much younger Yorkshire Terrier, wouldn't follow me either.

Nugget was a trailblazer, she was naturally curious, and insisted on investigating every little thing that drew her attention.

She had never been averse to exploring a new area, but for some reason, she would not go near this building.

I gently tugged the leashes and called their names, but they wouldn't follow me.