Through the maze of wooden pillars that hollowed inside, bugs proceeded with great calm. It was raining outside, the thickened walls contained in them damp and strong scent of winter. The roof drooped under the weight of giant spiders that busied themselves with weaving webs; the large square shaped tiles broke haphazardly to reveal gravel that rattled and the adjoining tiles creaked when someone stepped on them.
There I was, with my leonine head stooped to the floor, sniffing at every object that came my way. This sinister place, my home, offered shelter to many a dogs like me. In winters we all slept in the room upstairs that had no windows and stayed relatively warm. The closed walls had an effect on our personality; we developed something of animosity and hatred at each other’s habits. The other day my belly ached at night, so involuntary it was that I failed to step out of our warm closeted room. My regurgitating left an unpleasant smell inside the room and the rambunctious twins with an unmistakable scar under their right eyes drove me out with their incessant barking. It was so cold that my body convulsed at the slightest of a whiff of air from the walls with gaping holes and doors that no longer boasted solidity. I searched the hallway for a piece of torn cloth that I can wrap around me as I slept by the corner there behind the rubble where the height of the mound would protect me from ill treating night winds.
All of us had secrets; mine was the grey garbage bin by the tall yellow building. Every Monday morning, the occupants of the apartment emptied their Sunday garbage cans into the grey bin. It mostly contained foul smelling mutton, a delicacy that was almost irresistible. I woke up early for the special occasion; I took care not to agitate the owners or the yellow toothed old man who drove the municipality van. After I finished there, I usually treated myself with the fine remains of peeled skin of heat treated chicken in the smallish bin by the butcher’s home a little inside the street. The other dogs never found out about this place, they ran up to the butcher’s shop and sat wagging their tails all day long but never realised that the butcher cleans up at home- leaving behind the bloody skin in the smallish bin outside his home with roof made of brown tiles cascading and slipping over each other methodically.
I bathed myself in the greasy waters of the motor cycle repair shop, for I dint want the pack to catch my bloody spoor. This was my secret and I protected it like a mother hen would its eggs with her feathers spread out. I evaded the other packs on my way home, but once or twice I would find myself in the midst of a colony with the pack gaining ground on me. Sometimes an old woman and sometimes a shop keeper would unconsciously protect me by driving away the ensued pandemonium of pack barking at me authoritatively. But other times, I would just give up and the battle would leave me bereft with scars, bloody gashes and broken finger nails.
All was well until one day; I fell in love with a shaggy dog across the street. He would peer at me through those ice cold eyes, he melted my heart instantly. Beneath his temple was the nape with golden mane so fine and thick that, stood on all fours, he resembled a fully grown lion. At night, I managed to sneak into the colony without the irritable pack noticing me. He shook his head with a glistening steel chain hung about him; I squeaked and pleaded for him. His endeavours were never fruitful, for he was chained. But in the mornings, he barked, his master would take him out for a walk. I barked back at him entreatingly to dissuade him from committing any notoriety, for the irritable pack would throw his fur into shreds and kill him if he managed to escape the clutches of soft naked palms of his master. A young woman in her thirties owned him, she was athletic and I warranted him against any act of mischief that would let him down in the eyes of the princess.
Something had changed in him; he was not the same anymore. After repeated wallowing cries, he confessed of having intercourse with a pet dog that belonged to a friend of his master. It was not something that had plagued on his mind; on the contrary it was planned. They were both shoved into a room full of food supplies for two days in the vet’s clinic and after the food was over, intercourse, he explained, seemed to be the only other thing to do in the closed room.
I was devastated; the approaching pack no longer mattered to me anymore. So it is that my life began, in misery. So it is that my life ended, in misery.
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