Incoherent Mutterings With A Stranger - Incident 2

I witnessed a dog being run over by a truck today. He must have been 5 or maybe 6 years old. For a dog that is the prime of his life. His time of youth. Never mind for this chap though, it was wasted. He was wasted. I saw him being hit. Heard a faint whimper. And then he just lay there. His body shaking and jerking. The tremors first shook his legs…the hind or the front I can’t recollect. Don’t care. Honestly it did not matter. Should it…he was dying. I think that was the all important event taking place then. Fuck which part the tremors started. I remember it as I saw it. There I was walking around. A thing I do normally, only there isn’t anything normal about a person walking around on the streets in the middle of a scorching summer afternoon. The heat can eat you. Literally. It can sink its teeth into your brains, soon shriveling under the heat; it can claw and tear your flesh with its razor sharp nails. So yeah, like I was saying, I was walking around. A thing I do normally. I can’t remember the reason for it now though. Perhaps I did not have one. Like always. But that isn’t important either. The important event is the dog dying. I was walking and I hear a soft thud followed by a faint whimper. I looked around. Found the deed. I stood there transfixed, looking at the dog jerking and going into spasms. I think it was a head injury, can’t be sure though because there was too much blood everywhere. I eased out of my trance like state, lit a cigarette and found myself a corner to sit so that I could witness the eventuality. I distinctly remember the reason for me deciding to do that was I wanted to feel empathy towards the dog. I would have forced myself into feeling that if I would not have felt that mechanically. I mean, how could I not feel empathy, witnessing a heart rendering scene like that. Isn’t empathy the base on which humanity is based? I could not deceive the ever concerned mankind by not putting up a decent display of the human empathy. So I sat there, smoking, making an occasional smoke ring or two, filled with a feeling of empathy through out, mind you. It was in one moment while I was watching the dog dying that various thoughts flooded my mind. The first thought was and I remember asking this aloud to myself “ What age do you think, the dog would be if it were a human…what are dog years, when converted into man years…or human years…or whatever the term is?” Isn’t this what we human do? Isn’t this what describes a human best. Forcing things, other objects – animate and inanimate things within a human dimension. Everything has to be from the human perspective. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a perspective at all or even if it would be it would invariably be wrong. Yeah, as if animals, plants, trees, oceans, the wind, birds, the soil could ever have a method of thought to them or their existence! So anyways I could not figure out what the dog’s man years would be. I once again concentrated on its last movements before his inevitable vision of the pearly gates for dogs. I don’t know if animals have a heaven or hell based on their status in the food chain. I mean how a lion could not mind being boarded up with say…a dog, whether in heaven or hell is a different question all together. Yeah so the movements, I saw the dog shit himself. He was covered in his own blood mixed with shit. The stench. Oh the stench of it! I would have loved to know what the dog was thinking. I would have given anything in the world to be in his head right then. Would it be thinking “Why did I have do die so young…why now…I have hardly achieved anything in life… It was just three weeks back that I thought, I found real dog love…now it would never be mine…I would never have my puppy kids…any family… I lived alone…Im dying alone… just when things were looking up a bit for me… I will die a death… a death punctuating a life punctuated with absence of love… care… attention even…Hey c’mon… I am a street dog… I should have known better than to believe that all the good things could have happened to me… and now when I’m dying I can see it all so clearly… all that was never meant to be…some dogs are born just so that they can pass through life and not actually live it like others… I know this now… I am at peace… Bring the white shiny bright lights on now!!!” Would it be thinking all this? Or would it be thinking something completely different like say…a leg of lamb… or the cat that got way last week. This I would never know. Just then my hands involuntarily moved to my breast pocket. I felt the now soggy touch of paper. “Ah! Her letter. She had sent it 7 years ago…I think it was the last one from her…can’t be sure. Infact I think, I am sure…since it was the only one she sent”. Words in the letter floated before my eyes now. So clear, so distinct. I could touch the words and the indifference in them if I only stretched my hand. I didn’t. I was scared. At that very moment I looked at the dog’s eyes. I think it was looking at me. A clear, non hazy pair of eyes. Not a hint of fear. I saw peace there. I found peace in the eyes of a dying dog. And then I saw my face there…with the body of a dog lying in the middle of the street…covered in my own shit and blood. The dog shook once last time. I shook involuntarily with it as if my life was biding goodbye to me. Of course, I mean that only figuratively. Death will come. Just not yet. Not so easy. I coughed. The same old hint of blood mixed with my spit. This has started being a companion to me lately. I spat the blood mixed with spit or spit mixed with blood in my hand and stared at it. The blood looked so much at home mixed with the spit, as if it was meant to be there. It was serene. I wiped my hands. Dusted my trousers. Crushed the cigarette butt. Got up. Left. I did not look back at the dead dog. But I am sure all the people passing by, would atleast look and feel empathy for a dying dog, now dead, if they all weren’t so busy.