I am black, scraggy and have watery eyes. I drool. My hair is falling out in places. From this bleak picture painted, guess who I am? I am nothing more than a stray dog, the one whom you look with unmasked contempt, disgust and a little fear. I am the one, little boys throw stones at, just for fun. I am the one whose flesh some people considers a delicacy. All this apart, I am the one whom humans call as their best friend (before cell phones came!)
I used to roam around, careless and free, till today. I would forage the garbage bins for edible items, I would sleep under the drainage slabs and I would keep away from crazy vehicles driven by humans. I look both ways, left first and right, before crossing a road – since my brother died, crushed under a bus, while crossing.
None of the humans glance at me, they are all too busy in their world. Some, I feel, speed up a little more than usual when they see me looking at them. The little ones come to pet me at times, but are soon yanked away by their mothers.
Today, I was a bit surprised to see some humans calling out for me. They even had food for me. Though I was a bit suspicious in the beginning, the smell of meat soon lured me. The word lure is apt – as the dog catchers had meant for the meat to lure me into coming near them.
While I was sniffing the meat, I felt a strange hard string being put into place around my neck. I thought the humans were going to domesticate me by putting a collar around my neck – how silly I was!
Soon, the steel rope felt like a noose around my neck. Tighter and tighter it went, causing me to roll on the dusty ground, trying to escape. The more I struggled, the tighter it became. I could feel my heart beating wildly against my bony ribs. Wild colors started to fill my eyes and an eerie noise filled my mind. The rope around my neck cut off my own howlings. It was now cutting into my flesh. Now the struggle became one between life and death. I could feel the blood draining from my head. My lungs felt like it would burst any moment. Spit mingled with blood was running down my mouth. The throes of struggle reached a crescendo and began to die out. Weakness was creeping into my bony limbs.
The last thing I felt was being dragged across the stony pavement…I died before I could swallow a piece of the meat that cost me my life.
Story contributed by Keerthi Varier
