Never have I ever thought a slight fever like this one would become such a pain in the arse. Morning shaded into night and then again into morning behind the curtains, all the while I am still stuck in my bed, unable to even pour a glass of water for myself.
I had waited for an hour that morning in a line infront of the counter of a little place that is usually filled with heavy metal enthusiasts wearing all sorts of colors on their Tops. Slipknot to Metalica, each and all available among the crowd. It’s like the mecca of collectibles, where I went in search of something special for a birthday boy whose ravenous appetite for metal was too insatiable.
The shop was quite crowded and noisy when a sudden booming noise coming from the outside made it all too quiet, turned everyone silent. As if everybody was turned into stone at once as if medusas lethal eyes had done that. I stared out of the windows for a minute trying to analyze what could’ve been going on as the booming was slowly getting louder and louder. Ominous thoughts started crossing through my hippocampus while subconsciously forcing my legs to walk towards the door.
I had just gone for the knob when the white door flew open at my face, and a woman burst into the shop. For a brief moment, she had looked into my eyes while I prepared to brace for impact. The black coffee I had in the morning had made my senses a little sharper: the split second glance at her pale face had made such an impression on me that I thought, moments later, after we clashed and was getting my shoulder fixed, I could've described her face perfectly to a CSI sketch artist. Not because she was such a beautiful woman and it was somehow engraved into my memory, but her facial expression: scared, angry but fierce like a momma lion.
As her whole body was almost thrown into mine by her fast-paced entry, we fell to the sturdy and mosaicked concrete floor. And somehow my right hand unwillingly had slipped into her most private of places. A brief awkward moment later, while I tried to pull my hand out from underneath, the realization of me being unable to move my hand had set in. My shoulder was dislocated.
She had apologized to me numerous times later on while the paramedics were trying and fixing my shoulder right then and there. Now all I could see in her eyes was empathy and guilt. What happenning outside was that the driver of a concrete mixer had lost control and somehow the big rotating pot went out on a bender. Nothing eventful as the mixer was quickly shut off. But a tragedy had struck within those few moments.
Not so long ago, I along with my friends were scouring through my neighborhood in search of a quiet corner to happily buzz off on a blunt. After a while we decided on this wooden semi treehouse near a lake that in the afternoons remain unscathed and undisturbed by any bipedal conscious creatures. Was exhaling the biggest and fattest clouds ever while my legs rested on tree branches. And the, I heard a mild screeching noise coming down from the tree trunk. As weeds go and do, my brain was seeing everything in hyper slow motion. This was a big old tree with a hollow cylinder inside . Somehow, a dog had gotten itself stuck in there and couldn’t get out. But there was no possible hole around the tree trunk capable of letting the dog through.
After a while I had pieced together how the event had transpired and how we could get the poor animal out of there. As it was the season of rain, in search of a dry shelter, this dog who we later om named Pablo, for a valid reason, went up on the tree house. There was a hole up there in the tree beside the tree house being used by us as an ash tray. The dog might’ve gotten scared of thunder and might’ve fallen though there. So the only way we could rescue it was through that same whole.
We tried ropes, tree branches and even portable stairs but nothing seemed to have broken off of the dog being so afraid. But hope got so briefly resurrected as one of my friends mistakenly dropped a bud of weed inside and the poor thing started smelling it. So, we created a loop with the rope, almost like a lasso that could be seen in 80s western movies with cowboys and outlaws.And at the very middle, we tied another bud. The rest happened exactly as you have guessed. As the dog seemed to have liked weed, hence the name Pablo, last name Escobar.
Pablo had made quite the affectionate fool out of us, being so cute and snuggly all the time. Until fate had sayeth otherwise.
That day after the bald guy in a white uniform had done fixing my shoulder, I saw an animal control van pull up right beside the big concrete mixer. Out of curiosity, even being in immense pain, I went to look.
He was right there, the stray dog that was too loyal to me, even more so than most people I know, got all squished under the tire of the vehicle. Casualties of foolishness from a creature far superior. That sight alone was enough for me to shiver even amidst a hot and humid day. And it did, I fell sick for almost a week after that. Couldn't tell if it was from the sprain or losing Pablo.
My shoulder got all fixed after a week or so, but a portion of my heart still lies there, in the crematorium of the animal control, along with the dog who knew how to make people laugh and feel alive.
