Skip to main content

Leo and Joy (fiction)

 

Leo was lying on a gurney in the Government Veterinarian Hospital. He was too weak to stand up, and could barely move his tail. He hated the cold, metal feel of the gurney. He wanted to be home, playing fetch with Joy, his best friend.

Leo was adopted by Sam, Joy's father, when he found a tiny pup shivering in the rain. Sam, then 17, swaddled the pup in an old blanket, fed him milk with a dropper, and held him close when he wouldn’t stop whimpering.

Now Leo was 14 years old and had a weak heart. He fainted last evening in the middle of running around with Joy.

Sam brought him to the hospital.

The vet gave the bad news to Sam - Leo was dying. He might be dead in a day, most probably will not survive the next week.

Sam came to see Leo, trying hard to brave. Leo tried to wave his tail, and managed a very slow, little movement. 

Leo just wanted to run around with Joy, getting the old tennis ball back to Joy and see his face light up with a smile. In the haze of his sickness he could see Joy, he wanted to get up, run to him, lick Joy's face. But he could manage only a little movement in his tail. Leo desperately wanted to run around in the grass and watch Joy's face light up when he took the ball back to him. every time. He wanted the ball in his mouth, so that he could take it to Joy. He tried to look for it. But he didn't have any strength to move his head. He couldn't see very well. He didn't realize he was in a hospital and not in the backyard.

"Can't we do anything?" Sam asked the vet

"We can give him intravenous drugs; he might get better, but the chances of that happening are very low", the vet said. "You can decide to take him home or you can leave him here for the treatment" the vet said "its your choice".

Sam spoke to Leo in a loving whisper "Buddy do you want to go home? Do you want to play fetch with Joy?"

Joy's name brought a faint spark to Leo's eyes. He wagged his tail and tried to get up. Sam could not hold back his tears; he was overwhelmed by his love for Leo and with Leo's love for Joy. And he knew that Leo would want to spend his last few moments with Joy. He had to take him home - the choice was clear.

Sam picked up Leo and brought him to the car, and put him in the back seat. He drove slowly. He was trying to control his own emotions. He wanted to be strong in front of Joy. Once he reached home, he continued sitting in the car for a few moments, trying to compose himself, taking a couple of deep breaths.

He walked to the back door of the car, and opened it up to pick up Leo. Leo was dead. Sam realized that Leo would have died somewhere on the way. He couldn’t stop his tears. He was 17 again, holding a shivering pup to his chest. And he felt scared, of Joy's grief. And of Joy's first brush with death of a loved one.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boys of summer (Fiction)

The carrom board was set up. Tipu discovered that the carrom board needed powder to make it playable. He was promptly dispatched to find the box of carrom powder. You had to spread the powder uniformly over the whole surface of the board. And the guy who can spread his palm over all the gotis and then use them to spread the powder showed irrefutable signs of being a master of the game. Rupya paise where each white goti counted for 20 and each black one counted for 10, was for kids (and maybe a little bit racist). The preferred game was the 'game'. I was sweating like a pig and the sweat was stinging my eyes. It was my turn to start the game. I wiped my hands on my shirt to dry them. And hit the set of gotis with all my strength. Tipu and Romi sniggered when it was discovered that none of the white gotis went into the holes. Romi tried to use his thumb to put a black one in. Suddenly Hemu started shouting 'cheater, cheater' at Romi. 'He used his big finger t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The First Date (fiction)

I am sitting in a cab, holding a scarf to my face. I have a broken tooth, and my mouth is bleeding. There are a few dark red drops of blood on my white shirt. And there is a very pretty lady sitting next to me. This is not how I imagined my first date with her. I had noticed her on the first day of college. She seemed different and aloof. Lost in her own thoughts. It took me two months to finally ask her out. I planned the date carefully. Reserved a table in a nice restaurant, borrowed a sport coat from my roommate, bought flowers. The hostess told us that our table would be ready in 15 minutes. We ordered two glasses of wine while we waited for our table to be ready, and walked to the balcony overlooking the city. She kept her phone on the balustrade. I saw the phone slide down towards the drop. I jumped to catch before it could fall, slipped and hit my mouth on the edge of the balustrade. So here we are. On the way to the dentist. I am in pain, and in love.
Post a Comment
Read more

The phone call (fiction)

Priya has been working from home for the last 4 months, and now her laptop’s battery was dead.. on a Monday...with the big client presentation coming up on Friday. She was determined to navigate the serpentine channels of the laptop company’s customer care and order a battery for her laptop. It is a simple spare for her appliance...how hard can it be. She did not count on the effort that companies put in to make the lives of their customers increasingly difficult.  She started by calling the customer care number, and fought on. She felt like she was fighting through rings of trolls in a scene from the Lord of the Rings. She tried every trick, dangling the carrot of good reviews on Facebook, threats, pretending to be from the IT department of a big customer of the company, and begging, and groveling and appealing to the conscience of the customer care guys. Nothing worked... She had already spent a couple of hours on the phone; her hands and the phone sticky with sweat. She fel...
Post a Comment
Read more