The Unstoppable 'Train'

It never ached him that he didn’t have a concrete shelter over his head.  His shelter was the one that always kept transitioning between colors. Different colors intimated him of different situations and to prepare him accordingly. Gilded rays on the road meant the endless dust sticking to his paws because of the sweating; dusky sky meant the coldness in the air and human scarcity on roads; gray meant dusty and that he should soon find something to cover him and be ready for the water that falls from the sky. It didn’t always rain under the gray sky, but it did numerous times. Though gray tantamount to jade, when he knew he’d better find somewhere to hide or he will have to regret later. And he always did.

Living under the open air with the negligible population was hard for him. A small family lived around the place, but their home wasn’t big enough for more than three. It wasn’t a stronghold either. Just a thick and blue colored piece wrought to be pointy at the top with woods and nails trusting it to the ground. But that too waved and shook back and forth when the winds blew. But he always endured.

He never had to roam hungrily in search for something to eat. The little kid there always fed him. Even though the kid belonged to an indigent family and was scorned every now and then for feeding a dog, he still did; sometimes he ate less and gave the rest to the Sheru. Sheru followed wherever the kid went. They both were always found in the pair, inseparable. Sometimes the kid would sleep outside with his arms laid over Sheru, and every morning Sheru would wake him by pushing gently with his nose and rolling him over and over again until he yawned.

The kid had a small and hollow rubber tyre with him that he would hit with a stick and run, and so did Sheru. Sheru would always try holding the stick in his mouth and moving the tyre like his friend did, but he never could; nowhere as dexterous as the kid. But Sheru never gave up, as it always put a smile on his friend’s face. Sheru kept doing it and several other things he did because it made the kid smile. Sheru never quit on failing. It wasn’t like Sheru loved being continuously unsuccessful at the tasks, but he never felt bad when he couldn’t either.

Whenever he was alone, he slept on the railway tracks that ran nearby. The gravel and flat stones gave him comfort to sleep. He woke up whenever the ground trembled and the horn blew, he moved away from it.

They were playing one day under the blue sky when they got exhausted and both had lain on the train tracks. It didn’t take the kid long to close his eyes and go into the deep sleep. Sheru was watching him sleep, all couched with his hands joined together and into the feet between his thighs, when he decided to take a small nap too. Soon enough, the horn blew and the ground trembled. Sheru stood and walked away, and then he looked back to see the kid sleeping on the track. He ran quickly and tried to roll him over with his nose, but the kid wouldn’t wake. The size of the train kept getting bigger as it came more and more close. Sheru started barking loudly at it, but it wouldn’t stop. He held the shirt of the kid in his mouth and tried to lift him up, going a little over with both his forelimbs on the tracks and tried again to pick him, all in vain. The horn by the time was loud enough to silence his hearing ability forevermore, but that wasn’t his worry at the time. When he realized the train was too close, unstoppable, he grabbed the kid’s haggard arm with his teeth and pulled him up with a sudden adrenaline rush and turned his head to throw him away from the tracks. The moment he opened his mouth to let go of him, he felt something hard hit on his leg. It was there for just a fraction of a second. A severe pain went through each nerve of his body in that duration, he wanted to scream, but he became numb.

He saw the blood tattooing the kid’s arm and cloth where he bit to while picking him. Each droplet that fell from the kid’s arm felt like all of Sheru’s blood dripping out of him; something was different, though. The kid played with him, all clad in red stain, there was nothing different about it. Yet why did Sheru feel such. Soon the blinding darkness surrounded him, he ran for his friend but the distance kept increasing between them, and the kid was pulled into the oblivion as darkness engulfed him too. His eyes opened, everything blurred his vision; he noticed that ground felt hard below him and the irregular white shapes that punctuated the sky above wasn’t there anymore. Something was missing, he couldn’t tell what, but something was.

His eyes couldn’t stay open for long and he succumbed to the blackness again. He saw the train coming again, relentlessly running towards them. This time, he couldn’t even get up. It was as if his legs gave up on him too. The train kept on coming towards them; he sat over the kid, covered him and closed his eyes for he couldn’t see the red liquid flowing out the kid’s arm again. As it got nearer and nearer, his conscious hit him and his eyes opened with a massive jerk, yelping. There was no train around, no kid was below him, no tracks on the flanks, and no gravel soothed his skin. The ground was sandy but rigid, similar to the one in his dreams. He got up and put all his body pressure on his forelimbs but couldn’t, something was unusual.  He rolled on his side to clean his eyes with his nails, but he couldn’t. Someone came and put a hand on his head. Tears went down the person’s eyes; he calmed down to see he both his front legs, there weren’t there anymore. He could see other dogs around him, and those who looked like his human friend came occasionally to feed him and the others around him. He was always hungry now and didn’t know if he saved his pal or not. He hoped he did. Everything around him changed in the blink of an eye.

He was now hearing the word “Train” whenever someone tried to talk to him, and he looked around whenever someone used the word. But no train was around him. He wanted to know how his buddy was. His eyes gave up on him when he needed them the most, and now his legs. Despair surrounded him, but it couldn’t get anywhere close to his determination. He wanted to get up again.

When they came to feed him, he tried to get up but didn’t have enough energy. They would scratch behind his ears and feed him off their hands, holding the other dogs back. He was too weak to defend himself. But whenever he was alone, he would try different ways to walk again. One time his chin hit so hard on the ground he bit his tongue. The red droplets dripping out of his mouth scared him, the red color scarred him. He wouldn’t give up, though. Each passing day he felt feeble when they had to keep the other dogs away just so Train could eat. He didn’t want the sympathy. He knew he can’t get back to his buddy anymore, but he’d still dream of him whenever he slept. Most of all, he wanted to walk again.

He tried and tried and tried and tried…leading nowhere. He didn’t want to capitulate to despair now, he couldn’t. After weeks and months of trying, he would stand on his hind limbs; balked whenever he tried to walk.  He tried and tried again. Those who fed him sometimes held him while he attempted to walk. With their hands and his determination, he could finally walk. Though he could only take a few steps at a time. He’d stand up, walk few steps and lie on the ground, and push his body upwards and take few steps again.  He was unstoppable; he stood up whenever they came to feed him, jumped sometimes, same as his fellow dogs did. But they had paws at the front to reduce the jerk and push them downwards to take a jump again.

He never felt bad about it, he was now strong enough to walk on his own and guard himself against other dogs around him. Others also stopped looking at him with sympathetic and teary eyes; eyes that once gave up on him. Everyone that petted him reminded of his two-legged friend. Train again failed as he couldn’t walk half as well on two legs like his friend did. But he didn’t feel bad, thinking if the kid was here, his weak prowess of walking would make him smile. These were again the times where he loved to fail over and over again just to see that smile.

He was unstoppable, same as the train that hit the Train.