THE DOG ON MY VERANDAH

Theme: Changing oneself

Genre: non-fiction

Title: The dog on my Verandah

Author: Pema Norbu

 Beep….Beep…..Beep…..Weee.Oooh…..Weee.oooh…Wee.oooh…wooooop….wooooop

I heard the sound like honing signal of a car. Yes, the sound has merely lacerated my twisted tube, the cochlea, and awakened by that sound. I paused and deeply concentrated for that sound, and I did make out the sound was from my G-shock Watch. I looked into it and found the hour hand was touching ‘12’. I felt difficult to open my eyes like the kittens facing difficulties opening the eyes, before they are mature enough. I turned to the left, and found my friends were sleeping like two huge logs, but I kept glancing at the ceiling, under the covered of darkness.

Suddenly, the thunder came marching from faraway with increasing tread. Lightning and thunder raged with fury. A flash of forked lightning and a great clap of thunder came close upon each other. A bolt of lightning tore across the sky and a peal of thunder followed.

I exclaimed, “What a nightmare I have!”, and internally I shouted at it, “Go away I hate you!”

After a minute or two, my heart has started creating music without melody, and blood was rushing and swimming through my veins like the fish in the sea. With the burning concern, I peeped through the diamond shaped hole of the windowpane, and found the opaque layer of dark clouds abnormally blackened the moon. The clouds drifted and stretched toward every thick and thin of the surrounding, releasing a sudden shower of heavy rain. Every now and then, I experienced the flash of lightning followed by the clap of thunder.

A gust of wind had merely blown off the trees. If I had attached on that tress, I would have had died out of scare. Every elements of the Earth played an antagonistic role during that night. I felt so helpless because there is nothing I can do to make the weather better. I felt the weather was the reason that I went astray, speechless and helpless. The dormancy period of Insomnia had broken, and it turned my night a sleepless.  I could not sleep; rather I was sitting on my bed with the worried expression. I felt sorry for myself because I was going through difficult situation. I started feeling jealousy over my friends for their sound sleep, and for not becoming the part of that weather.

“Oh my god I have never experienced anything like it!” I prayed for several times, yet I did not feel any improvement. I supposed the ‘god’ has failed to answer my prayers. I did not have alternatives to bring the miracle of the god, rather than experiencing salty tears from my rosy chick. The god’s failure in responding the tears of suffering developed the string of illusion that the god was not there for needy people. I felt, I was like haunted house where only evil spirits gets entertained and ghosts dwelled. My heart has started murmuring, “Oops there is no justice in the world when people can be made to suffer like that”. I found my friends were sleeping like a log under the covered of brunette warm blanket. They were actually enjoying the warmness of the blanket like the chicks enjoying the warmness under the blanket of their mother hen.

On contrary to that, I found myself suffocating and drowning into the ocean of foul weather like a doe deeply wounded by the poisoned arrow of evil hunter. I was bothered, what if the cyclone blows off the whole building?

What if the vultures fly and dance over our rotting carcass? I found the dancing figures of death were beckoning me that night. The beating of my heart has increased every now and then. A silver of alarm went through me, when I visualize the weather outside. I thought the sense of death already enveloped me as my body was growing cold and I felt stiff like lead.

Repeatedly, I woke up and craned through the window to evaluate nothing has happened outside. I felt I was acting like the swinging of pendulum, craning up and down. In the verge of peeping outside, I found a ‘shiny black plastic’, lying on the veranda. It was the half moon shape, which constituted concave and horn shapes. I did not find any movement in it. It was rather hushed, noiseless, quite and wordless. It stimulated me to consider it was a black plastic wrapper, carried out by the stormy and squally wind from girls’ dormitory as most of the ‘ girly girls’ use it while going for Sunday market to buy their undergarment. I wished to become that ‘black thing’, as I found it was tensionless. I would not have had felt that tragic moment if I was that black thing. I would have had majestically waved my senseless parts to respond that foul weather.

However, my perception on that thing was just wastage, and it went all in vain. It was just an opposite as I suddenly, found the ‘black thing’ was slithering and circled up like a snake. I remained brooding with bug eyed.  I slowly looked into it, and to my surprise, I was convinced the ‘black moon shape’ thing was aged, bony and lonely dog, which was afflicted by the scabies. The dog was almost turning into the shape of the rough stone due to the dreadful disease. The pressure of the rain was strong enough to create momentary tributaries on the veranda, where the dog was sleeping. However, the dog was less concern to the momentary cascading scene of water toward its place. The goodness and the positive qualities of the dog was indeed, an influential and great move to me. The dog had the qualities to acclimatize the tragic weather, in spite of having physical weakness. Skin of the dog has torn apart, yet it maintained the lion’s heart. The way it perceived the things was a masterpiece. It viewed the world through the lances of optimistic, courage, wholesome and clever eye.

The bombarding sound of thunder was more powerful than the roaring of lion. The drops of rain were straight to its place like the arrows of the great hunter and of course, the clouds have abnormally unfolded, which blackened the worldly scene. But the dog did not utters and complains a single word to those harsh things, rather I found the dog was turning deaf to unwanted clapping sound of thunder, blind to the black clouds, and acted numb to the rain striking its body. The dog was majestically rooted on the veranda, as if that tragic moment was so melodic to it.

 

I thought the dog has already known that weather was just playing prank by creating an illusions of foul weather. Whatever it may be, the bony dog afflicted by the scabies, prompted me to change my scary feelings and revised the whole way of perceiving the things .Little later, the strings of questions lined up in my head and I could clearly felt its weight.

Oh!  Pema,

Why were you going mad out of that foul weather? 

Why not the dog, which is laid on the cemented veranda?

Soon after I answered to those questions, the alarm of signal entered into me, saying I was coward. I was well informed by the dignified nature of the dog that I was in the humanly form, enveloped by the nature of barbarians. I took a long breath and I asked questions to myself:

Pema, if you have missed the dog on your veranda on that day, what type of situation you would have faced in the following days with the same weather? 

How long will you have suffered the whole summer if you were a step behind to catch that dog? Thank god! What a blessing in disguise!

By then, the new era had come with the golden keys. It unlocked the sufferings and replaced it with the seeds of contentment. The sunken eyes have returned to the normal and the bluish face had turned back to brownish, and the tears of happiness has broken and touched the rosy lips. “Hurrah!  I am no more chicken hearted”, I said it, and I was onto that extreme all because of the nature of the dog, which was rational, optimistic, logical, practical, applicable and realistic. I realized that the god was actually in the form of dog, helping me in disguise to offer me the lasting lesson in my life. Moreover, the very elements that have created the foul environment were just an illusion created by the miracle of the god to teach me the lessons of good and bad. I did learn a lesson to respect those small thing, and ways to defend the big things with the small.

Although the night was troublesome and the outlook of the dog was dirty, however it lessoned me a lot .The abnormal breathing and the beating of my heart seemed normal. The scary things were no more dangerous in my eye, rather the sense of acknowledgement has felt for those scary things for offering me the new brand of ‘perception’.

Tick, Tick, Tick…I heard the sound from my watch, I eyed into it and it was found 2:30 am. The time was almost at the peak, where I was supposed to sleep.

Eventually, I remembered the assessment presentation, which is supposed to present in the first period. Finally, my head was on the pillow, and I felt the drowsiness has acted so gluttonous that defeated insomnia.

Hum, I was fallen sleep by then.