Copyright © Saptarshi Majumder 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without first obtaining the written permission of the copyright owner.

The Dog

It was a time not long ago in the past but many years into the future after the apocalypse and man has learnt to live together again. Aspiring nations and greedy politicians pushed humanity into a war to end all wars for the war pushed us to the brink of extinction. But hope and resilience found its way back and stories of values to children growing were begun to be told again. It was burnt world of mutated beings but heart that dreamt inside remained as beautiful as any prince or princess riding a unicorn in the rainbow forest of green. Some had sprouted two heads, and some had lost a limb. Some had parts in the wrong place, and some were bald even when young. In that future world surviving a nuclear winter lived a little boy formed well but with a lump looking as big as a hump. The radiation from the blast had altered and erased chunks of code captured in the genetic spirals of the human genome.

Our hunchback had a friend and that was a puppy of three legs. The radiation was universal and birth deformities became a shared reality of the brave new world born out of the ashes of the nuclear wars. This was not Greek Olympics celebrating the body harmonious, but the future finding hope in a hunchback and a hobble of happy dog. The boy lived with his community at the fringe of the fallen metropolis. It was just half a hundred people holding together to make home. There were no mothers and fathers and ownership of the begotten but just people staying together holding on to each other waiting for life to do its wonder in finding way even after waves of war.

The boy found his friend in the litter born by the gutter. Three were born dead and two lived to see the light. One just withered away leaving behind just one with three legs and a charming hobble. The hobble caught the heart of the boy and tied it to a string of joy. The boy did nothing except scavenging for there were no schools with the flag flying. The biggest challenge was to find food for the fields were dead to crops and harvests. Like all others in that settlement, the boy had to look for remnants of food from the past preserved in the fallen city. In his task his three-legged friend helped and thus grew their friendship in work and in play.

The last civilization of the past had built machines like dogs but couldn’t really replace the species with technology. Dogs thrived simply because a machine is not warm to hug and a machine can’t lick with a moist tongue at random intervals to reinforce love. The boy with his dog happily exploring is one of the most enduring images of the perennial explorer residing in the human spirit but it was not Buck of Jack London. It was a strange duo with a hump and just three legs. The puny creature was so much of a contrast to the broad back of the boy, but all contrasts melt into communication fostered by love and dependence. One leg less didn’t make much of a difference because the dog still had its nose. The nose led to a big success. Journeying through broken steel and crumbling concrete, the boy one day located a big reservoir of food. It was his friend who sniffed his way to the treasure trove and found many things needed by that community of nomadic scavengers trying to settle and make a beginning. The dog ran hobbled in its unique way to and from his discovery to his friend telling him of his new find. The boy thought it to be just mere play but then the repetition was forceful and compelling. The repetition added emphasis and finally made the boy follow the dog to a door which read ‘Departmental Store’ of yesteryears. There was a curved cavity below the door through which the dog wiggled through. It vanished from sight making the boy wonder what was there beyond those doors. After a while the dog emerged back all excited and happy. The boy pried open the heavy doors and he was elated to have found a store of so many valuables. Later the elders of the community were all praises for the boy with the dog discovering pathways into the future. With the supply the community could live there for some time and they welcomed the change for they were tired of the constant looking for morsels and never getting to live in one place for long.

They settled for a while, but their exploring of the neighborhood continued with vigour as they hoped to find more of what the dog found. Hope, curiosity, thirst all got mixed to motivate the explorer to expect more pleasant surprises of finding treasure in that nuclear wasteland. The scouts would go out with the sunrise and return back with the bright orb of the sun descending the horizon into the advancing dusk. The sun remained buried behind the radioactive clouds and the time was kept with just a notion of the elapsed hours. The scouts shifted through ruin to excavate food for the bleak landscape and the overcast sky prevented growth in crops, fruits, and trees. There were burnt stems and dead birds. The pestilence and the poison of radiation persisted to make the world a living Hell without green and without growth. But even in Hell, the human spirit makes a Heaven finding strength and finding opportunity.

Every opportunity is also packaged with a risk. The twisted structures of steel were not stable but often crashed to trap the scouts if they tinkered too much with the balance caused by the blast. The heap of metal and mortar that was the city and its suburb was not just child’s play but as treacherous as any quicksand falling, crashing, and causing havoc. The scouts treaded carefully for nobody wanted to be more in trouble than what they were in at that Hell of a world. But the discovery of the dog and the boy challenged that caution and flared curiosity. The boy was also caught in that web. He was young and lacked the experience of the hardened explorers. He was innocent to the dangers lurking in those houses of cards made of steel and iron. He thought he was careful, but he was not for care and curiosity doesn’t follow the same way. In his newfound faith in the dog, he ventured deep in one such structure. The dog was beside him, but it whimpered to warn of the hidden booby traps. As he went further in the structure, the dog refused to follow or lead but stood wagging the tiny tail poised on the three legs. The enterprising heart throbbing in that boy told him of the treasure that might wait for him just beyond a collapsed column. He thought a few steps more won’t make much of a difference and then danger stuck. The boy heard a roar and the next moment it was dust all around. Something heavy hit him on his back just above the hump and he fell to the ground. He tried to slither out of the tight spot, but he was held prisoner by a crisscross of mangled concrete. He didn’t know what to do. He called for help but didn’t hear a reply. There was an eerie silence and with that creeped in helplessness. As time elapsed, he regretted the explorer in him being too curious to forget caution and didn’t know what to do. Intermittent cries for help found no response but got swallowed in that silence of the fallen structure of steel. It was a prison chiseled by his curiosity and he gradually resigned to his fate. He thought his three-legged friend along with his luck had abandoned him as well. Hope still burnt in his heart but the flickering flame gave a smaller circle with every passing hour till it was just a tiny bluish bubble visible in the darkness like the long-lost stars but not lighting the way. Then the exhaustion made him slip to sleep trapped deep in that mangled heap.

He woke to the sound of clanging metal. It seemed faint but then gradually grew. He shouted for help and this time there was a faraway reply. His heart missed a beat for there’s nothing as exhilarating as the hope of a rescue as our soul face despair. The cries got louder, the voices got nearer and eventually he was pulled out of the metal by a group of four adults from his community. He didn’t know a God or a Church as we know but he knew that it was blessing to be found. The tears of joy smeared his cheeks, and he was thankful to have got a second chance at living life in that wasteland.

After rest, after fear, after finding new hope he heard the story of his rescue. He got trapped but his three-legged friend was free to run for help. It ran to the community and barked and whimpered. The adults didn’t pay much heed for that’s what dogs do but then one noticed that it was not a random run but a purpose and a direction. They also noticed the boy was not there and that was strange. They talked and they added and then decided to follow the dog. The dog brought them to that structure and barked hard. It took time for them to realise but gradually they understood that there was something inside for they have heard about how the dog had led his friend to the treasure trove.

The dog found his friend and boy found his heart and hope. That day in that nuclear wasteland a new friendship was forged which paved the way for a community of explorers famed in later years throughout the land for their dogs and their success in finding ways. Many years later the story of the hunchback and his three-legged friend became a legend laying foundation to a future which involved not exploring an alien planet but exploring this earth ruined by the greed of the past. New settlements replaced the old metropolis, but the old tradition of the explorers accompanied by their dogs remained same for the hunchback and the dog has found old ways of hope in the new future of caution. The collaboration between two species succeeded the test of time and whether it was the prehistoric iceland or the post-apocalyptic wasteland, the relationship based on mutual trust and care stood true to its ever-evolving meaning in many realities through time. The dog stands true to the quintessential explorer that is man. The hunchback and his three-legged friend is just another inspiring episode testimony to that friendship traveling through time.

Mr. Saptarshi Majumder