I was at the Postal Office, waiting for the number in my hand to show up on the red LED screen over the counter. I was thinking mostly on the things that needed to be done, and how I wished the receptionist would move her fat ugly butt to speed things up.
Alas, it was my turn. I quickly ran to the counter, submitted my paper, and paid the fee required for printing the relevant document. Before I took off, I had the courtesy to make a few jokes with her, light up her day, and then I made my way out.
Suddenly I stopped short in my track. For some unknown reasons, I suddenly had the urge to venture upstairs to speak to the groomers at Pet Safari. Instead of running to the carpark, I detoured to the nearest elevator and went up.
Once I reached the grooming room, I looked around and didn’t see Jackie, my god-son the Golden Retriever. I waved to the groomers, said my Hi, and was about to leave when something caught my attention. I ventured nearer and there he was, Fluffy, in the cage, bangging frantically at the steel door, looking at me, desperately wanted my attention. When he saw that I noticed him, he wagged his tail so fast that it kept banging on the glass wall.
I was stunned. It has been more than 3 weeks since I last saw him. I was denied the chance to see him, hold him, hug him, kiss him, and play with him. Suddenly, for no apparent reasons, I saw him right in front of me, and he was so happy to see me.
I walked to the cage as quickly as possible without tipping anything over or kicking any wires. I opened the cage, and he jumped right out, stood on his hind legs, scratching my legs frantically as if asking me where the hell I had been and why didn’t I go to see him.
I felt a sharp pain in my heart. I kneel down, scooped him off the floor, and hugged him as tight as possible, inhaled as deeply as possible to take in the familiar scent of his, and kissed his forehead softly and gently. I whispered into his ear, saying, “Sorry dear. How have you been? Have you been a good boy? Daddy miss you so much, do you know that?”
He looked at me with those huge twinkling eyes, and started kissing my face. I hugged him more tightly than ever, and I had the urge of just dognapping him so that he could be with me, living with me, so that I can see him daily, play with him everyday, and to take care of him.
I looked at the groomer, and I asked, “What time is she coming to pick him up?”
“She will go to our house at night to pick him up,” came the reply.
“Okay,” I answered.
I put him on the floor, and he ran around me, circling my legs, scratching me once in a while, sniffing me as if trying to etch the scent of mine into his tiny brain. I called him, and we both walked out from the grooming room. I kept watching him, afraid that he would bump into something or lost, and he walked as fast as he could with his tiny and short legs to keep up with me.
I smiled. The first smile I had for weeks, a real smile that came from heart.
I took him to Starbucks, and after I have ordered my drink, I sat there, my eyes fixed on him, capturing his every movement, trying to remember the day as best as I could since I do not know when will be the next time I’ll be seeing him. He looked at me, sighed, and crept up next to my leg, and slept. We spent quiet moments together, and sometimes I would scoop him up from the floor, hugged him, kissed him, and talked to him about the recent changes, what had happened to me, updating him, telling him how much I missed him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t speak, or else I would kill just to listen to him telling me how he has been for the past few weeks.
Time, as we know it, tick at exactly per second basis. But under certain circumstances, the concept of time is different. At that moment, I felt that the second was ticking way too fast, and I was trying hard to slow it down. Very soon, the sky turned darker, and I looked at the watch; it was time to go, no matter how reluctant I was. I looked at him, and he looked back at me, as if sensing what I was thinking. I told myself, “Just another 5 minutes.”
The extra 5 minutes turned into 20 minutes, but I didn’t care. I hugged him again, played with him, kissing his forehead, and told him how much I love him and miss him. Then I inhaled as deep as I could, stood up from the chair, and started walking to the grooming room.
At that exact moment, my phone beeped. I looked at the message, and I sighed deeply. It was more bad news, and at that particular moment, I couldn’t handle it anymore, so instead of replying and explaining, I decided to ignore the message, and continued the difficult journey back to the grooming room.
I put him inside the cage, and he struggled and ran out before I could close the door. He knew what I was doing, and he wanted to follow me. I scooped him up again, and put him into the cage, and this time I succeeded in closing the door.
He looked at me with those twinkling eyes again, and I could tell that he was asking me why I wanted to abandon him again, leaving him there instead of taking him home. I kneel down, face to face with him, and said, “Sorry…”
I turned, and I walked out from the grooming room.
From that moment onwards, I knew, I realized, for a fact that, my life will never be complete again.
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