Social Short Story – AN ORPHAN
Image© Anand Vishnu Prakash, YourStoryClub.com
While I was on my way back from school I witnessed one of the sweetest relationships.
We all have our ups and downs and the days when we are low I guess we find more morality in anything and everything we ever could.
It was a usual day with a very sultry weather and more than a boring way back home. It had rained a while ago and while people complained about the slush, I saw a girl. She was probably six or seven years old and ironically playing in the slush. No one cared to see how she played and the only ones who even cared to do so was because she had a bowl for people passing by to donate some money to her. while people tossed her a rupee or two it didn’t bother her, she was carefree as if she had no obligations. Truly enough she didn’t, she was probably an orphan, or was never questioned about her being.
Her presence merely matters to anyone, thousands of strangers saw her everyday neither did they know her nor did she know anyone.
I stood there watching her. I missed my train, perspired like hell standing there, was hungry, but still there was something that made me wait there.
She had no one but a dog, probably her pet but I’d rather call them companions because they were more of that. The dog wasn’t a chihuahua, golden retriever or a Labrador. It was an “Indian Pariah Dog” commonly the stray dogs that we see every day.
She was a ragged looking girl and due to lack of food and proper nutrition her bones were prominently visible though the very thin layer of fat she had. The dog kept his head on the girl’s lap and his eyes closed while the girl just played with his ears and every time the dog shook his head as a result of the girl’s naughtiness, she smiled. She then held the dog’s paws and pulled him on her lap and kept patting him while she spoke to her companion. No one knows what she was talking, or what their conversation could be because no man knows the language to communicate with dogs. But may be their conversation was beyond any language which we could understand.
As she went on with her silent whispers the dog listened as if he understood each word, or may be he actually did.
We all know dogs are the most faithful animals. Certainly because they too have feelings. Unlike humans they don’t hide their feelings in the quest of being rational animals.
The beauty of this incident lies in what happened next. While the girl and her companion enjoyed themselves, there came some urchins, twice the age of the girl and tried taking a dip into the girl’s day’s earning. The girl tried to save the dog from getting beaten up since the urchins got hold of some sticks and branches to beat the dog. The dog went forward to be as furious as he could be and shoo the urchins who were a problem to the girl.
She wasn’t alone. She had her companion. The best companion anyone can ever have. “She was not an Orphan after all.”
Nothing in this world could have portrayed mutual love any better. We lose many people at different stages of our life or some might have no one. But believe me there’s always somebody for everybody.
–END–
