AND IT RAINED...

I woke up smelling like him. In fact everything seemed to be enveloped in his essence. He of course was long gone, as he said he would. As everyone else told me he would. As I knew he would, even though I couldn’t come to terms with this truth. Somehow the realisation of this fact always brought an acidic tinge to the time we spent together. But I never was a rebel; I knew I would never go against the laws, convention, nature…

So…though it was hard, I knew I had to let go, move on. I’ll soon have loads to occupy myself with, so it might be easier to ignore that thorn on my side, because forgetting won’t ever be an option. So I let out a deep sigh and set out to find some water, I was so damn thirsty.

As I set out, I could sense something was wrong. For one I could smell rains in the near future, either in the afternoon, or definitely by night. It was good, rains meant good hunting, the smells were sharper, and for us, it meant we got our prey with much more ease. But rains never brought about the panic that I could see about everywhere. It was as if there was a really serious bushfire somewhere, but I could not see any smoke or smell anything burning either. Even if there was, the rains would anyway douse it, so there was nothing to worry about.

But then suddenly my hair started bristling as I realised what was the danger that was infecting the whole place with chaos. I got ready to rush out from there when suddenly my feet seemed to merge with the ground. The sound smashed through my ears and melted my bones to ice.

I crashed through the bushes, fighting against the dread that was slowing me down. It was as if I didn’t want to see what I would see once I reach. And then I came to a stop. And the time stopped with me.

The mourning skies opened up just then. As the rain fell down in torrents, the water blurred the amber and ebony inert mass lying in front of me. I couldn’t move, fear and grief had forged manacles on my feet. I kept standing there, hidden by the foliage, as two men came up and dragged him away into their four wheeled monstrosity. The rest of them kept clutching their murderous pipes, as if they don’t know they are the most frightening beasts in this jungle.

What elegance did they see in that striped corpse? What grace is there in that mangled carcass? His every step, his crouch, his roar used to boast of the regalness that defined us all. Where was all lofty dignity in that mud smeared body?

I wanted to snatch him away from them, to tear out their guts, smash their lead pipes that filled them with such arrogant confidence that meaningless slaughter to them had become their justified birth right. But I did not move a step, I had too much responsibility on me to risk it all for vengeance, justified or unjustified.

They started to drive away when I managed to put all my anguish in one last roar. The men clutched their weapons even harder. When they do not understand empathy, how do you expect them to understand pain? They could only understand fear and danger, and know how to react to them.

But the wild understood and stood by me as they drove the hearse away. Helpless, like me…