The night stretched on, silent, like the whisper of death in Cupid's heart. It was oppressive. The kind that hurt. And suddenly like the shattering of a prism, the silence was massacred by a ghastly shrill scream, a scream of demonic quality,horror and one that filled the heart with loathing;it was the scream of a man who had just lost everything. Emanating from the seventh floor window the scream was suddenly cut off, transcending into an almost pandemonium like state of pure misery where even his voice failed him.It was the scream of a man whose wife had just succumbed to the fumes and a man who was watching his children burn. Alive.
Ghastly. The explosion had ripped through the seventh floor apartment instantly killing the servants and snapping his spine. Weaving in and out of consciousness,all he could do was scream as he watched his seven year old daughter, still asleep in her bed, being surrounded by flames. God was merciful. She died in her sleep being spared the horror of watching the flames reach out to her, until it was too late, until she filled in where he had left off, screaming. His son was not so lucky.
The now crippled father had watched his kids burn even as the paramedics rushed in. In the nick of time- for him.They pulled him out of the blazing inferno but the damage had been done. In one tragic blow, his family was gone. His life was dead. He was paralyzed neck below.
He was out for six weeks and he finally came to, screaming. The nightmare had just begun. He questioned god, he questioned the fairness of the world and most of all himself.Silent contemplation for he was almost a vegetable. He lost faith in god, in humanity and in himself. He awaited death like a parched land awaits the first rains..
God is great. He didn't die. It was just him and bitter sweet dreams. Sweet because he saw his family. Bitter because he saw them dead, burning. And Timothy, a boy of six. Six years old meant society at large and education in particular had not ruined him. He still retained that tender humanity, that basic human spirit of comradeship that we all posses but train ourselves to ignore. And this was how the old man, bald now, got a new leash. Old not because the years lay heavy on him, old because god wanted to be funny.
And through Timothy was how Dino barked into his life, a three year old mongrel and a dog who, with that basic animal instinct sensed the infinite sadness of the room and chose to ignore it, the dog who brought life into the room, the dog who connected with the old man. Finally. The dog who rekindled the dead spark in his life. The reason for his first smile in an eternity. It was an animal bond,transcending all human bonds and a bond forged not out of understanding or compatibility,a bond for a bond's sake. An ethereally beautiful connect, god's gift. A beacon of hope on a black night, the only source of light. Two hours that he looked forward to. The lighthouse and it's awkward keeper, they made his days slightly less unbearable.
But the screams wouldn't stop, nightmares of frenzied burning, like the inferno of death in his heart. And one night they stopped. Misery's nemesis; death. Some wounds dig too deep. Some wounds can't be healed. Sometimes time isn't enough. Peace, like death to the immortals. If I didn't know better, I'd say God was being kind.
