It has been raining for a few hours now,dawn's hopeful blush replaced by an endless blue horizon,the clouds blotting out an orange sun intermittently, creating a canvas of lazy days in bed and coffee in old comfort cups.

The orange red sunset splayed against the imminent raindrops,suffusing them with bright orange red happiness and joy reaching from the sky to a lonely earth.

This rain reminds me of an old memory,

The kind of memory one remembers after decades of it lying forgotten in a corner of your mind.

The kind of memory that makes you feel like meeting an old friend after years of forgotten friendship.

The kind of memory that you can really never forget however hard you try to.

You're late for that meeting with the multi-million dollar contract behind it.

Walking on a narrow street,black formal shoes making a symphony of click click sounds,the iridescent puddles reflecting a clean but wrinkled face in a black cut suit.

You're huffing, having not walked this far in quite a few years now, always the mercedes for any distance.

But the car's radiator blew away down a block and you can't skip this meeting.

The fatigue washes over you with the intensity of a knackering pain in your knees and back.

You have become old.

You used to run twice this distance quite easily those days..

And this thought brings you again to that memory,that insistent unforgettable memory blaring like a melancholic alarm clock in your brain.

It was a windy cloudy blue day,just like today.

A day like every other day but still different from every other day.

Memory clears up the cobwebs and you go on a reverie,to a day long past back when you were just a happy kid and not an old tired person.

You walking through the puddles,the water reflecting your own sweaty grimy yet joyful face,

White sports shoes and a dirty white vest handed down from your bigger brother hanging on your emaciated body.

And yes, you're happy, you're joyful, you're young.

Skipping school always brings you up to this good mood,you smile to yourself.

The city is under a deep upheaval as tradition tries to struggle against modernity,tall skyscrapers rising against the backdrop of your very own rundown chawl in the middle of nowhere.

Here and there you see construction workers hiding under parapets as the rain pitters patters above their head.

A catchy time on your lips,you don't know what it means,

It doesn't even matter what it means, what matters is you love it.

The rain has stopped all activity in the town, everyone inside their packed houses, hiding in their own bubbles of self satisfying arrogance.

Your papa and mama at home today.

You don't understand why papa and mama were shouting at each other once again,you don't understand why your papa stumbles around every evening these days(He's ok in the morning) and you certainly don't know what's that pungent odour coming from his mouth,nor do you know why your papa is carrying a bottle around from work,

You don't understand why your mum tells you to go outside and get your favourite crackers,when she usually never let's you eat that stuff.

All these implications never even come into your mind as you march towards your favourite crackers shop.

The only thing you are worried about is not being able to buy your favourite crackers,as everyone at your school loves those crackers and it gets over by evening.

Kids with their parents usually flock these roads in evenings,you too used to go on these walks with your papa but nowadays he doesn't love you anymore and doesn't take you anywhere.

Maybe it was the test you flunked which made papa shout at mama today?

But you suck at math and you couldn't do any better.

Your mind meandering with these thoughts you reach the aforementioned shop,the shop is about to be closed but you run towards the keeper.

You pay the shopkeeper and collect from him your favourite crackers.

A bench at the nearby park is your usual spot for eating these crackers,hidden from the road by green overgrown vegetation,just you enjoying those crackers without any distractions.

Sitting at the edge of the seat in the park you get ready for tearing the wrapper,but a small whimpering bark stops you.

You raise your head and look around but you can't see anything, there's nothing around you.

You try to hear it once again, stretching the limits of your perception but there's no sound anymore.

Ignoring the stimulus in a way that only a small child is able to do you tear apart the wrapper to stuff yourself with the crackers.

All of a sudden you hear that bark once again,this time you know where it comes from and you look behind, and see the most peculiar sight.

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Big Blue gray eyes staring at you,fur the color of snow dotted with black spots and a lacking ear grab your attention.

The pup looks at you and then at the packet and barks again.His tail wagging in an insistent manner showing hunger and excitement.

You look at the crackers and then you look at the pup, judging if he's worthy of such a delicacy,you look again at the crackers and you look again at the pup and you realise the pups big blue gray eyes and you realise maybe he is worthy of those crackers.

Maybe you can give a little to the pup?

Only a little of course.

You too need to eat.

You pick one piece and offer it to him..

The pup sniffs,trudging towards you,he is scared but hunger or maybe your charm overcomes the canines natural distrust.

The pup rips the cracker from your hand and runs away into the bushes.

You don't understand why did the pup run again.

Were the crackers not to his liking?You wait for him to reappear for a minute or two but he doesn't come back.

You start munching on the crackers again pondering on this strange experience.

All of a sudden you hear that bark once more,you look behind and the pup is right there back at the same position.

Him sitting on his back legs,a big open expectant smile on his face and those big blue gray eyes looking at you with an insistent hunger.

Seems like he wants another of your crackers,you look into the packet to see how many are left and if offering the pup any will lead to less for you later on.

You realise there's enough and you can afford giving him one.

You offer another to the pup and the pup once again rips it from your hand and runs away.

By the end of half an hour this cycle has repeated thrice,and you have named your pup,and yes it's your pup now,

You have named your pup trish,

The last time the pup doesn't run away and just rests near your shoes.

You stroke his fur even though mama had warned you never to touch strange dogs.

With every stroke of his fur the pup looks at you with contentment and adoration,his furiously wagging tail slowing down,his eyes start closing and he starts sleeping.

You wonder what the pup is dreaming?

Maybe the pup is thinking about a land made of crackers where roads and buildings and schools and even math tests are crackers?

As the pup sleeps,you look at the horizon.

An orange red sunset splayed against the imminent raindrops,suffusing them with bright orange red happiness and joy.

You're happy, you're joyful.

You think about bringing trish to your home.

Maybe if you bring trish home papa will love you again and stop hurting you,maybe mama will kiss you goodnight just like she used to and stop calling you a pathetic bastard(he doesn't know what the word means but it sounds mean),and maybe they can all live together happily like Edmunds family does.

And these thoughts makes uou realise it's time to go back home.

You'll take trish home too.

You try to pick trish up,but with an alacrity that surprises you trish launches up in the air,a mean and angry bark coming out from his mouth,his hackles standing up in alarm and rage.

You try to placate him but it's all in vain as trish runs away ;startled you try to run behind him but you fall down on the mud.

An hour later,vainly spent in an attempt to call trish back,searching through the whole park you trudge back towards your home.

The sun has set and it's a cold night.

You are sad,you had liked trish,maybe your mama and papa would also have liked him and you could all be a happy family again.

But maybe trish didn't like the crackers as much as you do and thats why he ran away.

Halfway to your home you spy a group of boys tailing you.

You realise it's Edmund and his friends.

Edmund studies at the same school as you,he hates you from the first day.You don't know why he hates you,you were never mean to him,mama says if you're good to someone they'll be good to you too.

But then why does Edmund hate you

He and his friends never let a day go without beating you.At first it was only limited to the boundaries of school but now it seems even the streets aren't safe for him.

Edmund and his friends call his father a drunk loser and his mother a whore,he knows not the meaning of these words,he once tried asking his mother about what they meant but she hurt him bad that day.

But they can't be good words with how much venom he says it.

As he nears you Edmund starts screeching your name and you realise it's time to run away or get beaten today too.

You try to run,but as you start sprinting Edmund being much faster catches you after just a little distance,both of you falling in a tumble on the wet ground.

Edmund starts plummelling you with his fists,his friends kicking you in the chest,you try to fight them off,to regain a resemblance of control but they are much stronger and they are many.

It becomes a flurry of screaming fists and screeching kicks as you try to make them back off,

Suddenly by luck your fist connects with Edmunds lips,and Edmund falls down on the ground.

But before you can capitalise on that moment and run away, Edmunds friends pin you down.

Edmund rises up,blood pouring out his lips,his front teeth missing,

With a mean dangerous glint in his eye,he takes out a pen from his pocket,and you wonder why a pen.His friends turn your face towards him and force open your eyelids.

All of a sudden you realise he wants to blind you as he brings the pen closer to your eyes,

You start struggling with all your intensity but you're spent and don't have any energy left.

As the pen comes closer to your eyes,it's nib being magnified with every inch of distance covered, you realise he's serious this time,you struggle even more valiantly but it's all in vain.

Suddenly Edmund stops and looks at you mockingly and tells you to say your mother is a whore,but today something is different about you,defiance courses through you and you spit at him.

The mocking grin turns into a hate filled grimace and Edmund plunges the pen in your eyes.

Pain takes over all of your nerves,agony coursing through you,you buckling against the restraints,his friends leaving your arms in horror as they can't believe Edmund really did it.

The right side of the world has become pitch dark,and you feel something wet and sticky on your face and you can hear someone shouting with pain and horror and with a start you realise, it's your own very voice screaming out for release.

But Edmund isn't satisfied,he isn't satisfied at all,he wants another eye too and he tells his friends to pick you up again,

But his friends have become queasy and scared and refuse to do what's needed.They didn't want this,they just wanted to rough you up.Just wanted to scare you until you piss in your pants but this is beyond anything normal.

They run away.

But Edmund is not letting those weak losers stop him from doing what he wants to do.He doesn't need anyone else and he'll do it himself if no one else does it

And he'll do it fast

He need to be back at home too for that 8 o clock show on the color tv his father just recently bought.

He grasps your skull, trying to open your left eye too,you try to fight off but the pain is debilitatiing and you can't fight the bigger boy.

All your resistance is in vain,the pain the shock and agony making your muscles jelly,you can't even lift your arms up.

All of a sudden you hear a bark,an angry rageful bark,and you feel a shadow jump on Edmunds back and Edmunds feet buckle under him, him falling on you and rolling away as he grapples with something soft.

With a start you realise that it's the pup, it's trish.

You still can't see anything clearly due to the red haze but you know it's Trish,you can feel it in your heart.

You feel Trish tussling with Edmund,his tiny bites causing yelps of pain from Edmund.

Edmund is much bigger and he throws trish away,but the pup is insatiable and attacks him again.

Edmund starts plunging his pen in the fur and bright red spots start coming out on the pups snowhite fur,

The pup and the boy grappling in an intense wrestling match,

Yelps and screams cutting through the night air.Edmund plunges the pen in Trish eye,but this makes the pup even more angry and he bites Edmunds ear away.

Suddenly you feel radiant light from far off in the front and see two bright yellow eyes reaching towards you on the road.

With a start you realise it's a car and you three are on its path.

You shout out but the rain stops your voice from reaching Trish and Edmund.

You try to stand up but your knees buckle up and you realise with a twisting horror that you will not be able to run away from the car.

The car strikes the pup and the Edmund ,flunging them away and as the cars momentum crashes into you and you reach into the blessed oblivion your last thought is that you your father is going to be really really angry.

You come to your senses in a hospital bed,your mother worriedly looking at you,your father pacing up and down the room.

Your father doesn't have any bottle in his hand and he isn't stumbling anymore.

You cannot see clearly from your left eye, a red hue suffusing the white hospital room,you ask your mother about this and she bursts into tears,your father trying to embrace her.

You tell them about Edmund,but your mother and father don't reply and look pointedly away.

You ask about trish but your mother gently shakes her head,your father looking sorrowfully at you.

You insist on knowing,you tell them how trish was your best friend and how you had both shared crackers in the park at that wet bench.

Your father tearfully tells you he has passed on,

that he has gone to a better place,a place called heaven and that he'll come back when he wants to meet him again.

You're at your flat.

The memory replay that brought you to that day three decades ago over as you enter the main door after the meeting.

You see your son's damp dirty footprints outside your bedroom, annoyance fills you up with this.

How many times have you told him to keep his shoes outside the door?

And as you enter your bedroom to scold your son you see a peculiar site,your son huddled near the heater with a blanket around him,even tho he usually hates it.

A packet of crackers,the same ones you loved so much in your childhood (thankfully you can buy as much as you want now) spread haphazardly.

You inch closer so as to not wake him up but it's for naught because you hear a small whimpering bark come from somewhere in the room.

You become afixed, wondering if working too much work can give you hallucinations.

But you hear that whimpering bark again, it's coming from the duvet around your son.

You move with a sudden alacrity which surprises even yourself,alarmed by the thought of your child being hurt and snatch away the blanket.

And then an unbelievable sight greets you.

Your boy sound asleep,white trousers grimy and dirty with wet soil,a puppy with fur the color of snow dotted with black spots in his lap, licking at a wound on your child's knee

And as you look at the pup you're hit by an intense sense of melancholy and deja vu,a feeling that far surpasses your earlier annoyance and makes you fall down on a nearby chair,makes you go in a memory reverie.

A memory that you could never really forget.

And as the pup opens his eyes and sleepily looks at you,Big Blue gray eyes and a lacking ear staring deep inside your soul .

You realise maybe papa was right after all.

There's really a heaven out there for dogs and they do come back after all.