He is leaving. Yes, he is. I can see it from here, as he sits there packing up his bag, putting in all that he needs, stuff that he cannot live without… Maybe… I don’t know. I just can’t seem to know anymore. It seems like he has turned into this perfect stranger with a nagging of being familiar enough to keep you annoyed at your own brain for being forgetful. A chance to go see the world was all that suddenly mattered, was all that was definite.
Reducing into a ball of sweet torment, I am the silent audience of his growing indifference. Curled up in a corner, with my round black eyes fixed on to him, tracing every movement of his, my head moving in a robotic fashion, right-left-right-right-and-left, I grow smaller as his enthusiasm increases. I am the only one who has seen him change; change in an irrevocable manner as the light in those eyes transformed. The glow behind those spectacles is no longer for me. It is, instead, for that lifeless piece of passport in the side pocket of his bag, kept with such care that put the concern of a mother handling her baby to shame.
Time… is all that happened… is all that he needed to show his true self… or maybe not… maybe to show me my true self… my actual place. It was about time this was done though. I had started to believe myself to be a really important being, so I deserved this. Now, at least I am reminded of my place as he moves around me to get out of the room in search of some other valuable of his, and I, as if I’ve been shooed once again, whimper. That’s the thing about these people.
People find value in material, in things, in possessions. Running blindly after all these worldly things that they forget what matters. Relationships, people, friendships… all put into a sack of forgetfulness and thrown into the sea of life where they drown in the agony of it. Their shrieks and struggles go unheard as the sack settles down on the seabed, forgotten forever. He is just one of those people.
He is back in the room, pausing for a second beside me, a second long enough for me to rekindle that hope of being acknowledged, that one last time he will create time for me, merely for a few parting words. Huh… that second, comes and goes, with only my imagination cooking all this up as he hurries off towards his ‘valuables’, calling out for someone to help him with some documents. Yes, another thing these people obsess over… documents… they make them up for anything and everything and they matter a lot right after their so called valuables.
He is putting on his shoes now, with a constant eye on the clock on his bedside table, as if these periodic looks will slow it down somehow. He had gotten up late, well… he had been doing that for some time now. Our long morning walks forgotten the day that letter had arrived, announcing his inevitable escape to the outer world to make a man of himself. Only he had become one just at the arrival of that piece of paper. A man who got too busy, too grown up, too full of life that slowly and gradually I stopped existing. Gone was the boy I knew.
The walks are just one thing, there are many things if I start listing them down, but there is no point. No point in having myself live through the agony of it, the times we were inseparable, best friends to each other, being the best ever buddies anyone could have seen. The exemplary duo that made life better for each other and worth living. It was in this painfully perfect world of ours that one letter created havoc… changing him altogether.
People are gathering outside the door… all family members for the obligatory goodbyes. Treading softly I silently creep over the threshold and wait patiently by the car, all loaded with his luggage. The farewell creeps at a snail’s pace where everyone voices their own set of instructions, and, as a result, he rushes towards the car, not a moment to spare for me.
The door is opened in my face, leaving me to live with the sounds of hurried steps, closing doors, and running engines. The car rushes away as he gets busy with his papers, arranging them. Only the scratch of my paw at his door being the evidence of my unwavering loyalty to him, my only best friend.
