Me, My Guru - Stories and all! - The dog on the road!

Contd.....

The dog on the road!

This whole commotion tired them. Each found a place with shade to rest. Couple of birds and squirrels kept running on the ground. Dog lifted its head and kept an eye on them. No, they didn’t need to be barked at. It was enough to be watchful of them. He was alert and his eyes darted in their direction. Some time passed and suddenly a garbage trunk entered the lane. Time to work! It got up swiftly and ran towards it barking at the top of his voice. He caught up with the truck sooner than he had calculated and he was elated. Excitedly he barked non-stop now. His comrades joined him and they all followed the garbage trunk barking at it – continuously! They followed the garbage truck till the end of lane religiously and when it turned into other lane, they stopped in their tracks. They knew they couldn’t take chance, so waited at the end of road barking. And when they were sure that the garbage truck had gone for good, they dropped their ‘attack mode’ and silently, slowly as they were wee bit tired of all the running and barking. And when they stopped to catch a breath, they remembered something and sniffed the ground. All was well!

Yeah, now they traced their steps back. The dog was just half way when he saw couple of boys riding a motorcycle. He ran at them barking. Frightened, they raised the speed. He followed them barking. The pillion rider kept ‘shooing’ the dog and they heaved a sigh of relief when they crossed that lane and the dog stopped following them. Motorcycles were very common in that lane and our dog didn’t bark at each one of them. Neither did he follow them. Neither did he follow them. But, to an onlooker it seemed he barked at ‘some’ motorcycle for no rhyme or reason. No one knew why he targeted whom he did! No one bothered to find out! Dog didn’t find reason to explain to anyone either. He had his reasons to single out few ‘souls’ to bark at! I mean what is he supposed to do if not bark?

No one could find fault with the sincerity with which he barked. He never took an off.  He never went on vacation!

Half way through the day, with all the running and barking done it walked slowly towards the need tree. It lied down with head resting on its front legs. This way it could keep on eye on the road. Now and then its eyes closed but within few minutes it would get up with a jerk. No, not yet. As if to remind itself and others that I was

awake, it barked couple of times. Now no one would think it was asleep. Just a short powernap...but, oh no, dogs were barking. It was up on its feet in a jiffy. It joined others in barking not knowing exactly why it was. It surveyed the place and few minutes later it knew the reason for commotion. A stray dog had entered their area. Now aware of purpose it barked full-throat and stood along with its gang and walked menacingly at the stray dog. Even it barked at them. The exchange happened for sometime and being outnumbered the new entrant left the lane. All dogs went their way once they made sure that it had completely left the lane. They stood at the end of the lane for few minutes before being assured of that!

Our dog went to its spot and sat down. Very soon it would be night and it had to follow tail lamps of passing vehicles. It was really dangerous but was there a way out?

Well, past mid-night and still it was kept busy barking by these passing vehicles! It put its head to rest finally thinking “Tomorrow would be a hectic day!”.

concluded........