“Almost heaven”, Ron often carelessly refers to his office outskirts. The lenience with which he and his caressing buddy Heal, would emerge out from the heat and burn of processing, makes him feel that. The moment he removes his lanyard and looks around, he notices the DLF shipbuilding and its exasperating demeanor; he halts to pick and choose his sentiments and then say, “This building looks like the Titanic; and our office white building is like the ominous iceberg”. Heal likes Ron’s metamorphic talks. So he listened to each word carefully, but kind of reminded him of the traffic, “Don’t get hit” and offered his hands to Ron so that they could cross the road.” But this titanic would not hit the iceberg; someone must have prayed that all movements become standstill so that life itself stops!” Heal was almost in an all encircling brightness, when he looks around to see how zooming life has been. But he respects the words of his all time dreaming and imagining chum. “Your talks all right, but you got to be careful; more than looking at the sky, try to look around, and remember that this is as good as a highway”, he tried to make Ron aware of the realities that scarcely go along his dream lines.
What Heal was mentioning was indeed meticulously genuine. The stretch along the Infinity Tower A, that hosts offices like ESPN, Star Sports etc; the walkway towards its east that leads to the food court; one needs a careful surveillance to step up to the other side, either ways. That’s the danger that smoothness of the road connecting the Infinity Tower D and E and the congested Shankar Chowk, offers. Smooth because, despite adequate patrol of the traffic on the road, even a Tata Nano would resort to be a Ferrari, almost unnoticed. While coming out of the office Buildings, people would be so much engrossed in their preoccupation that sometimes they would have forgot that they are about to cross a death stretch. That’s more evident in case of Ron, who seems to love his way of pandering to his crazy thoughts so that all apparent realities appear to be worthless to him. He continues, like life itself that is relentless and goes bang flowing, without a tinge of fatigue. “And the Ericson building brings a semblance to Carpethia, the ship that carried the survivors of the Titanic”. Ron knows, only Heal would pay head to what he says. Hence he never had second thoughts in opening his heart out to Heal. But like all human, there would be a time when Heal would find ways to cut his dreams short, “hey, look at the puppy there; it is so mad, playing in this crazy road”, Heal almost ran towards the basement parking of the building opposite their office building, where the crazy puppy was playing.
Heal, an animal feverish, would do anything to play and spend time with dogs. Back home in Dehradoon, he has two of them; Bruno and Dorcy. “Now, my all fun gone, he got his B & D pack straight, I should go back”, Ron was about to leave but, he never realized that the puppy was licking his shoes from behind. When he turned back, it slid away from him along the parking stretch towards Heal, who was standing near its mother. Heal was trying to make some conversations with the mother, holding her mouth, slapping tightly for not taking care of her infant. While Heal was trying to make a connect with the mother, Ron kept his eyes hooked on the puppet. It was running aimlessly, to take the attention of its mother, as she was not feeding milk. As it was running, its back legs were in the air, sign of the claws not fully developed so that it would be truly swift. “Damn”, observed Ron, “I have never observed a dog so closely in my life, I am sort loving it and he loves me too”, Ron told Heal.
“Name it”, Heal asked Ron, who was very good at it. Ron started thinking of a name. “The swiftness with it runs, despite the fact that its claws and the paws are rash; and its face has a structure close to an “A”; A for….Achilles.” Ron cried,” Yes Achilles, the historic had his heels vulnerable and our little has its claws. But both are great”. Heal was happy too; he took Achilles in his arms, but it was too tiny to be held firmly, it fell down. It made some baboon sounds and again ran towards the parking allay. Its mother also run towards it; she tried to caress it, touch it, lick it; when it tried to have milk from mother, she did not oblige. So Achilles ran back to where Heal was standing, leaping up to his chest, and almost giving him an embrace; while he was enjoying this limping hug, Ron started taking a video in his mobile, the claws scratching Heal’s trousers and continuously paddling around his back ; its nose scenting an identity and hands trying to admire Heal’s beards and hair.
Heal was almost lost in Achilles until Ron informed him that it was time to what they do best, processing. Ron knew, for Heal, who would easily feed blueberry muffins to the strays otherwise; it would be hard for him to be part with Achilles. However, as always, Heal chose to be wise and put Achilles in the lawn, with its mother so that it does not run towards the risky road.
While they were walking back to work, it was almost time for some offices to wind up for the day, the cabs moving on the street now doubled on troubled road. “I knew you wanted to bring Achilles with you”, Ron showed the video to Heal,” So, here’s Achilles live for you”. Ron was happy that he could capture the moments with the little creature that was too ignorant about this world so far.
While they were about to move again, they heard a squeal; “Achilles”, Heal cried. Ron ran back to the parking allay; what he saw was unthinkable; the vulnerable claws and the back, Ron could recognize, it was Achilles, crashed by a cab. Its mother trying to look helplessly; it was trying hard to make it alive.
Ron could very well guess why Heal did not come; he was lying on a pillar near by; he already knew Achilles had no life; “If only the cab would have become the ship building, stopping at the prayer of Heal”, Ron cried.
“It was almost heaven, unless Achilles died”, Ron tried to console Heal.
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