Dog's Life

Imagine your nightmare came true, and you found yourself living a dog’s life…

Malcolm was the laughing stock of the town of Fairness. Everywhere he went, people made jests about him, disdained him and jeered him. No one wanted to get close to him, because to them, he was a diseased man. Yes, his abject poverty was his disease, and to him no one dared to draw nigh, least the dreadful disease came upon him.

But, things had not always been like that. Once upon a time, though not too long ago, he had been a wealthy and respected man. He had had a vast number of houses, and a vast number of cars, and a vast number of other things that rich men have. He even used to have a wife, whom he had loved dearly. But in the minds of the people of fairness, whose memories were as short as a winter day, Malcolm had always been a poor man.

Yes he, at one time, had been a wealthy man who could afford anything his soul desired. But then everything went wrong. The people that he had employed in his factories to work for him began to repay his kindness for evil. They began to rob him. They robbed him so hard and so much that they eventually left him with nothing. And then his only and dear wife was also infested with the disease of treachery. Under the influence of her new found lover, she sold his house and car and ran away with him, taking away all of what remained of poor Malcolm’s wealth. In the end, he remained with nothing but the clothes that covered his skin. In his own words, if Hitler felt that he had been stubbed in the back, then he had been bombed in the back. Yes, no one knew treachery better than Malcolm did, or at least in the town of Fairness.

Imagine the scene: a man who once upon the time used to live a life fit for kings—a life of luxurious suites, extravagant food, and all the dainty things his soul desired—was now living like a dog. Everyday, he trudged up and down the town, scavenging for food; begging for any morsel which a good natured soul could give him, or which a spoilt child might throw his way. And sometimes, he would do some work—scrubbing bathrooms, or toilets—for that was the most descent job people could afford a tramp like him—and get paid a few coins with which he could buy a loaf of bread or a bun, on which he would feast most greedily. You see, Malcolm had now come to know hunger in a new way. As a rich man, he could not even have begun to imagine that hunger could be so vicious and sting with such hardness. Everyday, he felt it, gnawing his belly to nothingness. With this new understanding, he no longer laughed at those who feigned madness and ravaged trash cans for scraps of food. Yes, this was his life now, and when the hunger hit him too hard a blow, he too feigned madness and went through bins in search of food.

One fine bright day, but which, to be fair, we will describe as dark and gloomy (because to our character, every day was dark and gloomy), Malcolm was feigning madness as usual and going through the trash cans. Passersby laughed at him and hurled horrible jokes at him. The children called him terrible names, and ran around him, and sometimes were so audacious as to reach out and pull at his rugs. But their parents, with disgust on their faces, would scold them and pull them away and tell them that if they got too close they would end up like Malcolm, the mad man. But Malcolm, having been beaten too hard by hunger, was oblivious to all these happenings around him, and he was too busy searching for food.
But as he searched through the bin that day, he had no idea that his life was about to change again. He thrust his unsheathed hand deep into the garbage and hit something hard and rubbery. He paused to reflect and try and figure out what it was that he had stumbled upon. He found these games quite intriguing because they kept his mind off the depressing fact that what he was doing—searching through the garbage—was actually very crazy.

“A shoe, maybe?” he mused. “No, it’s much softer than that.”

He paused for another full minute in thoughtful reflection before he made another wild guess.

“Ah—a book! Most definitely a book!”

With burning anticipation in his eyes, he grasped the ‘book’ and pulled it out. He gasped at what he saw. It was not a book at all, but a wallet—a big, bulging wallet made of leather. He quickly unzipped it and almost suffered a heart attack by what he saw. The wallet was full of notes of money! He quickly looked around to ensure that no one was looking and pushed it with a shaky hand and palpitating heart into his ‘booty’ bag. He quickly moved away from the bin to a secluded area where no one would see him nor disturbed him. He removed the wallet, and with sheer disbelief, he counted out the notes. By the time he finished counting, his heart was beating so hard that it was almost tearing out of his chest.

“A million Ferts!!!” he screeched, his eyes almost popping out of their sockets. That was the largest amount of money he had held at any one time. Even as a rich man, he had never carried such a large amount of money on his person!

“I must be dreaming,” he told himself, for this find was something beyond his wildest dreams. “I must certainly be dreaming. I pray I never awake from this delightful dream.”

He jumped to his feet, skipped a goodly number of times, slapped himself several times, and pinched himself as hard as he possibly could, but to his dismay, he did not wake up.

“Okay, this is not a dream,” he said, staring at the wallet with a dazed expression. “But maybe there is nothing in the wallet, and I’ve just had a hallucination—happens when you are too hungry.”

He slumped back down and opened the wallet once more.

“Jeez!” he exclaimed upon seeing that the money was still there. “It’s not a dream, nor a hallucination.”

Almost in an instant, his mind was hit with an avalanche of thoughts as he began to plan what he was going to do with all that money. The possibilities seemed to be endless.

“A blessing from God this is!” he said clasping his hands heavenward. “I could start a business and my life could return to the way it was before! I could get my self a large house, buy myself fabulous clothes! No one will laugh at me anymore!”

He grinned diabolically at this later prospect. “They will be wallowing in shame when they see how prosperous I’ll become.”

But suddenly, as he was reveling in his daydreams, a thought suddenly struck him. Perhaps someone had lost the money. Perhaps, by some accident, he had dropped it into the bin. This realisation made him sober up. A melancholy fell over him as he searched the wallet for any identification card. Deep in his heart, he hoped that he would find none. So you can imagine his sadness upon finding one. He knew that he had to return it to the owner.

As he read the name on the ID, and stared at the picture of the person, his brain almost shut down as an avalanche of bitter memories hit him.

“I know this man!” he gasped, almost hurling the ID away.

Yes, he did know the man. He used to work for him in his factory before it went down, and he was among the people who had robbed him hard.

“Why should I return his money?” Malcolm thought, “He should be punished for his vile deeds!”

But as he thought about it harder and harder, he realised that he had to return it. The owner of the money, though he was a crooked and bad man, was very distressed over this loss, and was probably looking everywhere for it. And what was he going to prove if he did not return the money? That he was just as bad and crooked as the men who had robbed him.

“Though poor, I still must do what is right.”

So he made up his mind to return the money. For, as he put it, a blessing might actually come out of it.

Using the address on the ID, he worked his way around town till he found himself in front of a shiny large building made entirely of glass.

“Ha,” he said to himself, “so this is what he made for himself with stolen riches.”

He stood in front of the large glass door and wondered for a moment what he was going to do. Then after a while of thinking, he decided that he was just going to walk in despite looking so wretched.

He inched forward and pulled at the glass handle. A gust of the sweet scented air hit his face as he walked in. He looked around in admiration and envy, and to him, it was almost like returning home. However, every eye turned to stare at him as he made his way to the front desk, where a pretty young lady stood waiting.
He placed his besmirched hands on the desk and stared into her face.

“Is this where Dag Troy works?” he asked in gruff voice. The young lady stared at him in petrifaction. Her eyes run all over his soiled and miserable being, and in an utterly spontaneous act, moved her hand to her nose to shield it from the stench which was emanating from this man who had not had a bath for days on end.

“Yes,” she said in a small voice, trying her best to mask the contempt she felt. “But I am sorry, there are no jobs here. You do not even meet the minimum requirements, besides.”

Malcolm glared at her. “I have something for him.”

“I am sorry but he is extremely busy right now,” she said, making a pretense of examining something on the computer.

“Look here madam!” he shouted, “This is a matter of utmost importance.”

She started, turned pale and then said, “Okay, let me call him right now.”

She picked up the phone and dialed some numbers.

“Sir,” she said in a panicky voice. “There is a…” she eyed him for a second and then continued: “…man here who says he wants to see you.”

There was a severe exclamation of displeasure from the other side which was followed by a very unwilling, “Send him over.”

The lady put down the receiver and eyed him with a plastic smile.

“He may see you,” she said with a sigh of annoyance, pointing to the door behind her.

“Thanks,” he said with a smile.

A few seconds later, he was knocking on the door of Mr. Troy’s office.

“Come in,” came a snappy voice, which he definitely recognized.

He walked in. He found Mr. Troy bowed over his computer.

“This is a bad time,” he said without looking up. “I’ve just lost a large sum of money.”

“I perfectly understand.” Malcolm responded. At the sound of his voice, he started upright. There was a wild look of terror in his eyes as he stared at the man he had betrayed some six years ago.

“Remember me?” Malcolm asked with a chuckle.

“Can’t be…” the man said, shaking his head in utter disbelief. “It seriously can’t be.”

“Ho…it is,” he said, slumping into the chair in front of him. “This is what your treacherous deeds have done—reduced me to rugs…”

“I heard about it,” the man said, his eyes flooding with tears, “But I had no idea it was this bad.”

“It is worse than what you see,” Malcolm said furiously, “I sleep in the streets, in the cold, and I eat from bins. And I have to feign madness everyday. And no one is willing to hire a mad man like me for any job, save scrubbing bathrooms.”

These words touched Mr. Troy to such an extent that he flopped to his knees in front of him and shed a goodly amount of tears.

Malcolm was hardly touched by this show. It was obviously feigned. Was he not a master of feigning madness himself?

“Give me a good reason why I should not report you to the authorities, Dag.” he said with a chuckle.

Dag looked up at him with a pleading face. He had the urge to tell him that it was because they would not believe him at all, nor care. But instead, he said, with utmost sincerity:

“Because I am a changed man—I changed the day I lost my son…he was killed in a road accident sometime back. He was my pride, my joy…and I hoped that one day, he would take over my business ventures.

“But the day he died, I assumed that I was being punished for my bad deeds…and ever since then I have been trying my best to pay for my deeds.”

Malcolm was touched this time, especially after hearing about the loss of the man’s son. He softened his face.

“It is a wonderful thing that you have come,” Dag said, his eyes burning with hope. “I would like to beg for your forgiveness.”

“You are forgiven,” he said, lifting him to his feet. “I forgive you.”

“Thank you very much!” Dag was ecstatic. He rushed back to his desk and took his seat with a burning expression of excitement. “I would love to help you Malcolm—after what I did to you, I would love to help you get back to where you were. So I would love to hire you in my company.”

‘Truly this man has changed,’ Malcolm thought, ‘He does not even know that I have his money and yet he is being so good to me!”

“You can begin right away,” he continued, hurriedly scribbling something on paper.
“Thank you very much, Dag,” he said, reaching out for his pocket and retrieving the wallet. He placed it on the table. “And here is your money—I found it in the rubbish bin I was going through.”

Dag was stupefied—too shocked for words. He just goggled at him and slowly reached out for the wallet. With quivering hands, he got his wallet and opened it. Malcolm watched with amusement as the man counted out his money in utter amazement.

After he was done, he looked up at Malcolm and shook his head.

“I just don’t believe it,” he declared. “This is too shocking for words—too splendid to be described. It is too heavenly a thing.”

For a good minute, he sat shaking his head in sheer disbelief.

“You know what,” he said after a while with smile, pushing back his wallet to Malcolm. “Consider this your first salary.”

“A blessing from God!” was all that Malcolm could say.

A little while later, as he walked out of a shop wearing a suit, looking smart and nothing of a tramp, all he could do was thank God that he had done the right thing; that he had decided to return the wallet to its owner.

“Bye bye dog life,” he said as he walked with a proud gait down the corridor.

Suddenly, a lady dressed in tattered clothes wrapped her frail arms around his legs.
“Please good sir,” she implored, “spare a penny!”

He suddenly went stiff. He slowly picked up the lady gingerly to her feet. When she stared into his face and noticed who it was, she suddenly cringed away with fear and shame.

“No.” he said wrapping his arms around her. “Today, God has freed you from the dog life, my wife.”

Dog's Life
� Kundananji Creations 2009

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