Joel watched helplessly as the man with the gun aimed at the dog. Bruce, a rabies-infected dog, was terribly confused. Something for sure was wrong, Bruce knew, but why the gun?
It was dawn, but for Joel it meant total darkness. The thought that Bruce would no longer be with her sent a shiver down her spine. A cascade of memories wetted her eyes. Joel had first met Bruce on her friend's seventeenth birthday bash. Joel was the only girl without a date and she sat cuddled in a corner, sipping a Diet Coke and watching the swinging couples on the dance floor. Suddenly, something licked her feet. It was a juicy-jelly feeling. Joel lifted the tablecloth and discovered a two-week old puppy who was trying to discover the scent of her socks. Joel carefully picked the puppy and as she looked into the liquid eyes full of love and trust, she forgot her loneliness. Joel named the puppy after her cousin Bruce, a commando who had died in Vietnam.
Joel took Bruce to her shed-like home and fed him boiled eggs and milk. A broken piece of wooden cardboard and some cotton became Bruce's first bed. Bruce grew to become a healthy dog. His white fur with evenly spread black shade, long ears, pointed nose and small but powerful eyes had an eternal beauty worth pampering. Whenever Joel returned home after a tiring day at the research laboratory, the shine in Bruce's eyes reflecting heavenly joy and the wagging tail would ensure that the brunt of the day was forgotten.
Life seemed to pass like lightening till that week. Joel was busy completing doctorate in Physics and could not return home for three consecutive days. Bruce meanwhile sneaked out of his abode and surveyed the big, bad Universe on his own. Roaming in the streets, Bruce was attacked and bitten by a rabies-infected dog. When Joel returned home, she found Bruce was missing. Her desperate attempts to search for Bruce yielded no results.
Bruce had meanwhile developed acute rabies. A rabid dog knows no friend and so Bruce who once looked at humans with trust and love now sought to attack anyone who happened to be in his way. As he roamed in the streets, Bruce saw a man getting out of a car. The dog, in a delirium, ran towards the man ready to attack. The man, a cop, was quick to spot the charge. In a flash, he whipped out his gun and put a .45 caliber slug into Bruce.
Joel who was in the adjacent street had an intuition that Bruce was calling. She ran around the corner only to discover Bruce lying in a puddle of blood. Stoned and speechless, Joel stood beside Bruce hugging him all over and trembling into his ears, 'You know Bruce, it is me, who got you killed. How could I be so unconcerned about you once you had become part of my life?' Tears rolled down her cheeks and fell on Bruce's paw. The moment was similar to their first meeting, only this time Bruce made no reply.
