"A confidant "

It was one of those winter evenings when the warmth of tea mingled with the cold breeze.

And at a roadside tea stall, conversations were slowly brewing in the chilly November air of Bhopal, as warm as fresh rotis on a griddle.
Sitting across from me was Shelley, my childhood friend, who had recently returned from Vadodara.

Her voice, usually so cheerful and lively, carried a strange silence that day.

The silence of an accident.

With the first sip of tea, I pulled Shelley out of her thoughts and asked,

“Shelley, are you okay?”

Looking at me, with fear in her eyes and pain in her words, she said...

“A few days ago, that night, an accident happened because of someone’s pride in their speed...

And for a moment, it felt as though the thread of life had almost slipped away into the sky.”

The pain in Shelley’s voice suddenly became like a cold wind piercing straight through my chest. I felt a shiver of anxiety run through my body, raising goosebumps on my skin.

“What happened, Shelley? Is everything alright?”

Shelley continued...

“Suddenly, on the road, the car overturned,
and our breaths seemed to fly out through the window...”

There was terror in her words.

A terror that shook my heart and, in an instant, turned it into a desolate wasteland, like the abandoned homes of Kashmiri Pandits.

Suddenly, a dog came and sat beside us.

A beautiful face, a well-built body, and those bright, gleaming eyes.

I couldn't take my eyes off him.

There was a sense of belonging in his eyes,
something like the feeling of being home whenever you stop beneath the shade of a tree.

He sat close to both of us and began looking at us silently.

Shelley looked toward the sky and continued,

“In those few seconds between life and death, my entire life flashed before my eyes.

And in those few seconds, I saw a horrifying image that shook me to my core.”

I asked,

“What image? What did you see, Shelley?”

As the story unfolded,
I noticed the same anxiety in the dog’s eyes,
as though he too was asking...

“In that image, I saw
my lifeless body covered in a shroud...

And I saw my parents crying and screaming, and their tears carrying drops of their blood”

As her voice grew heavy with tears,
the dog, who had been sitting quietly in one corner listening to everything, suddenly moved.

The next moment, he rested his head lovingly in her lap.

Before either of us could understand what was happening,
He carefully placed his paw on Shelley's head.

That evening,
the tea had gone cold,
but the warmth of that silent companionship had comforted our souls.

Seeing us smile,
the dog suddenly stood up and began to walk away.

He turned back and looked at us,
smiled, and walked away.
A smile that seemed to say “Goodbye”
It is time for me to go and listen to someone else’s story.

It is time to become someone else’ confidant”