Tough time can actually last, tough people may not - The tragedy of the mechanic dog.
Adebimpe Abdul Azeez Asunni
LAGOS. At Yaba, here in Lagos, booked for a night travel with a transport company. Journey commences at sunset. Oh! It's still 4:30 Pm? I have arrived too early. Two options make instant appeals to the mind : Sit Idle at the park and be bored to death or loiter a little while around Yaba and it's neighbourhood of Oyingbo. Is the university of Lagos not very close by? Snacking and soft-drinking at the Lagoon front may not bore a budding writer who solo-flexes by the sea-side, silently singing some sweet seawards songs in solitude. But hunger bites belly now.
A glance away from the Africa Eagle transport services terminals, this roadside food vendor baits passers-by with an overwhelming aroma of her OHA SOUP. Mama Chidioka's seasonings turns me an instant Pavlovian dog as I helplessly drifted towards her shop, being led by the scenting prowess of my nostrils in a saliva drooling embarrassment. Kingly seated at a right corner of this open Buka, on a white plastic chair with this mountainous meal mounted on a white plastic table, I'm to witness a tragedy- The tragedy of the mechanic dog.
She behaves not like a normal dog . She is a wet nursing mother who delivered about eight puppies few days back. Her underbelly laden with multiple rows of fully distended udders. Hairs on her flanks are permanently stained with black oil. A thin and almost fully faded column of brownish furs about her back gossips to keen eyes that her original colour wasn't actually black. She now appears dark and shiny, but also a little bit emaciated and exhausted. One could estimate the number of days she had gone Hungry from the number of ribs baring their dry lengths off her sagging flanks.
She barks at every passing Vehicle-not bikes, not humans, just Vehicles. She does so with a strange audacity. She runs towards every approaching vehicle and tries attacking them while they are still speeding high. She relies on nothing safe the confidence in her barking and some nasal grimace portraying her a really angry beast of a being. All these while she has not been hurt because her arena of fight is this less busy street of a one-way traffic road. She pounces on vehicles from behind and tries biting their metallic backs with reckless abandon while still barking continously.
I have been held eagerly attentive from one corner of this open bukateria, unravelling the mountain of Apu and a pool of Oha soup Mama Chidoka had bewitched me with. Many thoughts travel speedily on the highways of my mind. Is this dog suffering from rabbies that make her species go mad? Could it be puerperal psychosis- a psychiatric disorder some women suffer after child birth? Of course I have read of some human illnesses dogs similarly suffer such as Diabetes and it's deadly complication called Diabetic Keto Acidosis. Do they also suffer Puerperal psychosis? Over this mountainous meal, different differential diagnoses dive in and out of one's brains.
But something now happens. This driver drives at high speed. He's angry a mere dog could be so bold to confront him head on. He crushes her so mercilessly. Her intestines propped out through her anus while the head was still barking separately severed from the rest of her Body! Explainable only by the rapidity of her brutal disembowelling by that fatal vehicular encounter. It occurs within a pico second and it was like a thunderclap to all those who witnessed the scene.
Imagine a man rapidly rapping his rhymes and a swordsman strikes his neck swiftly from behind. His head suddenly rolls off separate from his body, bouncing on the ground while his mouth still croons on- not yet aware its owner has just been beheaded. But this dog's barking soon wanes off in few seconds as life gets snuffed off her crazy head. Her breasts crushed by the Danfo's wheels while her underbelly spills their milky content upon the stony hard and shinny bituminous road upon which she just met her brutal end. Milk, whitish viscous milk gushing forth in all directions as if an underground water pipe just bursts open and furiously spraying its water content to ease the high pressure hitherto built therein. She's gone. She died fighting a battle with no known cause.
Few minutes later, her puppies begin to emerge from their hiding close to a portakabin used by a newspapers vendor, Innocently trying to figure out what has become of their brave mother. Poor puppies barely sustaining any balanced gait. They rely on the confidence of their nose, poking here and there for any clue of where their beloved mum could be resting. Mummy is not coming back. You won't grow anymore parented puppies sweetly sleeping sound under her watch. Today you are abruptly cut off her care and caressing. Her breasts and barking shall no more profit you because you are now Orphaned.
But who exactly was the late motherdog that was just thus martyred at the prime of her motherly life?
Mama Chidoka volunteers her biography:
"Life was so unkind to her"
She begins, hot tears streaming down her Cheeky face.
"Her mother was also killed on this same road by a Danfo driver four years ago when she was a puppy of about ten days old. They were eleven that were born then and her siblings all died of hunger"
"One man picked her and began to feed her with milk and other liquid feeds till she was about two months old. One afternoon, the man also died and no one was ready to continue with her care. She became homeless months later and finally took her abode under that tree which some mechanic use to do their work during the day. She sleeps there in the night and rest around it during the day"
I deduce the late dog got stained with black oil from that mechanic workshop she relocated to after the demise of her Adopted care giver. She was said to have kept going back to the house where the man lived for several months. The new tenant in the place was a dog hater. He once poured hot water on her body to make sure She stops sleeping in front of his gate. She sustained a major scald that was nursed by herself in convalescence of tongue-lick.
Her biographer continues the story...
"That's where the oil permanently stained her body and gave her that ugly look. She became friendly to people and survived on their good will. I also give her remnants of meals left by my customers. she became popular here and nicknamed "The mechanic dog" due to her oil-stained body. She got pregnant later and delivered those puppies."
"Everyone around here developed sympathy for her that she made it despite all the life challenges she started battling from age of ten days and that She alone survived among eleven of her siblings."
"But early morning today, she started barking and attacking all passing vehicles as if she remembers one of them Killed her Mum when she was also young just like her own puppies and made her to suffer that much in life."
"One thing most surprising is that her mother died exactly at that spot and also killed by a similar Danfo bus. I remember it was also on a Saturday like this one when I returned from a party and exactly around 5pm like this"
As she winds up the tragic story of this homeless dog who strived so hard to have a meaningful life despite her difficult and traumatising beginning and still died so unfulfilled and unsung. I learn that life' hurdles and challenges encountered by men are not -in all cases- meant to strengthen them or prepare them for greater goodness awaiting them in future. Also, tough times can actually last and tough people may sometimes not. Lastly, as we humans complain of life challenges and difficulties, we may want to admit that such challenges are equally faced by lower animals as well, giving life its true meaning -meaninglessness.
Writer:
Name: Adebimpe Abdul Azeez Asunni
Town/State: Saki/Oyo State.
Profession: Medical Practitioner.
Email: asunniadebimpe@gmail.com
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