Forgetting Johnny Forever…

I’ve not seen Johnny for a long time. I don’t know if I’d ever meet him again. Humans are complicated, and I don’t know why they never stop to think about the effect that their decisions could have on those they love. You must’ve noticed that I’ve stopped talking about Johnny. Some of you might be wondering whether Oorvi is fickle in her affections. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I often think of   Johnny. I remember how his eyes used to light up upon seeing me, and how he would begin barking from the terrace when he spotted us coming through the gate of his house. I also wonder whether he still remembers me. He probably does, because there isn’t much in his life to feel good about. He lives on the terrace, or at best on the landing of the staircase. He eats the same food every morning and every evening, and he is seldom given a belly-rub, by anyone other than the old man who works for the family and who too stays on the terrace – just like Johnny.

Johnny and his keeper – they are two of a kind. They have nobody in this world to call their own except each other. The keeper, an old man with failing eyesight and almost non-existent hearing, shares his food with Johnny, and Johnny gives him all his love in return. They sleep together in winters – and Johnny keeps him warm. With no bed, the old man has just a quilt and a blanket that Cameo had given to him last winters.

These past years, Cameo had been helping the old man by giving him some money, clothes, utensils, and also food…but the family found out; and they were angry. There was an altercation, which Johnny and I had watched together. Both of us knew that this would lead to our separation, and it did.

The relationship between my family and Johnny’s has been a tempestuous one. All our attempts at repairing it over the last many years have failed. Mercury and Cameo always return sad from there, and I’ve seen Cameo struggling to stop his pain from frothing and bubbling over as anger. Now, they’ve reached a point where peace can be bought only by maintaining distance. As part of the two families, Johnny and I too will have to do our bit towards this peace – we have to try and forget each other.

I wish I could change things. I wish, Johnny could come over to our place and stay with us – but his family won’t let him go until he is old, and then in all probability they’d take him away to an unknown spot and leave him there…to die alone…same as his mom. And then one day, if the old man were still alive, he would tell us about it, his wrinkled shaky hand wiping the tears away from his bleary eyes.