A story eye witnessed

This is a story that happened on my street. A mother gave birth to two children right on the roadside sidewalk, beside a flower shop, opposite a temple. That pavement was their only home. They ate, slept, and played there. Life was harsh, but they had each other.

One day, while the mother was out searching for food, a car came speeding down the road. People near the temple shouted, "Stop! There are children there!" But the driver didn’t care. He ran them over. One child was crushed, bones broken, bleeding, crying for his mother. The other was slightly injured but still in pain, crying out for help.

The flower shop lady confronted the driver, demanding to know why he did it despite the warnings. His response? "The flower shop was blocking the way to the temple." As if that justified his cruelty. Without remorse, he left.

A neighbor rushed the severely injured puppy to a veterinary hospital, keeping him for a day before sending him to an overcrowded animal shelter. Meanwhile, the other puppy, the one who was less hurt, was left to fend for himself. A few hours after the accident, I saw him crying and blindly trying to cross the road while bikes honked at him. He was too young to even open his eyes, too young to understand that his brother had almost died that day.

I gave him water and biscuits, which he devoured hungrily before curling up on the rice bag covers placed on the cold pavement. It was the start of the monsoon season. As I watched the tiny, helpless creature shiver on the plastic covers, I ran home to bring him my dog’s bed. He sniffed at it and snuggled into the warmth, perhaps recognizing the scent of another dog.

That night, the rain poured harder. I woke up, my mind immediately going to the little pup. He must have been drenched, freezing, crying in the rain. I ran out to find him, but he was gone. The flower shop lady told me a kind girl from the temple had taken him home, wrapping him in the blanket I had given him.

Perhaps God had come in the form of that girl. Perhaps, in a world where cruelty rules, kindness still survives somewhere. That night, I slept peacefully.

But peace was not for everyone.

A few days later, I saw a dog sniffing around the pavement, whimpering. The flower shop lady said, “It’s the mother. She’s looking for her children.”

She had returned to find them gone. One broken beyond recognition, the other taken away. A happy family shattered in just one day. And all of this happened in front of God himself.

Shakespeare once wrote, "Life is a stage, and we are all just actors." But who is the director?

Voltaire said, "Every man is guilty of the good he did not do." How many of us walk past suffering, pretending not to see? How many of us justify our cruelty with excuses as meaningless as the driver’s?

The world keeps moving. The temple bells ring, the flower shop continues to sell garlands, and people continue to bow and pray to the god in the temple.

But on the pavement, a mother still searches for the children she lost.

And the gods remain silent.