The Attack

The attack came from nowhere, I froze. 

I realized that my legs did carry on for a few more steps before heeding to the code red from the brain. Everything came to a halt. Though outside appearance of me was looking cool, the army within had already been activated. My life’s movie sequence was suddenly paused at a very unlikely projection of myself, a fierce fight scene rather than a flight scene.  (btw a flight scene in such situation would have labeled me as a Fattu in every possible colloquial way) . I was not going to give up. 

Have you ever seen one of those Bruce Lee movies where his face in a close up shows him in a great trance processing and sensing the next move of the fighters around him. In Hindi we call it Saap soong gaya  - translated – smelling a snake.  Doesn’t make sense, right?  Anyways back to my scene, my stance was almost similar to Mr. Lee.  The only differences were the way my senses worked.  My eyes narrowed scanning around for the possible escapes.  My hands ready to shield any attacks on my junks, my legs trembling to take off as soon as the brain hits the Escape key. 

For a moment I had transformed in to one of those Indian super heroes who fight baddies just with only bare minimum accessories and above all just Mahabali’s avatarial powers.  Well my education and experience said that those are possible only in very exotic Desi (local India) film or cheap TV mega soap settings. Anyways scanning around, my eyes caught the sight of my attacker… what? … six inches tall from the ground in a attack mode was this miniscule spoilt brat dog in its attack stance. 

I was surprised just by its courage because at its tallest stretch it reached only one third of my shinbone.  Around 10 feet from its position was its owner. She had that embarrassed look but I could see a sense of satisfaction by her choice of this mongrel. Though so small it did pick out this odd person from the regular crowd in this neighborhood who in every way looked suspect. Well.. some day it will say her life. I started walking away from trouble (my inbuilt nature), but the moment I took two steps.. it galloped 5 yards ahead and crouched as if to attack. I looked at the owner just to let her know that she should control this bug or else…. The owner gave me the How dare you even think of kicking off my baby?  I turned away from that gaze because I was not sure who would be liable if something happens…. I cannot justify any insurance claims if this dog bit me… because the adjuster or any judge is never going to believe my side of the story.  

Well… enough is enough.. I don’t know what happened, I growled and barked in the loudest possible shrieking sound as I could muster.. I was surprised by the decibel I generated. Factually, it would fall somewhere in the category of a young girl’s scream combined with howl of a pack of wolves and the bark of a big angry dog. I came out of my trance only to see that the expression of the owner changing from having to deal with a human being to that of a helpless having to fight off an alien. The dog was nowhere to be seen… the owner retreated inside her home. A couple of curious door opened, I am not sure if one of them showed the muzzle of a gun. I decided to call it quits.. it was weird but I added this technique to my fight manual and continued with my morning run/ jogging, prepared to meet any next similar dangerous attacks. What will you do?