Rest In Peace

... wherever you are; and don't get yourself into too much trouble.


Had dinner last night with a friend I hadn't seen in a while and he was telling me stories about his dog that used to be mine.

Back in 1998, I got myself a Husky puppy. I called him Xander (short for a poncy Russian name that I won't reproduce here). Then I got married. Then I got a flat, and we all know Huskies aren't exactly kosher for flats in Singapore, so I had to give Xander up. That was 1999.

Xander was killed in 2001 when he ran out of my friend's house and got run over by a car, though the maid swears it was a cab that did it. By then, my friend had gotten himself a second Husky puppy so Xander would have some company. Right after the accident, the puppy remained with the body, refusing to move from the middle of the road, until the family came to claim it. My friend tells me that it was only recently that the second puppy stopped grieving for Xander, but he would still wander into the kitchen and look at Xander's photograph on the fridge.

Anyway, last night was about my friend telling me stories about what a holy terror Xander was: how he'd bully everyone but family; how he'd watch television - jumping up onto the sofa and pushing everyone else out of his way, using his bulk, before settling down to watch the programme - upright; how he tore down the wire fence between his new house and the one next door (twice!), tear up the stairs to the bedroom of the matriarch of the other family who's bed-ridden and (I can't remember) dying(?), and how my friend and his family had run after him, praying that he wasn't savagely mauling the little old lady, only to reach the bedroom and find him sprawled on the bed next to her, licking her face; how they used to tie crates of soft drinks to him so he would tire himself out dragging them around the house, so he wouldn't be a nuisance during Chinese New Year, and how it didn't work because, heck, he was a Husky; or how my friend and his family thought he was smarter than the maid because he could remember instructions, warnings and admonitions while she couldn't and how he used to drag her to his bowl so that she'd fill it and he could eat.

All I remember was a puppy who tore my bath towels so he could wrap himself up in them and stay warm in the night, and the puppy who got his head stuck in between the grilles of the gate and who, after I got him out, was very subdued, laying his head on my lap for two hours afterwards.

I'm sure I have a photograph of him somewhere too.

I miss that pooch.

Damn.