The flying dog

"Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth" - Albert Camus 

Part 1: The dog

No one knew the origin of his name, but everyone called the dog "Hotspot". Even his drunk master answered me that he was born "Hotspot" and that he could not recall as to how he got that name. Hotspot was a no-nonsense dog and clearly lived a great nonchalant life in the mountains. He was assured of food from the owner's cafe, so he didn't have to be servile or wag his tail to others. Hotspot had this luxurious habit of sleeping alot and barking rarely. Only time I noticed him barking was when few butterflies sat and  annoyed him hovering around his body. He didn't like butterflies as they posed a nuisance to his free sleepy life. When sleeping, they would sit on his nose and when he would try to shake them off, they would flutter near his eyes. Angrily, he would often bark to shoo them off but then it seemed that butterflies had fun teasing Hotspot.

Part 2: The Cafe Owner

The cafe owner (and also Hotspot's master) was a misogynist. Post his evening drinks, he shared his strong opinion about women and marriages. According to him, marriages were designed by women to enslave men and one should stay away from this horrible institution as much. It seemed women were like butterflies to the Hotspot in the cafe owner. I tried to listen as little from that discussion.

I have been a part of so many corporate office parties that the art of listening-from-one-ear-and-taking-out-from-other has been mastered by now. In corporate parties, people in position of power would get drunk and arrive at you sharing their stories of machoism and then you can't be rude and escape away. The better ones are even able to fuel to that machoism and later rewarded in their appraisals. 

Anways, back to cafe owner, I didn't want to dig deep into the rationale of his misogynistic approach to life. According to one my fake psychologist friend: people who have been heartbroken by a girl at an early age end up becoming misogynists. 

Instead I enquired about Hotspot and told him that for a dog, he slept alot and he clearly hated butterflies.  And then the cafe owner giggled and said that he wanted a nonchalant life like Hotspot. 

Part 3: The Girls

Next day in the evening some young girls (I guess college students) arrived at the cafe. They had brought their own alcohol, Lays chips packets and plastic glasses to relish their booze with the food around the bonfire. I chose to stay away from that party as they were too loud and played unpalatable songs from their mobile phones. But the cafe owner joined them, probably his love for alcohol overpowered his detest for feminine gender or probably he only detested losing his freedom by virtue of relationships only.

After some time from my hotel window, I noticed that everyone (the girls and the cafe owner) dancing via circling around the fire. Due to the heat he had taken off his sweater and his dance moves had turned very funny. Some of the girls had clearly left the space and cheered for him to continue his violent dance moves while some danced along to instigate him into his funny dance moves (one of them being snake dance on the floor).

Part 4: The Butterflies

Next morning I woke up to the cold mountains and from my window saw the cafe owner sleeping in the open in his fully dusty clothes near the dead fire and Hotspot was licking his drunk and fully asleep master. Later multiple butterflies arrived and sat on Hotspot to disturb him. There were so many of them clung to his body that only looking carefully one could notice Hotspot's eyes and the tongue with which he was licking his master. 

And little I could believe my eyes when I saw that all the butterflies fluttered their wings in unison and took Hotspot flying up in the air until he disappeared amidst the clouds!