Dog

Life is unfair, as we all know, and a good thing too.

This is how the novel A Dog's Life opens with. And that statement, nine times out of ten, is true. Always. Heaven knows why, but we can't always ask for fairness.

To this day, after a traumatic evening, I still believe we should find the silver lining even when life has dealt us a bad hand. If you had asked me one month ago how I felt about running home after darkness, I would have had an answer ready: That's relaxing exercise to offload the stress.

Then an accident happened last night. I was attacked by a pug while running home after work.

As much as I love running - and man's best friend too, for that matters - I don't really have up-close-and-spine-chilling experience of being chased by a dog. One of the lessons is that once I spotted a dog off leash in the distance, I should have changed my route instead of passing from behind. The way and pace I ran somehow sounded like dropping a bomb at the pug. I was shocked that my running behaviour led the dog to lunge at me. My first instinct was to run even faster, lest being bitten. But as things turned out, I can't outpace a four-legged animal.

I certainly didn't expect the pug to give me injury, least of all breaking two long bones and two wedge-shaped bones of my right midfoot. I made my way wobbly back to the hospital. There were then magical moments when my beloved colleague rushed to greet me, when the emergency room staff wheeled me to have x-ray, when my nurses brought me two crutches. Call me pollyannaish if you like, but I find the positive spin on the warmth I'd received. And to be absolutely truthful, after a brief pang of anger, I felt better to recall that the dog wasn't suffering from our high-speed bombing. It's better to have one than two being hurt, isn't it?