Mortal Enemies

26th December 2004

Philip woke up with a start. When he tried to take the stairs to the ground floor, he saw that it was submerged. He stepped out on the roof. “Good god!” He looked aghast. The entire neighborhood was floating in water. It was a tsunami.

As he stood speechless, he felt something move between his feet. It was his pet cat, Paddy. As he looked at where Paddy was looking, he saw something on the flowing water. Their dog, Shaggy, was floating in the water. “Come here, boy. Nattie will kill me if I let you die,” said Philip extending a hand to his wife’s oversized dog. “Oh, God!” Shaggy had been tied to the kennel in the lawn. He reached forward to dive in when he heard a voice.

“Philip! Don’t be stupid,” shouted someone from the left. Philip turned to see Anandan and Nisha sitting on their roof with their kid.

Philip walked into the house and picked up a long rope from his camping gear. “Just catch this rope,” said Philip, throwing it to his neighbour across the fence. It took Anandan a couple of tries but he caught the rope. “Tie it to something strong. It has to hold my weight and Shaggy’s,” said Philip. It was now or never!

Philip tied the rope around his waist and dived in as Paddy watched intently. After a few minutes of great effort, he reached Shaggy and he was exhausted. As soon as he was freed, Shaggy began to lick Philip. Philip lost his grip on Shaggy. “Oh God!” he screamed.

Shaggy drifted away despite its best efforts. As he watched in horror, Shaggy moved towards his house. At the last minute, Shaggy climbed on the roof. Heaving a sigh of relief, he shouted to Anandan. “Help me get to your roof.”

“Oh damn!” said Philip, turning to look at his roof with horror.

“What happened?” asked Nisha looking surprised.

“We kept Shaggy tied because he was trying to eat Paddy,” said Philip putting his hands on his head. He and his wife had mortal enemies for pets but found a way to manage it. Shaggy walked slowly towards Paddy. Instead of running away, Paddy stared at the big dog. “Shaggy! No!” shouted Philip.

The dog was almost five times the size of the cat and it moved towards the helpless cat. The water was still rising around them and a car came floating towards the building. As they looked with horror, the animals moved to the window to brace for impact. The big dog held the little cat under his paw as the car struck the building.

“What now?” asked Anandan looking at the cat and the dog who were sitting like buddies.

“We are at the mercy of nature,” said Philip. He did not know if Shaggy would fight his primal instincts and let Paddy live. At that moment he saw two natural enemies sitting side by side.

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Venkat Raman

Venkat Raman is a risk manager by profession and a writer by passion. He is an internationally published researcher with a fondness for storytelling. He has recently signed up with TBB for a couple of his books. He has authored a short-story series on Amazon titled 'Scribbles in the back-benches' and has started his writer's profile recently on Instagram (@VVRamanWrites).