Tramp and dog
I am living in the warm and graceful city Vancouver. I often hear people say that this the best place on the earth to live and I agree with them. In this city, there are many little lovely white houses made of pinewood I never saw before I came to Canada. My home is not close to my school. I like to take the Sky Train to the school, because I like to view the high landscape from in side the Sky Train. At the Sky Train station, I always see this old tramp and his dog.
The old man usually sits beside the Sky Train station. I think he sees me as well everyday as I walk over. Western people don’t seem to squat often. Therefore, he just sits on the snow in the winter.
I call him an “old geezer,” because many western people look older than their real age. His skin looks like bark because his face has many deep wrinkles. He has an old wool hat lying on the ground in front of him. When the pedestrians put money in his hat, he moves his head slightly to say “thank you.”
No matter how much the wind and snows blow in his face, he just sits here like a statue. I can not see the expression on his face, because of his dirty shaggy beard. But, sometimes, I can even see the glacial-white snow granules within the wrinkled folds of his face. I am certain that he is cold. Once in a while, I throw a few coins in his woolen hat. During these times, I sometimes wonder where he sleeps at night.
Inside his silent eyes there is hiding a silent soul.
On the ground right beside him, there lies a black violin case. Besides the black case, there lies a dog. As if the dog and the old man were companions, they lay side by side on the side walk. Like one animal taking care of a less fortunate animal, the dog licks its red tongue across the old man’s face as if the dog were giving him a kiss. Despite this brief display of affection between two homeless creatures, the ancient dog does not even move a muscle, for the dog sits besides its master, silently. Whenever I saw the pair, I was gratified to see that the dog was covered with a gray blanket to protect him from the cold. When it snowed, the dog and the old man became white, sitting motionless as two ice sculptures.
Apparently Western society loves dogs more than humans. One day, my Canadian friends who are my landlords, brought me and their dog to see the doctor. After examining, the animal general practitioner diagnosed the illness of the as having hereditary asthma. When my friends heard those words they said that there was absolutely no way for their dog to have caught that kind of illness. They believed that their family never had that illness. See, dogs and family members are treated as equal! When the pedestrians give some coins to the “old geezer”, they don’t forget to greet the dog and pet him on his head. But the dog doesn’t bother to look at them. It just silently looks forward at his silver-gray cold world. I don’t know why I feel sad at such times. I found that there were some tears in the dog’s eyes, like some old man who had cataracts.
From day to day, I came cross the dog and the “old geezer” and I feel my compassion become less and less afterward. One day the dog and the “old geezer” had disappeared from here. When did it happen? I couldn’t remember it. Why should I remember that? There are so many presenting memorable tragedies and comedies that I am already forced to remember. I think the dog has seen many people and maybe is had read a large number of books. It even might have already read the novel Les Miserables.
One night, I was sitting on the sofa in front of the TV watching the common TV programs. The programs are simply about Iraq war or Africa famine. Millions of Sudan displace people were struggling against famine and the children could not go to school because of the destitution. I am so tired with that, I thought those things leave me so far. So I change the TV to another channel. It was a reporting some news about an enthusiastic philanthropist who contributed to the children’s hospital benevolently. When I was thinking they all dealt with same subject, suddenly an old man’s face appeared on the screen and the newscaster introduced him as a “Wandering Man”. I jumped when I heard that and I pointed the TV to my girlfriend: “It is he! The tramp with the dog! The reporter touched dog’s head gently and gave the microphone to the dog. The dog was so old that he refused to say anything. The dog looks so weak that it lay on the floor. The old man was shaking his head and smiled and put his violin case on the table. The black violin case was opened to the camera. It wasn’t empty anymore, because it was full of those beautiful and colorful coins. I couldn’t even control my emotion at that time.
I feel that his wet eyes image the human’s inner heaven.
After the winter passed, I walked on my way which takes me to the school. I see this old man again and his black violin case. The old dog had disappeared. The old man was still like a statue there. At the place where he puts an old wool hat there is an orange wool toy little doggie which has a pair of big eyes sitting beside him. He puts some food in front of the little doggie
The sun made me warm; the toy dog held up its head looking forward bravely.