Long ago he had longed for death when he had too many failures in life; when he was forced to obey the debased orders of his masters for only a few coins; when pale faces of children and the violence of the masters had even ceased his belief in God... yes, life was miserable then, in poverty. Poverty snatches away all the dignity and liberty of man and he becomes the most humiliated creature. But now when he had everything of his desire, death was approaching him with its ever-frothing face. What an irony of fate.
At that fatal moment, he did not feel himself different from the dying dog that he had seen in his childhood, on a hot summer noon. He did not know then that he would recall that death-sight after so many years at the hour of his own death.
He still remembered that the upper part of the neck of that dog was wounded by the gunfire of a rascal hunter and it was severely infected. Steadily, the infection spread into its body and worms started eating him. The writer never saw him sitting anywhere; he would always run here and there due to his intolerable pain. Nobody cared for the pain of a dog.
One day the dog lay down, accepting the victory of worms. Before dying, he stood up, uttered a feeble, painful cry and then fell to be finished forever.
The dying writer wanted to spend his last moments in pleasant memories but the image of the dying dog had captured his mind and soul. Then he turned his eyes towards the hanging medals and pictures in the room. He recalled the sights and visions of his youth and stopped his sight at one picture: " What a combination of youth and dreams! My God, if I had a piece of life, I would return to those days of youth when I had a lot of desires and big mountains to climb," he thought. Now, when he was the most popular writer in the world, he was longing to go back to the days of hunger and miseries. Once again, he wanted to face the pangs of failure and anguish of rejection; once again he wanted to enjoy the pleasures of the mettle of youth, as among giant evils he used to survive merely because of his colossal will...
How beautiful was the moment when his beloved gave him a warm kiss on publication of his first story. Remembrance of that sweet kiss- which at once healed all his wounds of deprivations- soothed him for a while in the agonizing feelings of death.
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