Late Night Encounters

Late Night Encounters::
“Tomorrow morning ill let you know how Liverpool fared”, I assured Ayaan as he tucked into bed. 

The Champions League football matches are played mid-week and our time zone ensures that its practically impossible to watch live. Because matches start at 1:30am India Time.

My own sleep ritual is to keep the BBC football page open on my phone. So that whenever I get up I can check the scores immediately. 

But tonight was going to be different as I was going to realize.

At some point in the night Chocolate started barking. Which isn’t entirely rare, but this time her bark was stronger.
Sim had sent Chocolate out of the front door. It was quite cold and misty but our warrior was out in a flash.

Grudgingly I pulled myself out of my warm blankets. 12:30am showed the clock. Woolen socks on and head & ears covered I ventured out. Something about her bark made me wonder.

I opened the door to the terrace to get a larger view of the gardens. Then I froze. On the ground below me stood a large wild bison. And a few feet away Madame Chocolate was barking furiously.

It was a strange match up. An average Wild Bison weighs 1000 kilos and is documented to cause human casualties if disturbed. On the other corner was her opponent weighing 19.3 kilos.

“Dogs don’t know their size, in their head they feel like a Lion”, a friend had shared long back.

Chocolate’s self illusion was winning the turf war. The Wild Bison now disturbed in its late night snack moved away from the garden and headed to the vegetable patch.

This solved one problem while creating another. The vegetable patch had no vegetables but lots of delicious grass as the Frosting weeks had slowed our farming activities. From the terrace I couldn’t view but only hear sounds of grass being chewed, an occasional snort and Chocolates movements.

” Come back Chocolate” I yelled. Then pleaded. But she was in no mood to leave the Bison. The Bison was in no mood to leave the lush grass. And I was desperate to get inside.

After a while with no luck in enticing Chocolate in, I went back inside and resigned myself to a long night of wait and watch. On impulse I picked the phone.

The football match was about to start. It was past 1am.

Suddenly the night and the events stopped feeling gloomy. Liverpool got on to a bright start and midway was leading 2-0. The game continued with intrigue on the football patch and the vegetable patch. Attacking gestures, deft movements and barks of encouragement.

Liverpool held on to win. As if on cue Chocolate got weary of the Bison and came back and went straight to her sack.

It was well past 3am but I thought there is always a brighter side to everything and switched off.

” Who won Dad?”quizzed Ayaan early morning.
“Liverpool won and Chocolate had a hard earned draw”, I summed up the Late Night Encounters.
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