Two years back, I was living in Dubai and the metro was my choice of transportation. I quite enjoyed taking the metro – surrounded by strangers yet perfectly comfortable, so many people yet blissfully by myself. I would listen to music, read a book or simply gaze out at the buildings and roads swooshing past me in a blur.
Although, some days it felt like we were all what my friend calls “sardines in a can”.
Little did I know, that the one time of the day that I relied on to be uneventful would be the time that life decided to teach me a lesson, in a very twisted turn of events.
It was one of those non-sardine can days. I was on the metro, seated next a man carrying a big, green backpack on his lap.
The metro was doing what metros do. Moving, stopping, moving, stopping. People got off, people got on. Life was taking place.
And then, that’s when it happened.
At the first “meow”, I found myself seriously questioning the mobile phone ringtones that people had.
At the second meow, I looked at the big, green backpack, realizing that’s where the purring was coming from.
At the third meow, I looked up at the man because that’s whose bag it was and that’s when it struck me that there might be a cat in the bag.
The greasy long haired, lean faced man’s eyes glanced nervously at me and back at the backpack, which then received a gentle nudge. The backpack shut up.
I looked around, shocked to see everybody else deaf and oblivious to this purring bag. Now, I felt like I was on a mission, to alert the citizens about this cat-napper, this animal-abductor, this man with a cat on the same metro that did not let me carry a balloon on it once.
I waited for the bag to meow again, so that I could say something like, “The cat’s out of the bag mister, I know you have a cat in your bag!”
But my “aha!” moment never came. The next station arrived and the cat-napper made a clean escape. In broad daylight. Right under my nose.
As for me, I sat there dejectedly accepting the fact that I wouldn’t make a very good super hero. And I didn’t even have to climb a tree to save the cat.
Later Alligator 
Loved your story – so entertaining and heart-wrenching at the same time! I empathise as they have been many a time when my desire to speak up or do something came a split second too late!
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Forgot to say I absolutely adore your Shoes!
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Haha.. Thank you! I’m not even a fan but they’re so damn cute I had to buy them. And look how handy they came in for this post.
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Thank you purple pumpernickel, if I may call you that (So much fun to say, lol!) I guess we’re all haunted by those moments when we should have said or done that thing but didn’t? Oh well, at least, they make for good stories later, no? Thank you so much for stopping by and reading 🙂
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But you are a benevolent superhuman in the readers’ eyes with the thoughts to save the cat!
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Oh you just made me feel better about this incident! hahaha… Benevolent superhero is better than no superhero. =D
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Ohhh, man! Well, I really hope the greasy long haired guy had a genuinely nice reason for that cat in his bag – like he was taking his cat to the vet but animals aren’t allowed on the metro, or maybe he did steal it but from someone who wasn’t taking care of their cat properly? You know? Aw, I hope that kitty did okay!
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Love the optimism! I hope one of your theories is true. Haha. And hopefully that kitty is frolicking away to glory somewhere nice.
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Intrigue! Really like the way you narrated the story ~ Vaishali (http://www.thechampatree.in)
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Thank you! Appreciate you taking the time to check out the blog 🙂
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Wow, what an incident,
i wish i was there when this happened,
things like this don’t happen every other day,
and well, maybe, now you have learned the lesson to act before it’s too late.
it is possible that that man was an animal abductor,
but don’t you think it can be a possibility,
that it was his pet, and he was nervous,
because he knew he wasn’t allowed to carry it around with him on that metro,
and maybe other people didn’t bothered because it was a common practice to carry your pets that way,
that’s just a guess and i might be wrong, but you know, it’s possible,
well, a small talk with him might have revealed that,
but still, a lesson learned,
“Act before it’s too late”,
and
“when in doubt, go talk”.
Thanks for some food for thought.
I liked your narration.
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haha.. that’s true Roger. I will never know the real story/reason behind that cat in the bag. Anything is possible!
Nevertheless, it gave me a story to tell and a little imagination to play with 🙂 Thank you for stopping by!
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