I have a new friend. She lives in the floor below mine.

I have known for quite a while that she’d be coming to stay here and the ensuing months from then on were spent in eager anticipation of her arrival.

Unfortunately I couldn’t be around to welcome her as when she did finally move in I was away visiting the First Born. On, my return and once I had got over the jet lag, the first thing I did was go downstairs to meet and greet her.

She was all over me the minute the door was opened, wide grin in place… and tail wagging madly.

‘Hello! Hello! Hello! Are you my new friend?’ she seemed to ask. Nah. Scratch that. It was more like, ‘You ARE my new friend’. A statement rather than a question. I mean how could anyone not be her friend? She obviously knew that one only had to look at her cute face to turn into a mushy puddle at her feet.

I did, the very first time I met her. All the time I was at her home talking to her mom, she lay at my feet, nudging me gently in case my hand stopped giving her scritchies. I obliged. Who wouldn’t when they see those beautiful coal black eyes on you?

I hear her bark at times while relaxing at home. Usually it is when she sees the less fortunate members of her sisterhood, the strays on the road, from her balcony. A soft bark so unlike the roar of Luci’s which incidentally could easily break eardrums and can easily be heard in far away Timbuktu. Luci in all probability had been a lioness in her previous life.

When I look down from my balcony all I can see is the tip of a soft black nose or sometimes a partial silky ear. I call out her name. It’s useless. She cannot see me from where she is. But I call anyway. Maybe her ears perk up and/or her eyebrows wiggle when she hears me. I wouldn’t know since I cannot see the rest of her.

Sometimes when I am walking, either in the morning or after my dinner, I look up to the second floor and I can see the tip of the same black nose poking through the bars of the balcony. I call her name. She gives a soft bark or if she is feeling lazy, merely a look, …of acknowledgement.

Her name is Snoopy and she is a Golden Retriever. My new neighbour.

©️ Shail Mohan 2023