A boy named Azure

The winter sun is rising, morning, awakens Azure to another indifferent day. Mrs Parks, your child will not be able to feel emotions, the doctor had said when Azure was six years old. But Mrs Parks heard it as your child will be an idiot. And so it was, Azure—the idiot boy, who could not be understood, who could not understand either.

It used to make Mrs Parks sad, now it just makes her angry. Azure never minds; he cannot understand what her mother is feeling and why? He shrugs the dust on his bag, polishes his boots, and starts to move towards the school. Nobody knows what Azure did on the weekend at home, nobody wants to know about it either.

There is a pale and aimless river that flows towards the south, Azure walks on the road, but his eyes are always on that untamed river. He does not know how to swim, but he is not afraid of the waters either. All the children are walking around him in groups, with their polished boots and shiny bags, Azure just walks alone.

A dog is lying on the river bed, hardly moving, overlooked by all the children who are chirruping and singing like little birds, on the way to school. Azure stops all at once, and then in pieces, like how the ball hits the ground. He goes towards the dog on the river bed, brushes his hands gently on the dog’s head, and says: how are you, pup? Is it hurting? The dog has broken his lower limb.

They say Azure can’t feel maybe they are right when they say that, maybe Azure is just an idiot. He takes out the biscuit from his bag and gives it to the pup. The pup eats the biscuit. Azure watches him, but he doesn’t know how to feel. But unlike those who can feel, he knows what to do. He holds the pup in his arms, like a mother who holds her baby, tenderly. He is going to take him to the vet. He is going to miss school today. His teacher is going to complain to Mrs Parks. She is going to be angry, she’d cry,  why can’t you be like normal kids? But that’s alright, Azure won’t feel anything. Nobody will know what happened today, nobody wants to know what happened today either.