Obituary

RX-189 passed away yesterday at noon. She was a brave dog. She was about a year old and had been suffering from some disease for a long time. Her loss is mourned by all my family members.

I found RX-189 on the street, her fur having almost disappeared due to disease and all her ribs showing. That night she was sitting and trembling just outside our door and I fed her. Soon this became a regular feature. She used to come racing whenever I called her and always escorted me and my brother to the end of the street. By the time she had died, her fur had almost grown back completely and only a few of the ribs could be seen.

What must be intriguing everyone is the name, RX-189, given to her. This name was given by my brother and cousin. When we found RX, she did not have any fur and had a metallic colour. They saw in that a robot and called her RX-2011, according to the year we found her. As the fur began to grow back, they reduced the number, saying that the robot was being upgraded. Finally the name stood at RX-189. They said that when she will grow healthy, they would call her just RX, signifying that the robot had evolved completely, like in the movie Bicentennial Man.

RX-189 was a fine dog. Even though physically not very strong, she never flinched from fighting off dogs thrice her size. A pat on her head was all the encouragement she needed to wag her tail vigorously. She was not the pet of the family but everyone was concerned about her. Initially my parents expressed their concern over me feeding a diseased dog but when they saw her health improving, they encouraged me.

But she did not respond to my call the night before yesterday when I came out to feed her. I looked around in the usual places but she was nowhere to be found. Since we had seen him in the evening, we thought that she must have gone roaming and we left the food where she generally sleeps. But in the morning we found her in a nearby drain, foaming at her mouth, unable to get up and attempting to bite everyone who tried to help her, including me. We had to leave her there and she stopped moving around noon. I carried her to an isolated tree at a desolate location, and left her body below that tree. Even though she was not a pet and just a street dog, everyone in my family mourned her loss.