Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I GOT a good lesson in how no good deed goes unpunished this morning when I tried to rescue a dog from getting run over at a roundabout and he turned round and bit me ... hard!
It just goes to show how very scared he (or she) must have been because he barely had the energy to stand up and stumble into the road but he was able to draw blood and leave me with a pretty painful hand. I tried to go after him again but couldn't get through all the traffic to reach him and he eventually made it to the centre of the roundabout.
The traffic policeman there at the time said he'd called the authorities in to deal with it, which judging by my last experience a few years ago means the animal was sentenced to death by gunshot, so I went back to try and find him again before going for a tetanus shot but he was nowhere to be seen.
My real lesson though, was how very uncaring the vast majority of the population is. Not a single person tried to help and, despite the fact that the dog was obviously in distress, all motorists were prepared to do was beep their horns to try and get him to move out of their way.
I've seen firsthand over and over again the ugliness people are capable of doing to each other in this world, but I've still always been a true believer in the innate goodness of the masses and today I've had to think twice about that. It seems the truth of it is that we might talk a good talk but when it actually comes to the crunch, the human race is more selfish that caring. Getting to wherever they were going five minutes faster was obviously more important than trying to help a living, breathing, feeling animal scared out of its wits at death's door.
I'll be the first to admit I'm no saint and, without a doubt, there have been times when I haven't done everything in my power to help when I could have but I find it very hard to believe how anyone could have seen the miserable state of this poor dog and not felt even the slightest tug inside themselves to help. Worse, a few even tried to stop me from helping. They couldn't spare a couple of minutes to help but they had the time to wind down their windows and tell me not to. There was even a group of teenage boys a few feet away laughing and when I went back to my car, they started to make a move towards the dog with sticks in their hands. Thankfully like the bullies they were, they got scared and turned on their heels.
That the human race is cruel to each other is something you can't help notice as you turn every page of every newspaper around the world but, in general, we are able to stand up and try to defend ourselves. Animals are mostly helpless when it comes to defending themselves from us so why is it necessary to kick them when they're already down?
More often than not I'm able to see the bright side of life but today I have to admit, the world (or at least this little slice of it) has left me disgusted and disillusioned.
