Our tale

Now that Jesus has departed and ain’t returning to her Brixton queendom, I’ll attempt to tell one of the most intimate and moving tales of our extraordinary coexistence. 

Around that time last year, I had already decided to move to Vietnam. It certainly wasn’t an impulsive choice. I had endlessly gone back and forth through all the pros and cons. One morning, around 4:30, I jolted awake, in the throes of a severe anxiety attack. I had ended a relationship, was about to move to another continent and my life was upside-down. This was proper anxiety with shortness of breath, heavy head and a constellation of creepy syndromes that I struggled to tame. 

I walked into the garden and sat on my wooden bench. A thousand rocket ships were zigzagging in my brain. Then… the bushes opposite me parted and Jesus appeared. At that time, she was only visiting once day and she’d already had her supper. Confidently, knowingly, she started walking towards me, her eyes fixed on mine. Jesus picked a spot on front of me and sat on her hind legs. 

We stared at one another in silence for a short eternity, transfixed. The shrill songs of crickets punctuated the quiet and blended with the hesitant chirps of nocturnal birds. Slowly, my breathing normalised and I felt a wave of clarity washing over me. 

Then, almost simultaneously, Jesus and I stood up and retreated to our dwellings. I went back to bed. She disappeared in the dark. 

The next day, something peculiar occurred. Jesus rested on the grass opposite my bedroom frozen in a guardian dog pose throughout the entire day. I knew that she was watching over me. 

Such was the nature of our connection. A connection that wasn’t marked by ownership but by some deep otherworldly loyalty which triumphed in spite of our incompatible lifestyles. 

I can’t help but smile when I recall how she watched me sleep on the sofa, black nose glued to the window, how she licked morning dew off the blades of grass, how she battled the plush toys I hid in her kennel. Our extraordinary coexistence was a brief overlap of two worlds. Our tale will always remain one of the best tales I’ll ever have the privilege to tell.