Death in the Garden (In Loving Memory of Zeus)

The doctor showed up in the end and had a big, black plastic bag with him. And his doctor’s professional bag, obviously. He looked sweaty, and probably was. He had an uncomfortable look, but we all knew that was an everyday matter for him.

No luck in trying to move the big, black dog from the backyard. He barked at us and kept us at a distance because he knew we were no longer friends, he knew we were going to make him die.

And he didn’t give a fucking shit, his eyes were saying, that he couldn’t move anymore or his legs were useless. Life was still something precious to him and he wasn’t going to give it away so easily, without fighting.

So the dog was there and the doctor was too. Doctor Death could suit him as a name, but I couldn’t remember what his real name was. The funniest part is that he looked like an animal himself. A bear or a thing of that sort. I thought it was funny, all those years working in close contact with animals, getting to look like one of them.

The dog looked the doctor right in his face while he prepared the lethal injection. Then, something strange happened.

I was spying on them from a window and now I’m going to tell you what I saw. They told me the man injected the fatal venom into the veins of the big, black dog and the dog died briefly afterwards and that was it. The doctor put the dog in the big, black plastic bag – as big and black as the dog was – and took him away to be burnt.

But from the window where I stood the scene looked completely different. The dog looked in the doctor’s face with a look like, “You’re not going to get closer than this”. Then, he completely forgot about his useless paws, moved his ears as they were wings and simply began to fly. The doctor was astonished and I was too.

So, flapping his ears up and down, the heavy dog began to move upwards, at first hesitantly and with difficulty, then with ease and joy. And then, he didn’t need to flap his ears anymore because he was simply running in the air as it was made of grass and stones. So, in tears, I started to laugh and laugh. I waved at the dog with my hand and saw him disappearing into the sunset.

For this reason, I couldn’t understand why my father was crying. We didn’t see the same thing. I guess he thought that his seven-year-old daughter was some sort of psycho jerk, but I did saw what I’m telling you now. I did saw the doctor leaving with the empty bag giving a last puzzled look to the darkening sky. And I did saw my dog running in the air towards the orange sun, just before the twilight.

This has comforted me through all these years. I don’t think that a version of the story is more real than the other. I think there is something true in both of them. But mine is just more worth telling. And remembering.