Satan

Dear friend,

We had a special visitor in the garden this evening—a green dragonfly.
I looked up at a cloud that has since dissipated, and as my eyes dropped from the sky back to the dogs, I noticed it—symbol of the soul—flying in a figure of eight over our little patch of paradise.

Yesterday, it was not paradise.

I didn’t say anything at the time because I didn’t want word getting back to my friend Scott—the one whose cat, Sky, I brought home on the tube from Kennington on Monday evening.

I’d decided to keep the freaked-out moggie company by sleeping on the couch in the front room, where we’d enclosed him per the advice of Goze, Scott’s wife. I’ve helped dogs settle many times before, but not cats, so the advice was appreciated.

Keep him in one room with his litter tray for a few days so he can get his bearings.

I thought Dippa—Sky’s best friend—would hang out with us, but he didn’t. He preferred to sleep at the top of the stairs, guarding everyone else. He did come down at 5:30 a.m. to wake me up for a pee in the garden, which turned out to be more of a sniff-and-return. I went back to sleep until 7 a.m.—and when I woke, the cat was gone.

I couldn’t find him anywhere in the front room.

I’d pushed back on the idea of caring for both Dippa and Sky at once. I was concerned about Sky running off. We often leave doors and windows open for airflow, and Scott had reassured me Sky would just lie around all day. I relented.

When we couldn’t find him anywhere in the house, I assumed the worst. He’d escaped. The thing I feared most had happened.

Eleanora, a cat person, was convinced Sky was still hiding in the house.
I couldn’t imagine how anything could hide from me in a space I know so well.

A sick, giddy feeling gripped me.
The cat belonging to Scott’s eleven-year-old daughter was now lost, scared, in an area he didn’t know—no way to find home.

It wasn’t the first time something bad happened that I couldn’t quite believe was real. But bad things do happen. We’re not immune. So I got practical.

I made a missing poster. Our printer’s on the blink, so I cycled around looking for somewhere open at 8:30 a.m. I found Asda, bought some paper, then found a MoneyGram shop just opening up. The guy took pity on me and printed 100 sheets for £30. I rushed home, cut them in half, and suddenly I had 200 leaflets.

Eleanora helped me leaflet the neighborhood.
People were kind. One said to leave Sky’s litter tray outside. Another told me to contact the local vets. The vets told me to shake a box of Dreamies and call his name every 20 minutes.

If I stopped doing, images flooded my mind—Sky, stiff with fear under someone’s hedge. My heart turned cold.

Around 1 p.m., I heated up cold pizza, washed some salad, and crammed it down joylessly. The adrenaline began to drain. My arms went limp. My backbone gave way. I didn’t want to imagine having to tell Scott’s daughter.

At times I rallied. The vet had said Sky was probably a few gardens over.
I prayed for divine help while doing everything I could in the physical world.

Another neighbor suggested I leave out something that smelled like home. I tied leaflets into plastic sleeves and hung them from trees and lampposts and then I took Dippa and went to Scott’s flat in Tower Hamlets to gather stuff that would smell of Sky’s family. Shoes and an comforter blanket and t-shirts from the laundry basket.
On the train ride, Dippa was calm. I rested my forehead on his curly fur.
Misery, my old companion, formed in me like a blue glass marble.
And strangely, in that misery, I felt something familiar. Like the other passengers knew it too.

Back home, I cried and prayed and kept knocking on doors.
I told the full story—how I hadn’t wanted to take the cat, how it was the girl's birthday, how I’d tried my best. I said, “Honestly, I’m in a world of pain right now. Could you please check your garden?”

People listened. Vulnerability opened something in them.

At last, darkness fell. Anthony, Michael’s son from two doors down, helped me search one last time. Still nothing. I returned home in despair.

I wrote yesterday’s piece with Dippa watching me.
Later, I went out and shook the Dreamies tin.
Was that a noise? Emotional exhaustion.

And then—
Dippa’s ears twitched. He disappeared upstairs. I followed.

A low growl.
A little black-and-white face under the bed.

Sky had been inside the whole time.
Hidden behind the wardrobe.

I cried again.
This time, there was peace.

From 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., I’d lived inside a nightmare.
All of it imagined.
None of it real.

I hadn’t seen him escape. I’d assumed the worst.
I built a false reality, then lived inside it.

In the East, they call it Maya. Illusion.
In the West, it’s called Satan. The deceiver.

Quite a lesson.

One I won’t forget.
I hope it helps you, too.

The next time you believe you’re not enough exactly as you are...
That’s delusion.

It’s been a long post, but the devil is in the detail.

Sky is safely shut in our bedroom now, looking more relaxed by the hour.
He was never in danger.

Imagine that.

What if we were all safe and sound, too?
In truth, that’s the condition of being a soul.

I guess Sky came here to teach me that.

Till tomorrow,
Love,
Mikey