The Snail

June 10 2025

I remember taking a mental note to grab my long yellow rain coat since the weather forecast threatened with a possible rain shower but in the last moments before leaving the apartment, I forgot it. Whenever I was taking Zaki to the vet, it was the same thing: I would discreetly prepare the backpack carrier so as not to stress him too much. In his older age, my mini black panther had become more frail and fearful of being taken anywhere. I would leave the part where I take him and put him into the carrier for the absolute last minute and then we'd end up having to rush in order to make it to the appointment on time. It's only a ten-minute walk to the vet, fifteen when I had him on my back walking in a measured, steady pace so he wouldn't be shaken up and down in the carrier made of sturdy fabric with a mesh strip on top. Despite his fear of being transported, Zaki always complied and let me lower him gently into the carrier and zip up the flap on the top. Somewhere halfway down the stairs he'd start complaining and he'd continue for the first third of the way but then he'd resign himself to the ongoing disturbance and stay quiet.

That day we were running a few minutes late and in the final push to get going it slipped my mind to reach for the rain coat hanging behind the storage room door. As soon as we exited the building, I remembered the rain coat: the gray cloud masses made it clear it was going to rain sometime soon but it was too late to go back now. The rain must have started while we were in the exam room with the vet; by the time we were done and at the reception desk, it was pouring heavily, the cloud cover sitting low above the city as if parked there forever. Zaki was quiet because from his vast vet-going experience he knew we were now going home. I paid the bill, exchanged some pleasantries with the always upbeat receptionists and noticed that I was moving slowly, reluctantly; even my thoughts were slow, as if wading through an opaque haze. I didn't want to stay at the vet's waiting for the rain to stop, though - I wanted to leave right away. My brain hadn't yet articulated that thought but I knew that this was Zaki's last visit. I probably knew it even before we got there and the vet explained what was happening in Zaki's seventeen-and-a-half-year-old body. We had been regulars at the clinic in the last half a year and in fact, there was probably no need for this final visit. But I needed to hear it, just like I now needed to get out of there and go home with Zaki.

I didn't even consider calling a cab -- Zaki hated them, and the ruthless bumping up and down on the pot-holed streets which it entailed. I thought I could see the signs of the rainstorm letting up so I made a snap decision. We were going to go for it, Zaki and me. I turned to Caroline at the reception and asked if they had a big plastic bag. She thought for a second and said they only had big black garbage bags. Perfect, I said. We'd try to cover the carrier with Zaki in it on my back with one of those. My first idea was to throw the bag around my neck and hold it, bolero-like, with one end in each hand in the front while the bag covered my back. Caroline brought the bag from somewhere behind the reception and helped me do it, then stepped back, eyed us up and down and shook her head. "No, that's no good. He isn't covered enough." Then she looked again and said, "but let me try something else." She took the garbage bag, opened it up, centered it around the carrier and then carefully slipped its open mouth over the whole carrier until she reached its farthest edges against my back. She tucked the ends of the bag securely between the carrier and my back, stepped away again, and nodded with satisfaction, "that works very well." Then she added with an explosive sort of little giggle, "it's funny, he's like a snail in his house!" The other receptionist laughed too, we said our goodbyes, and Zaki and I made it to the porch, getting ready to dive into the elements.

I steadied the carrier on my back by grabbing the shoulder straps and pulling them down, took a deep breath, and walked cautiously down the stairs. The force of the raging shower was immediately upon us. My unprotected head and shoulders felt it instantly, and the swoosh of the assailing rain abruptly created a drum beat against the plastic bag. I lowered my head to protect my face and walked as fast as I could, looking straight at the ground. I heard a couple of Zaki's somewhat muffled meows -- he must have wondered what was going on as he couldn't see through the opaque bag -- but he soon fell silent as if lulled by the rhythm of the falling rain and my moving body.

And then we were there, Zaki and I, in this unusual situation we had never been in before, me getting thoroughly soaked down to my socks and underwear, Zaki protected and quiet on my back. I could feel his weight -- noticeably lighter than on many previous occasions when we walked these streets -- and I knew that this was the last time I was feeling it. For a moment it was as if we were picked up by the tempestuous whirlpool and deposited in our own private little world with no one and nothing else around. I was carrying my precious snail safe in his house on my back. The long years of my protection and his compliance stretched far into the past, all the way to his clumsy kittenhood and the time when there were no greys in my hair. So many early mornings and late nights, sunny summers and snowed-in winters, playtimes and cuddly times, bored afternoons and adventurous evenings, other people and other kittens, and the fullness of the days punctuated by Zaki's reliable black presence spilling from room to room, connecting the dots, making the house a home. There was so much love there. And this love was now concentrated in that light weight on my back in the summer downpour. I carried my snail cargo on my back and wished the rain would never stop and the street would never end. As long as we were walking, there was no tomorrow, no worries, no plans, no ends, only us, and only continuity.

Our building suddenly loomed up in front of us behind the curtains of rain, I groped for the keys in my pocket, let us in and we stepped out of the storm. And reached the outer edge of continuity. Upstairs at the apartment, I left my soggy socks and shoes at the door and inside, I liberated Zaki from the bag and his carrier. While I was stripping off my wet layers in the washroom, Zaki, completely dry, looked at me and then shuffled down the hall, turning the corner towards the kitchen. I followed him silently, observing his little body which I knew so well after hours, days, weeks, years of living together. He stopped hesitantly and looked into the distance, as if not sure what he wanted to do. Did he feel the approaching end of continuity? I picked him up gingerly and knew, for both of us, that continuity opens up into eternity. I didn't say it, I didn't have to: "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it."

One of the previous times when I did not forget the rain coat.
(Thank you Mary for asking for this photo)