I leave my grandma in the kitchen enjoying her pot of tea, slip my shoes off, and I take the stairs two at a time. The house is still and gloomy. My father must still be asleep.

I open my door. I don’t know why, but I have the craziest … I mean it’s just so stupid that I could even think something like that … but I actually think Sergei is wrapped up in his blankets, so fast asleep he did not hear me come in.

The fantasy that he is asleep continues as I walk towards him. Even though the air in the room smells funny. Metallic and sweet. Even as I stand over him, my mind stubbornly refuses to believe what I am seeing.

Then it hits me and my legs give way beneath me. It feels as if I am under water. There are no sounds, there is resistance to my movements, and everything is happening in slow motion as I fall to my knees in front of him.

In slow motion my hand reaches out, grasps the edge of the blanket, lifts it, and that is the moment the slow dream ends. With a startled shriek of horror, I fall backwards onto my butt. In a mad panic fueled by terror and disbelief, I scramble away on the palms of my hands, my heels kicking, scrabbling, and scurrying on the ground like some demented four-legged animal. My back hits the wall and I stop. I sit propped up against it, breathing hard, and staring in utter shock at my beautiful, beautiful beheaded baby.

Someone came into my bedroom and beheaded my baby!

Chopped off his head.

It is completely severed from his body and whoever that sick monster was, he has placed Sergei’s head at the end of his tail. It is the most grotesque sight I’ve ever seen in my life. Slowly, I crawl back to him.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to run away from you. I love you.’

I reach into his basket and my hand touches his fur. There is no more give to his still skin, so his fur feels hard and cold. I flinch. Sergei has been dead for a long time.

How he must have suffered.

How frightened he must have been.

There is an A4 size paper on his body wrapped around something. I unfurl it. It’s one of those tiny tape recorders that bosses use to dictate things for their secretaries. I read the note. Only three little words but they turn my heart into a fist of ice.

In a daze I press play on the tape and the nursery song Ten Green Bottles starts playing. The innocent but strangely eerie children’s song seems obscene beyond all words. The greatest insult to Sergei’s bloodied, mutilated body. I fling the tape to the wall and it crashes and opens. The tape flying out and bouncing. It falls close to the treat I gave Sergei.

He never ate it.

My hands clench with a sick helplessness.

I go to the bed, my knees knocking together, and pull the sheet off. I fold it into four and spread it in front of Sergei’s little body. Kneeling in front of his bed, I bend down and pick him up. His severed head first. The congealed blood is like runny jelly underneath him. My hands immediately become dark red.

Tenderly, I lay his head on the sheet. Then I pick up his body. In death he is much heavier and I have to grunt to lift him. Once he is in my arms it is easier and I lay it next to his poor head so that both halves of him are joined.

Then I lay down beside him. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ I whisper again and again as I hug his cold, hard body. The guilt is terrible. I wasn’t here to protect him. I was out having a good time. I should have been here. If I had only left him in Baba’s room. I even thought about it and then I thought no, he might bark when I call or make a noise and wake Papa.

So I didn’t leave him in her room.

He must have had a premonition. No wonder he whimpered and cried when I left. And I still left. I close my eyes and grit my teeth with regret.

I kiss the top of his head. I kiss his closed eyelids, and I hold his elegant bloodied, little paws. The pads used to feel soft and warm. They feel hard, rough, and cold. When his nose touches my lips it is dry and not wet with life.

I sit up and look down on him. It doesn’t feel real. It can’t be real. My mind is blank. I can’t think. It is my fault. Poor Sergei. I cover his remains with the sheet and go to open a window.

Fresh morning air rushes in.

I think of Sergei running free in the park. I think of Sergei licking my face. I think of Sergei as a puppy hiding under the bed when he heard thunder and how I had picked him up, holding him in my arms, taking him to the window to show him that it was just a storm. There are no tears. I am too shocked to feel anything. Not even anger at my father.

I think of my father. How could he? He brought Sergei home for me. Having said Sergei always hated him.

I sit in my room hunched, confused, and immobilized with shock and horror, until I hear Baba come up the stairs. Then I run to the top of the stairs and she stops mid-step.

‘What is it?’ she asks, her hands roaming my bloodied clothes and hands.

‘Sergei is dead,’ I say.

Her reaction is instant and shocking. She goes white and her knees buckle so that she has to tighten her hold on the banister to stop herself from falling. She closes her eyes in pain. I run down the steps to where she is and take her hand.

‘It’s okay, Baba. It’s okay,’ I tell her, even though I want to lay my head on her chest and bawl my eyes out.

She catches my hand. ‘How?’

I shake my head.

‘Show me his body,’ she demands suddenly.

I shake my head vigorously. ‘No, don’t look at him, Baba.’

‘Is he in your room?’

I nod, because I am suddenly so choked up I cannot speak. It’s the strangest thing, but while I am standing there with Baba, part of me doesn’t believe that Sergei is actually dead. It’s more possible that this is all a nightmare or a mistake. My brain can’t comprehend that it could be real. He can’t be gone. Just like that. It almost feels as if all I have to do is let my grandmother into my room, and she will not find my beloved dog cut into two pieces and wrapped up in a sheet.

Baba starts up the stairs, her face determined, and I follow.

I stand back as she opens the door, and for a few seconds just stands at the doorway. Then she walks towards the covered cloth and I go into the room and close the door. The air is freezing cold because I opened the window. My eyes fall on the sheet stained dark red.

That isn’t my Sergei under there. He’s gone.

I watch Baba get onto her haunches with difficulty, and lift the sheet. Silently I watch her sigh deeply and let the sheet drop back down. Then she looks up at me. Her eyes are totally blank and her face is like stone. I have never seen my grandmother look like this before.

‘My son is a monster.’

I don’t say anything. My eyes sting and my throat feels as if there is a stone in it.

‘Whatever you want from me, just ask,’ she says.

I swallow the stone. It goes down hard. ‘Come for the funeral.’