The night I found Jesus
This was not my idea of a miracle birth, and yet…
I found him in the public toilets just off Mill Road. All the other public conveniences were locked up at this time of the evening but this one always stayed open, and all the homeless, drug users and deviants seemed to know about it. Well, it’s exactly the kind of thing they would know about. I’d never actually witnessed anyone using these facilities but I’d seen evidence of them alright; the graffiti, empty beer cans and discarded condoms. It wasn’t until I discovered a used syringe floating in the bowl I’d just squatted over that I vowed to myself I’d never spend a penny here again.
But tonight I was desperate, it was 12.30am and I’d still got a 20 minute walk ahead of me before I could avail of my the comfort of my own bathroom. I’d been at my work Christmas do, a more dismal event you couldn’t have fathomed. Despite the setting of the reasonably quaint hotel nothing could alleviate the mundanity. To describe my colleagues as “dull” would be too polite, and with little or no common interests to share, small talk grew painful and too easily exhausted. I drank more to compensate for the boredom.
On my way home the combination of cold air and too much alcohol meant my bladder was complaining. I burst through the cubicle door, anxious for relief. That’s when I saw him in the toilet bowl. He was upside down, and bizarrely, still inside the amniotic sac. That was probably what saved him from drowning. At first I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. But instinct kicked in and in spite of myself I picked him up, one hand already in my pocket, thumbing 999 on my phone.
The ambulance men said it was amazing he was even alive. No mother was ever found. Perhaps he was a miraculous birth? They joked and called him ‘Jesus’. No, I did not want to come with them in the Ambulance. Not unless there was a toilet there in. I’d done enough for one evening. I was relieved in more ways than one when they finally took off with new found.
Latest posts by Bridgeen Gillespie (see all)
- The Night I Found Jesus - 22/12/15
- The Library - 19/05/12
- Mussenden Temple - 13/05/12
- The Song of the Sentinel - 07/05/12
- Secret Identity - 01/05/12
There are no comments