Habibi

Things I've heard that I should never forget

Russ Jones

Mar 08, 2026

I’ve never touched a snake.

I’ve seen one.
Many in fact.

But this is going to be the first time
I understand what it’s like
to touch one.

The first time I met one
was a few years ago,
up close,
in real life.

The guy next to me gave me a warning.

‘You have to be careful with this one.’
‘It’s still a baby.’
‘It doesn’t realise how powerful it is.’

When they’re young,
they can’t control the amount of venom they inject.

It seemed angry.
Scared.

We’d uncovered it under a rock.

When I think about it
I imagine it as a kaleidoscope of vibrant colours,
blues,
reds,
oranges.

Memory has a way of painting reality perfectly.

This one in front of me
isn’t any of those colours.

Apart from its eyes,
They glow.

But its body,
it’s like milk,
or cream.

‘Are you scared of snakes?’

She invites me inside.

It’s the third time we’ve met.

The first time I’ve been to her home.
Sparse.
Functional.

Just enough furniture and comfort to feel like a home,
not quite enough to regret leaving it all behind.

The top of her wardrobe is covered in luxury boxes.

‘Presents from friends.’

A few weeks before,
I’d spoken to a real estate developer.

He’d flown in to town and invited me to talk.

We ate sushi on the top floor of a London hotel.

‘Love.’
‘It’s made up, just a distraction.’
‘I don’t believe in it.’

My card didn’t have enough balance to get the tube home.

I walk home in the rain.

Now,
here I am,
in front of her,
and I doubt she’s going to say the same thing.

The snake is about the length of her arm.

She’s holding it above her head,
arms outstretched,
eyes locked.

I know it’s easy to mistake.
Mammalian brains aren’t the same as our reptilian friends.

But it seems to like her.

There’s something playful about it.

Affectionate.

Like it’s trying to be closer to her.

‘Have you ever been to an ashram?’
‘When I realised I needed to change my life,
I ended up in India.
I stayed in one for a while.’

She’s still playing with the snake.
Her silk kimono dangles off her shoulder.
I feel exposed seeing her underwear.

There’s no hesitation.
She doesn’t.

‘You’d hear people breaking down every day,
but it was safe.’

I can’t square it.
These ashrams don’t have any comforts.
Stone beds.
Multiple people to a room.
A far cry from the space we’re in.

At the time, she’d have been 24 or 25.

Effortlessly beautiful.

Wearing it lightly,
but aware of its power.

‘What wasn’t working?’

I want to know what could take someone like this
to somewhere like that.

‘I didn’t know how to trust people.’

‘It’s still difficult.’

She’d grown up in a small village in rural Italy.

An alcoholic father.
Present.
Loving.
But unable to support the family.

By the time she was 12,
her mother had realised
that the men in the town had taken a shine to her.

They’d bring gifts to the house.

In return,
they’d get time with her.

Over the coming years
the transactions became more visceral.

Money
for time.

She lowers the snake into her lap.

He coils there.

Still.

Her mother acting as facilitator.
Her father unable to protect her,
swinging from inebriated
to unable to work
nor prevent the situation from growing.

‘I didn’t know how to get out.’

Eventually,
her father managed to find enough cash for a flight to London.
A distant family friend provided board when she arrived.

‘They helped me get a real job here.’
‘But eventually I ended up in the same sort of system.’

She was working as a shop assistant in the day
and seeing an ever more private group of clients at night.

‘I thought this was it.’

There’s a stability to how she recounts the memories.
While I sit there aware I may overstep any moment,
she’s steady.
Even.

‘One day I met someone.’

The first real boyfriend.

Entrepreneur.
Caring.
Unjudgemental.

‘He’s the first person who really believed in me.’

‘He helped me believe in myself.
I couldn’t trust him, but he wasn’t doing anything wrong.’

No matter what I did to him,
he’d stay by my side.’

Eventually,
it broke down
and she had to leave.

‘I knew it was me.
I had to heal.
I had to change everything.’

She wanted to go to India.

He paid for the trip.

Six months in the ashram.
Stone floors,
shared rooms,
strangers breaking open around her every day.

‘I knew if I could find a way to feel love,
after everything I’ve been through,
then I could share it.’

She talks me through her clients.
The people she sees regularly.

They’re looking for love.
Sometimes they just want to be seen.

They tell her about their lives,
about how when they spend time together
their relationships get better.

‘Do they fall in love with you?’

‘I think so...’

‘Do you ever fall in love with them?’

‘Sometimes, but I don’t mess with their lives.’

‘Love is complex enough.’

She’s at ease with something I’m still circling.

Love.

I’ve read the books.
Felt the feeling.

But she knows it
more intimately than I ever could.

The snake is crawling over her hands.
She’s been powering this conveyor belt for him for 10 minutes
and he’s still trying to get closer.

‘Do you believe in reincarnation?’ she asks

‘Sure, I like the idea.’

‘I think this is the last time I’m here.
I think that’s why it’s been so difficult.
I think that I’m here to suffer all these things,
and after all of it,
still learn how to love.’

‘And if I can share what I learn,
then maybe next time,
I don’t come back as a human.’

She offers me the snake.

‘Don’t worry,
he’s really strong.’

I come down to the carpeted floor where she’s holding him.

He’s heavy,
and curious.

I put my back against the floor
so I can hold him above me.

‘Does he love you?’
‘Yes!’

The energy pours out of her,
a smile from cheek to cheek
like she’s still a child.

‘We love each other.’

My brain reaches through the textbooks,
paragraphs describing the limitations of reptilian brains,
a lack of a developed limbic system,
no paleomammalian infrastructure to process love and affection.

But right now,
here,
I am beginning to wonder.

As curious as it is to be around me,
I can feel what he wants,
and it’s to be back with her.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Habibi.’

We stay on the floor for another hour,
lying there like children,
and before I leave,
we share one last embrace.

I feel my eyes well up
and manage to rub my sleeve into them
before the tears fall onto her shoulder.

I know when I leave,
we won’t speak again.

It’s cleaner.

By this point,
I’ve realised.
There aren’t many places to go after seeing each other that clearly,
that deeply.

Over the coming weeks, and months, I try to find a routine.
Something to help me understand what she’d given me.

I’m working out of an old storage unit,
charging my lights in a coffee shop during the day,
painting at night,
thinking about what I’m missing
and what she isn’t.