Dementia

Dementia

"DUDLEY! COME BACK! YOU'RE RUNNING RIGHT AT IT!"

There was a horrible squealing yell, and Dudley's footsteps stopped.

...

Blinded, running, tripping, oh no oh NO-

(dudley keep your mouth shut whatever you do keep your mouth shut)

It's their fault, those bastards, they should have brought him up better, shouldn't have given him everything he wanted even when he didn't know why he wanted it, should have taught him how to do better for himself, it was their fault that the other children laughed at his pampered helplessness, holding his foot out to the teacher so she could tie his shoe for him, their fault he didn't have any friends because they never taught him to behave properly, their fault the children taunted him on the playground, duh-duh-Dudley why can't you read, duh-duh-Dudley as they pulled the ends of their noses up to make pig snouts

(expecto patronum)

Their fault for always telling him that he was better than good, that he was perfect, never letting him see his failures for what they were, always praising his mediocrity until he had forgotten how to want to be good, pushing junk and fat and sweets onto his plate until the teachers only looked at him with disgust and the girls couldn't stand to look at him at all as he farted in class again or another chair groaned beneath his weight again or his trousers split along the seam again as he sweated and huffed his way through classes that he didn't understand, poetry incomprehensible, art and literature mysterious and impenetrable, barely scraping by, finally ejected from school almost as ignorant as when he started

(expecto patronum)

Their fault for letting him hang out with the wrong kind of people, never keeping an eye on him, never making sure he kept out of trouble, their fault that he now had a two pack-a-day habit that made him cough gray phlegm, made his mouth taste like shit, their fault he couldn't face the day without a beer in the kitchen before he left for work, his boring, backbreaking, dead-end factory job with no prospects, no hope for advancement, their fault he was tricked into knocking up and marrying some trashy dead-eyed slut as dull and dimensionless as himself, squeezing out pig-nosed babies they can't afford year after fucking year

(expecto patronum)

Wheezing and waddling his way through his filthy industrial neighborhood, where on bad days you can't see the sun at all, and on worse days the sun distills the oily fumes of factory and car exhaust into low-hanging, acrid clouds, nauseating stench clinging to his skin and clothing as he stumps along, his back aching, his knees aching, his red sun-spotted scalp sweating through the thinned remnants of his whitening hair, blundering into a squalid moth-eaten pub to get loaded with friends even louder and stupider than he is, drinking too much, smoking too much, stuffing his face with cocktail onions, gherkins, peanuts, greasy hands smearing the front of his cheap too-tight shirt with its grimy yellowed stains around the collar and under the arms, pain starting under his breastbone from the acid in his stomach and the weight of worthlessness and failure

(this way)

Reeking of disease, staggering up the crumbling steps into the squalid little shack of a home smelling of old booze and cat pee, bleary blond zombies with runny noses staring open-mouthed at some crappy-ass show with the television at full volume while that slattern parks her fat ass at the kitchen table reading some goddamn tabloid junk paper and doesn't even look up when he comes in, toys and dirty clothes and garbage all over the floor, finally losing it, yelling at the kids to shut UP shut UP because Daddy's going to slap you back into last week if you don't turn that goddamn television down NOW for God's sake, woman don't you look at me, don't you fucking START with me, we're not having this conversation again, I've told you and TOLD you, last time, I'm warning you, oh you've done it now, you've got it coming now, THERE! That'll show you and THERE! And THERE! how do you like me now, huh? Huh? Plenty more where that came from, bitch and THERE! Get your worthless ass back here, I'm not done with you yet and THERE! I bet you're not going to forget this in a hurry, next time you'll remember to keep your mouth shut

(dudley dudley)

Why did you have to go and do that, look at what you made me do, don't look at me that way, sore bloody knuckles and the sound of them all weeping as he stumbles upstairs, vomiting beer and onions into a filth-encrusted toilet, that lazy cow why can't she pick up a fucking rag once in a while and clean the goddamn toilet, splashing tepid iron-tasting water onto his face and trying not to vomit again, the headache already starting as he lurches into the dim bedroom to pass out on stale, creased sheets for the hundredth time, for the thousandth time, knowing that there is no hope of escape from this narrow pointless existence, that all his tomorrows will be the same or worse and he'll never be happy again.

(get it)

...

Dudley lay curled up on the ground, whimpering and shaking.