The Disappointment of Not Being Able to See

The Disappointment of Not Being Able to See

The ground is damp, making the pavement dark. The foggy air, and the ground, are the only residue of the rainstorm that had occurred the night before, the rainstorm that kept me up until dawn. Not that it matters really, anyway. I slept until two or so. But it really is quite pathetic anyway, isn’t it?

I’m with my younger sisters, Padma and Parvati. We’re walking down the street, on our way to the subway, otherwise known as the Tube, to window shop at Harrods, a thing Parvati loves to do. I don’t particularly like window-shopping, but I find it quite humorous to make fun of the attendants there, and get ourselves kicked out in the process. I’m rather surprise that they haven’t banned Parvati, Padma, and I from the department store entirely.

"Come along, Rajiv!" says Parvati to me hastily. "We don’t want to miss the subway and wait for fifteen minutes, now do we?" She quickens her pace. Padma follows stiffly behind her, and I catch up within a matter of seconds.

The tube station is quite close now, only a few yards away. A large sign above the entrance reads "Kilburn", the name for the neighborhood that my family resides in. People at my reform schools always think that it’s so glamorous that I live in London, while they tend to sit and twiddle their thumbs in little villages that still have thatched roofs in the middle of Warwickshire. Personally, I think that they have the better deal. I hate London, with all the smog and tourists. Not to mention that I have to visit my parents there every time summer holidays roll around, which doesn’t make anything more appealing.

Padma and Parvati run into the Kilburn Platform, almost skipping with glee. I quickly pause in front of the entrance. Entrances to Tube platforms have always intimidated me a bit, as ridiculous as it sounds. The very fact that they can lead you to the layer of earth, that at the most, a corpse sees, always makes me shiver a bit.

"Rajiv, come on!" say Padma and Parvati at the exact same moment, turning their heads a bit in the same way, so that they can playfully shout at me. I suppose that spontaneously doing the same thing, in the exact same minute, comes within the package of being a twin.

I run down the stairs after them, laughing merrily. I truly love being with my sisters when I’m home.

We pay for our tickets and scuttle to the subway platform, where the train pulls up a few minutes later. Talking, we take three seats amidst the chaos of the inside of the train, and after a few moments, we finally take off, into the murky tunnels of the Tube.

On my left is an extremely fat man, dressed in a business suit with a cigar in his mouth, and on my right is a typical English ruffian, a little bit older than I am, clad in black, clunky boots and sporting a lime-green mohawk. Though they are both disgustingly interesting, I can’t help but stare at my sisters, who are both seated next to each other, laughing at a million things that I will never will truly comprehend.

I am always amazed, when I come home from another one of the reform schools that my parents send me to every year, to see that my sisters have grown up so much. They were always pretty children, with golden-brown skin and silky black braids, but now they are gorgeous young ladies, with grace and intelligence to boot. At least, grace for Parvati, and intelligence for Padma. Oh, what do I know? I’m not around them long enough to know who they really are anymore. Well, maybe I do know Padma a bit more than I give myself credit for. Though I love Parvati a great deal, Padma is my favorite. Parvati is my parents’ favorite, and when my parents are involved, I back off.

Though I adore my sisters, there will always be a glass wall, always an invisible barrier between us. They live in their own little world, with my mother, filled with magic and mystery and excitement, and everything that I’ve ever wanted, but couldn’t have. I live in another world, with my father, in a land of disappointments and decisions that are to be regretted for eternity.

The train reaches our stop, and we get off at the platform, walk through the station, run up the steps, and finally break out from the dreary underground that we had been in for, in my opinion, too long.

We submerge ourselves in the sunlight that always seems to surround this area of the city, the posh world with the golden sheen that we are merely visitors in. We walk and saunter and glide through people, all kinds of people, black and white and every shade in between.

Entering Harrods fifteen minutes later, we spend out time the best that we can, bothering unsuspecting customers, pestering attendants, posing as sons and daughters of corporate executives and royalty from India. Some attendants are gullible and eager to please, mainly the younger ones, and some don’t believe us for a moment. After about an hour, we are "escorted" out by security, and told not to come back for quite some time, if you want to put it politely. If you want to tell it like it is, we get kicked out of Harrods, flat on our asses, with Parvati and I laughing like idiots, and with Padma hardly grinning.

Sometimes, I spend hours worrying about Padma. She really never has a lot of fun. Oh, yes, she’s told me about her escapades at her school, Hogwarts, and about her friends. I’ve never even met them, and I could say their first names and last names in alphabetical order if someone wanted: Hannah, Lisa, Susan, and Terry. Abbot, Bones, Boot, and Turpin. Yes, I know about those times. She thinks that she is a "troublemaker", but she really isn’t. She simply plans, and thinks, and plans, and thinks, but never does anything more. She knows that I am a rebel, and she thinks that I’m stupid, because I get caught all the time. But the true essence of a daredevil is to live by the moment, to take risks, not to wait behind the scenes, strategizing. And that’s why I worry about Padma; I worry that she will always stay behind the scenes, never seize the moment. Seize the day. Carpe Diem.

"Come on, Padma," says Parvati, giggling whimsically, "you have to admit that it was hilarious."

"All I ask for is one day," she says soberly. "One day, without being kicked out of a shop. One day."

I forgot to tell Parvati that Padma is in a bad mood; I found her crying on her bed, sobbing about Hogwarts and about how she thinks everyone hates her. Poor girl. Poor Padma. I doubt it’s true, but one can never be sure.

I don’t know why Parvati can’t ever pick up on Padma’s moods. You’d expect that from a pair of twins, wouldn’t you? But, alas, Parvati is a bit clueless at times. Most of the time. Basically all the time, truthfully. My parents, if Parvati weren’t their favorite, would hate her for her eccentric nature as much as they hate me now for my constant anarchistic tendencies.

"Eh," states Parvati, "we might as well enjoy London while we can. Before you know it, we’ll be off at Hogwarts again, and be missing it even more still."

Though I really don’t like London, I do like the idea of being a hooligan for a few more hours.

"Cheers!" I yell merrily, as I take Padma by the hand and start galloping down the sidewalk.

We spend the afternoon riding on the Tube, stopping at various stations, Baker Street, Finchely Road, Elephant and Castle. We walk aimlessly for hours, recalling haphazard events in our lives: the time I bleached my hair, the time I got kicked out of reform school, the other time I got kicked out of reform school, and so forth, and so forth. We throw in a few Padma and Parvati stories, like the time Padma put too much curry in the chicken curry, and the eerie incident where Parvati broke her arm, and, at the same time, Padma did, as well. Twin injuries, twin casts, the only time that they did anything that was remotely the stereotypical behavior of a twin. We pass landmarks, Covent Gardens, the Tower of London, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the London Eye, and too many more to count.

Finally, we find ourselves in a little-known part of London, on a dingy street, littered with drunks and beggars. We laugh merrily, drunk with joy. Today has been one of the best days of our lives, and we all know it.

Suddenly, Padma stops in her tracks. "Parvati, look!" she proclaims. "The Leaky Cauldron!" She points to a hazy place in between two insignificant stores.

Parvati squints, then gasps, her eyes growing wide. "You’re right!" she exclaims, "it is! The Leaky Cauldron!"

They both stand there, staring. I remember that name, ‘the Leaky Cauldron’, very well; on one of the few occasions Mum has ever spoken to me, she told me it was the entranceway to a wizarding shop complex, of some sort, Diamond Alley, or something close to that, it’s called. Typical of my mother, to tell me about some magical thing or another, forgetting that I’m non-magical myself.

I scrunch up my eyes, and try to see what they see. But all I can make out is a vague shape, as if my eyes are out of focus. I try to peer harder, but the harder I try, the more difficult it becomes to see.

There it is again, that barrier. It’s a part of that world I don’t belong in, that I will never belong in, as long as I try, and as long as I live. It’s the reason my mother really doesn’t love me, because I am the farthest thing from being magical at all. I once heard her talking to an old friend, an old, magical friend, and she called me a "Squib". That’s what I am. I am as shameful as I sound. I’m a Squib.

I feel like crying right there, right near the drunks and the beggars, with the lowest of the low. No one would notice. No one would care. I’m too much of a disgrace for anyone to care. I’m a Squib. I’m a Squib.

Squib.

Eventually, Padma turns, and notices me. She compulsively grabs my hand, in complete understanding. Really, she and I should be twins. We understand each other better than her and Parvati.

"Let’s go," she says slowly, shaking Parvati’s shoulder. Parvati lingers for a moment, then turns toward us. We all walk in complete silence, for our own reasons.

I’ll never be anything that anyone wants me to be, or anything that I will want to be. I will always face bitter failure in my life, all because I can’t see the things that I want to the most. I can’t see the Leaky Cauldron, and I can’t see how my life will end up, with reform school and hateful parents and many more things that I can not possibly name. Feelings that there are no words for.

Padma understands it. She understands my sentiments. She understands everything about me. And I think that she understands this about me most of all: the disappointment of not being able to see. To see anything. And though she may understand it, it truly hurts.

I’ll never be able to see. And the disappointment of it is truly overwhelming.