Socks

SOCKS

When I was but a boy, pre-pubescent and not having reached the double digits of age, I remember clearly the soothing effect poetry had on me. My mother would sit by my bed and recite poetry, even as I lay swathed in velvet blankets, fighting down the tears when she left the room. For as soon as she left the darkness seemed to swallow me up, and my memories would destroy me again as the night arrived.

The past, and Fate, were my destruction. I didn't have many happy moments to remember, nothing to comfort me when the gloom swept its cold, dry lips upon my brow. I would recite poems to myself as the dawn came, but eventually, as I grew older, I got sick of the rhyming poetry, not wanting the artificial sweetness of such words, of the way my own voice saying the stanzas would twist them into visceral animals, hunting me down and haunting my sleep.

But then I met you. It was as if a burst of sunlight split from the clouds after a heavy, raging storm, as if I awoke from a terrifying nightmare, as if a hand arose to bless me for all eternity that I would not loathe my life for a mere second more. My hopes, however, were destroyed when you shunned me, saw only the surface of me as I struggled to gain your trust and acceptance without having any idea how.

Now you stand here before me, in ragged, once periwinkle blue, and I avert my eyes to the cold stone floor, for the fire of your gaze has gone out and the blue cloth, insulting of you who shone as a vision of Gryffindor red, stains my heart all the more with pain and echoes of uncaught wishes that disappeared among the stars long ago. But then I lift my head up, filled with a sudden determination. It is my duty to care for you, just as you did for me so many years ago, and if this means I must feed the emptiness of your muddled mind, then I will.

I push back the fear that always comes with meeting your gaze, push back the fear that you will remember that I am your enemy, the spawn of he who destroyed all that you loved and possessed with one blow. Your wand is no more, your lightning bolt scar faded, glasses no more accentuating your emerald eyes, your heroism, the beacon of light you represent, gone with your trademark. Everything has been taken from you, all is hopeless, the world is lost and has changed, transformed to live without you, and yet here I stand, your only visitor in this asylum, wondering if I dare to touch you and try and change something within you that I am not sure exists anymore: your heart.

For it is your heart that is gone, and with it, everything that I once wished would happen. Although plaguing you throughout the years as merely your pestering school enemy, I wished with all my heart that you could see, some day, the true me, my soul within that begged for your mercy and acceptance. Night and day I prayed you would forgive me for my mistakes and sweep me into your world of brilliant paradise. That all flew away when, one fateful day, you destroyed the dark persona that had been plaguing the world for years, but in return, everything and everyone was ripped away from you. With the loss of everything, the strength I had so admired in you disintegrated, and you were left alone, a sobbing mess, heart shattering even as you choked out useless, pining, helpless pleading words to the unforgiving, merciless, unresponsive sky.

I could never forget how you had been my shelter at the time in my life when I felt I had betrayed myself, realized that I was wrong, and was filled with the most paralyzing fear. You had helped me then, and what did I give you in return? Nothing. My father destroyed everything for you once his master was gone, and with that, he destroyed you as well. I have never forgiven him for that, nor myself for not giving you anything in return for how you stood up as the hero one last time, determined to save my pitiful, quivering self from my merciless attackers, who knew it was my plan that had led the Dark Lord right into your waiting hands. You had been so prepared to destroy him, and had been successful, but were not prepared, oh no, for my father's hatred and the crime I committed by never giving you thanks. My chance to do so disappeared altogether when you realized that you had lost everything, and collapsed, inside and out.

Then you seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. For three years I searched for you, and then, finally, feeling as if any moment I could sink to the floor in grief, I found you at the place I most least expected. Anger coursed through me briefly at the thought of the dishonor and disrespect they gave you, treating you as a mere nutcase--just like all the other worthless trash heaps that had gotten themselves in enough trouble to be sent to St. Mungo's--diagnosed with insanity of some sort.

But then my sorrow returned upon seeing how broken you were, and at first, I could not bring myself to say anything to you. My courage somehow came when you acknowledged my presence, however, as your gaze lit upon me. And so I began to visit you daily, happy to just sit and stare at you as you sat in silence. I wondered at times what went on in that head of yours, if you remembered the horror of your previous life as the hero of the wizarding world, and dwelled upon it, or if that mind of your is like a blank slate.

Gradually, though, something was brought out of you, and now each day first thing as I enter the doorway of your room I slide my gaze down to the floor and also sweep them across the walls, just in case you have written any new words today. For on the anniversary of your heart's death, upon seeing you I felt so emotional that I had to give you something. Handing you all I had to give, a sock from my foot, I tingled with shock from head to toe as you smiled at me. It was the first time I had ever seen you smile in the entire three years, and the first time such an angel had directed itself at me.

Something was let out, and you began to scribble with whatever makeshift tool available some words that spilled from that mind of yours, but never from your mouth. Passersby shook their heads and frowned in pity upon seeing you kneeling on the floor, mouth opening with no sounds coming out as you scribbled word upon word of what seemed, at first, to be mindless babble. But reading closely and trying as hard as I could to understand your mind, I eventually began to decipher the deep meanings of your words. It was difficult, but sometimes I almost thought that you were trying to tell me something, for the words, although jumbled and not forming sentences or anything that could be called intelligible, were poetic, and beautiful in their own enigmatic way.

Every anniversary of anything special--your birthday, mine, your heart's destruction, your new beginning, Hogwarts graduation--I would give you a sock, still do. And soon, on the wall to the right of your room, above the foot of your bed and everywhere else, you began to make a sock collage, the colors gradually changing as, assenting to a creativity that had been sparked inside you, I began to wear colors other than black and white. Sometimes, on Christmas, I would even go out and shop for socks, wondering which ones you would like best, if Snitch or broom decorated ones would spark any sort of recognition, any memory, in you.

But it never did seem to. You had no idea who I was, but knew my first name, for it appeared sometimes upon the wall and floor poetry, and yet I was happy with just being able to see you every day. One day I came to see that a man was scrubbing the floor, diligently soaping up a mop and causing words you had spent so many hours writing to disappear. Both you and I shrieked in indignation, and fearing for his life, perhaps, foolishly believing you would attack him, he ceased from doing such despicable acts again, and we were safe once more.

Lately I have been trying to get you to talk, musing that perhaps you have lost your voice, are mute, or simply it is rusty with disuse. But regardless of the failure at the end of each of my attempts, I can't help but give a ghost of a smile when your gaze meets mine. Now even as you stand up from the bed I step through the doorway and look around, inspecting carefully to see if any new stanza has been added to the endless epic poem that flows from your mind to spill upon your surroundings with freedom's bliss. I cannot help but fall to my knees as I realize that each inch of space is filled, and curling into a fetal position, I surprise myself as liquid sorrow slides down my cheeks, and I realize that the soft sobbing I am hearing is my own.

My sorrow increases as I realize, with a gasp, that the Sock Wall also has not a single spot of space on it--not a space for a sock, or even, as has been the custom lately, a cut up piece of one. I hold my breath as you reach out to brush the tears from my cheeks as I stand up. My heart is beating fast as your hand, warm and callused, cups my cheek. It is the first time I have allowed another human to touch me in a very long time. No other person could be as significant a figure in my life as you are, and it is only my unquenchable attachment to you and love of your association that makes all the world of difference between my relationship with you and my relationship with anyone else.

You smile, and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, turn to gesture towards the Sock Wall. I can't help but smile as, looking at you from the corner of my eye, I see that, beneath that visage of incomprehension, you are proud of your masterpiece, you have changed, and the spark of strength and heart is returning to your emerald eyes.

I don't dare to close my eyes, not wanting to lose sight of you or your sock masterpiece, as you move to stand directly in front of me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and my every limb seems to tremble as your fingers, feather light, tilt my head the tiniest bit upward. Then suddenly you're leaning down and I can't breathe, can't think, it hurts and simultaneously it is bliss as you press yourself against me, and I'm not sure if ohgodisitwrong to be wanting this? Everything speeds up and slows down all at once and I'm not sure if I'm dead or alive and IloveyouIloveyou but can it really be that we could....be an us? For you are you and I am me and life has changed so much, a whirl of confusion and change and nowIcantseeI'mblindI'mdeafhelpmehelpme, do it, oh, no, don't, oh, yes...yes?

The chaos disappears and suddenly I am sure that this is right as I wrap my arms gently around you, and I feel patches of your skin against mine and don't care about anything except how perfectly you fit against me. Your lips caress mine, and although you're locked up in this cage and can't get out yet, I know that I've helped you, and you've given me all I need to know because now my question is answered. You have seen within me, perhaps knew about my deepest desires all this time, and are giving me everything and accepting me, and it's all I ever wanted! It all seems so simple now; the harshness is gone from me, you are safe, saved, and so am I, for we have saved each other.

This is our last day, but my heart is not filled with regret for I know that soon you will be free, with me again, anything else is impossible. Nothing can compare to the bubble of sweetness that I am floating in, and yet I feel more connected to the earth and to life than ever before, because you will always be by my side, in spirit if not in person. You mean everything to me and I cherish the thought that, just as strangely and simply as it arrived, so my ultimate challenge in life, the hardships most hard, were conquered. As I walk out the door, fingers lingering on the doorknob, I take one last look back, and smile as I see you sliding on a pair of socks.