Toy World

Toy World

Some women's skin gradually turns velvet as they age. The little wrinkles responsible of this effect increase over the years like fragile cobwebs until the woman is perfect and soft and smooth. My mother has that kind of skin. She smells of the pink powder and the rose scented soap she uses every time I lean in close and plant one of those polite kisses on her cheeks she prefers to any form of touch, greeting or some public show of affection.

But there were never polite kisses with you, now were there? When I woke up in the early morning with the demonic chant of the dream (I'm sure you also hear in your dreams these days) still whispering in the back of my head and all of it, all, still so vivid in a surge of visions of blood and the picture of what a human looks inside like some thread of string a cat had played and grown bored with.

It's a memory I wish I could forget. This version of me, scared and feverishly sweaty and at the same time there is you and your touch too cold and shivering. Us; enveloped in the same blankets and together in that terrible dream of the same cancerous sickness. Remember, dear? Did I cry like an infant?

I wake up once more, and outside the maniacal happy chirping of the birds. I have to get up and make it to the kitchen, and back, back again, as quickly as I can because the dream has to be over - it drives us on like mindless cattle to the point of exhaustion and a mistake and a fall.

Reality: the pleasant slap of sweaty bare feet on the cold marble? Hush, hush screaming in my ears (a broken record on a gramophone playing over again the same part of the song) ensure me that I am still here and now. Hoax, trick, make-believe: the dream reminding of my birthright, my purpose?

Behind me a pattern on the floor, steps with the imprints of toes pointing inwards, drawing on to me like a rabbit's trail.

Back by the bed, pouring a jug-full of stone cold water on your face as to wake you up without having to feel your cold. I have managed. You open your eyes and cough and say something meaningless and angry and it's nothing, because eyes see and lungs breathe. Wake.

Eyes, you, speak to me.

My greatest fear when I see you doubled over sneezing (as you always do) as if there is something slimy and huge exploding from inside of you. I am afraid that maybe this time it is a curse and you'll wither before my eyes and die.

Could it be that we are only playing house? Pretending?

Sometimes I am absolutely sure I saw the strings of the puppet-master.

Just as the floor meets him, Harry knows. This time, he'll have to go to Dumbledore.

*

When I was a child I remember an occasion of happy teatime between Mother and me. She told me, as always, every afternoon at this very time that I should never fail to meet the expectations of my father and her. I was little then, swinging my legs under the table, drinking my milk my hands sticky with sweat and crumbs of animal-shaped biscuits.

"Lift your cup with your little finger up. Remember never to rest your elbows on the table. If you feel bad about what you see and what you do you are simply temporarily confused. A true Death-eater sees beyond the lies, a true Death-eater never hides his head in the sand, not of shame, regret, not of fear. Thus a true Death-eater is always right. The world will revolve like we tell it to in a moment's time.

Marry a girl."