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title: Elephant Trunk date: august 09, 2002 Sit down. Here. Yeah, there. Listen -- this is your story. That doesn’t mean it includes you in any significant, plot-altering way... you’re still in it, anyway. So listen. Truth doesn’t necessarily equate to reality; and as we all know from the worlds in our head, reality is almost never truthful. You’re starting your first year at your new school. It’s gigantic; stone-old, big as a kingdom of elephants stacked on top of each other. It’s your world, now, for the few years you’ll spend here. It looks like a monster -- a giant Hog, pimpled with the small, scurrying Warts of students exploding their pus of teenage angst over ancient battlements and yellowing parchment. You tense your hands as you enter the Great Hall. Your uniform was especially tailor-made for you; the Headmaster blinked several times when you and he first met. His hand shook in yours and was given a nervous, welcoming shower by the sweat of your palm. Only the man with the long, tapering beard winked at you, nudged you encouragingly as you stammered your way through the meeting, trying to explain why you needed custom made uniforms. Both the Headmaster and you could see quite clearly why, but there you were anyway -- bogged down by formalities and politeness, the inter-locking, inter-lingering British curses. There’s a slight circle of space around you, as you walk forward. It’s almost as if you repel the other students; in the back of your head, you understand why, and the man you’ll be in twenty, thirty years time will tiredly acknowledge and accept the ostracism. For now, you cling to what your father said, like a baby to a withering breast: It’s what’s inside that matters. Nothing outside lasts for long, eh? Sometimes you wish the outside of you wouldn’t last, and that it would peel away in thick-skinned strips as soon as light touched it and reveal, at last, to the silent world, the small boy inside -- same as everybody else in this Hall. You’re seven feet tall, the last time your Dad checked (last year, on your birthday). Probably grown another foot, judging by the way the other students heads are squatting like mushrooms from tiny stalks of bodies down below you. Occasionally a head of hair turns and a white face peers up at you, then veers quickly away, red-faced and embarrassed for staring. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the seated, older students gawk at you. You can’t remember the House names, though you’ve tried so hard -- you wanted to memorize the entire school history so you could use it as a weapon against the trials of personal conversation (“How are you?” “Jolly good, you’ll never guess how old these stairs are...”). Unfortunately, nothing could get in. It felt like your ears and eyes were stuffed with lead and you turned into an enormous block of wood, a peculiar carved study in size, monstrosity and the singular testament to What Goes Wrong With Inter-Species Children. A band of students in green and silver ties jeer at you, clearly bound together under the shimmering forest green of an undulating flag. Sometimes, you dream of that possibility to enjoy group companionship and loyalty; even in the heckling of some poor junior. You stumble on their outstretched foots, tripping in the clash of your sequoia legs, and fall flat, narrowly missing a frightened eleven year old, who looks as if he wants to burst into tears and run away. Your eyes, inches off the floor, intently inspect tatty black shoes with fancy pointy toes in the effort to halt the sniffles and impending flood. Breathe. In. Get up, notice the rest of the person you fell in front of. He’s reading a book by an author whose name you can’t pronounce (and there are millions of them). He looks up at you curiously, tilts his head. And a fraction of a second later, he inhales; prolonging your own. The still air catches between his eyes, does a flip down your spine, dropping its weight straight down your body like a sandbag. You want to choke. You want to run. Breathe out. You blink at him on purpose, to break the moment. You turn away, lumber off, but not without noticing the Prefect badge the boy has on. He was staring at you like you were an insect. “Hagrid, Reubus,” shouts the Professor further down the Great Hall. Moving there, you feel the looks of the students as if they’re witnessing a personal tragedy of nature walk into the spotlight of a circus, the Freak Show Act. “Well, well, well,” whispers the Hat, as soon as it plops in a comfortable position, somewhere to the right side of your brain. “Not a very good start, hmm?” |
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