act ii
by Silvia

One day you wake up famous, and you go to sleep famous, and you do that for years, over and over, except you don't know you're doing it.

You think you're the boy who lives under the stairway, and you're mostly right -- but not completely, because you also live in small children's heads, spinning about in their dreams. You fall from their parent's lips as a bedtime story, and everyone pretty much believes you sleep in the clouds, like an angel. Most of them would never admit to it, though, because a lot of those people are grownups.

You wake up and go to school, and no one is very nice to you because your clothes don't fit right. It's a stupid reason not to like you, but then you look at your family and their shoes that don't need cloth stuffed in the front to keep their heels from slipping out, and remember that people like them. You don't feel too bad sitting alone at lunchtime anymore.

There are trashcans on the side of the school yard, beside the dumpster with the thick metal casing that has dents deep enough for you to fit your feet into and climb, and that's where you always run when the boys whoop in that way that means trouble. The cans clank as they're smacked with bony kneecaps and thud from Dudley's thick, padded ones, and that way you can hear them coming.

Uncle Vernon lets you know when he'll be coming home late, so you can keep a plate warm for him, and when you uncover it and step back sweat is shining on his brow and he's too tired to do anything but eat and push you aside as he heads for bed. "All right Harry, " he says, in a slushy heavy-lipped voice, and you nod very quick. Those are good nights.

Day and night sort of flip-flop in your head, because the nights are your days. Night is when you're really living. You can lean back on your mattress and listen to the house sleep. It makes soft contented sounds beneath your feet and above your head, and you can feel the walls maybe breathing; at least, it seems like it. Sometimes you can jingle the lock and climb out to sit beside the window, watching owls dip down from the trees and squirrels scurry across the lawn.

You peer up the stairs to see your uncle's briefcase bulging beside his bedroom door, and imagine rows and rows of desks with telephones that ring each hour to tell you what you're doing wrong. 

You think:

act iii