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lobelia321Are these the after-effects of having seen an episode of 'The Office' at lunchtime??
And when the day is done, it's done.
And then comes the night. The night is always long, too long, longer than the earth takes to turn on its axis just once, longer than death.
The only way to get through the night is the screaming, dreaming banshee lady. Oh yeah. She's good. Draco spends all afternoon priming her. He's set up a bench at the back of the room, under the attic window, where he has to stand hunchbacked or else he will bang his head on the sloped ceiling. His fingers move as if sleepwalking, he is so used to doing this by now. Parcelling out the portions, then chopping the herbs, fine, so fine, the finer the better, she likes it fine. Then the root of Ebenezer which takes ages to boil down into a papery pulp, and stinks, too.
At this point, Draco opens the attic window and lets the thin strand of purple-sick fume twirl through the dusk.
Into the alembic it all goes. It's necessary to hover at this stage, like a loving chef, and to calibrate the flame just so, to stir when a skin forms, to douse when bubbles simmer.
By the time the sun has fully set, Draco has three glass vials full, one for every watch. He sets them into their wooden stands to cool. He peers at the opalescent demon at the centre of each concoction.
Oh, what a drug is the bansh. None like it.
By April, though, Draco has run out of ingredients. He has no licence to buy any straight, and he has no money to buy any the crooked way.
He can stand it for precisely two and a half nights. At three in the morning, he lets himself fall out of his bed. The things on the floor dig into his back. Something is screaming in a bored monotone -- a dying swan? a Muggle traption? the turkey torment of his brainstems?
No, it's something else.
He really is awake now. Fully. He swivels his eyes back and forth.
It's coming from the flat beneath him. The Muggle flat.
And it's not screaming. It's whining. High-pitched whining.
Draco turns his head until his left ear is pressed to a bit of uncluttered floorboard.
It's the sound of someone having an orgasm.
It's a man's sound.
Stars burst into shape, just above Draco's raised right ear.
Then there's another sound, another voice, a deeper voice, a groaning voice, a duet of voices.
How long has Draco lived in this forsaken attic? Eight months? Fourteen months? Two years and a half? Time is so viscous these days, it's hard to tell, but how come he's never heard these voices before?
Stars are all around now. They flit like insects.
When Draco has his own sad orgasm, they all turn purple. Like banshee smoke.
And when the day is done, it's done.
And then comes the night. The night is always long, too long, longer than the earth takes to turn on its axis just once, longer than death.
The only way to get through the night is the screaming, dreaming banshee lady. Oh yeah. She's good. Draco spends all afternoon priming her. He's set up a bench at the back of the room, under the attic window, where he has to stand hunchbacked or else he will bang his head on the sloped ceiling. His fingers move as if sleepwalking, he is so used to doing this by now. Parcelling out the portions, then chopping the herbs, fine, so fine, the finer the better, she likes it fine. Then the root of Ebenezer which takes ages to boil down into a papery pulp, and stinks, too.
At this point, Draco opens the attic window and lets the thin strand of purple-sick fume twirl through the dusk.
Into the alembic it all goes. It's necessary to hover at this stage, like a loving chef, and to calibrate the flame just so, to stir when a skin forms, to douse when bubbles simmer.
By the time the sun has fully set, Draco has three glass vials full, one for every watch. He sets them into their wooden stands to cool. He peers at the opalescent demon at the centre of each concoction.
Oh, what a drug is the bansh. None like it.
By April, though, Draco has run out of ingredients. He has no licence to buy any straight, and he has no money to buy any the crooked way.
He can stand it for precisely two and a half nights. At three in the morning, he lets himself fall out of his bed. The things on the floor dig into his back. Something is screaming in a bored monotone -- a dying swan? a Muggle traption? the turkey torment of his brainstems?
No, it's something else.
He really is awake now. Fully. He swivels his eyes back and forth.
It's coming from the flat beneath him. The Muggle flat.
And it's not screaming. It's whining. High-pitched whining.
Draco turns his head until his left ear is pressed to a bit of uncluttered floorboard.
It's the sound of someone having an orgasm.
It's a man's sound.
Stars burst into shape, just above Draco's raised right ear.
Then there's another sound, another voice, a deeper voice, a groaning voice, a duet of voices.
How long has Draco lived in this forsaken attic? Eight months? Fourteen months? Two years and a half? Time is so viscous these days, it's hard to tell, but how come he's never heard these voices before?
Stars are all around now. They flit like insects.
When Draco has his own sad orgasm, they all turn purple. Like banshee smoke.
