Hide and Seek

Time means nothing to a little boy. Reading Moby Dick is the equivalent of getting rid of a twisted turd.

‘Let’s play Hide and Seek,’ says Lilly.

‘Wait,’ I say. ‘I am thinking.’  

I want to play landlords and renters.

She knows. My little hands betray my within thoughts.

‘You’re a pervert,’ says Lilly.

Correct!

After we played doctors and stage-four cancer-victims, Lilly said, ‘You are a sadistic pig.’

The twist-marks and nip-marks still bruise her porcelain skin. But at least she was cancer-free.

Lilly has red hair, freckled milky skin, and not an inch of superfluous fat. Her teeth are white and even, and her breasts are like little pebbles. Her mother wants her to be a Star. When she is in the capital, auditioning, I have to play with myself. The last time she was in the capital, I found playing with myself pleasurable, but inevitably with everything in this world, boredom set in solid like concrete over rare flowers, sleeping cicadas, lost treasures.

‘Come on,’ says Lilly. ‘Let’s play Hide and Seek.’

 ‘No,’ I say. ‘For school tomorrow I have to find five words starting with Z and ending in A.’

Lilly towers over me and dances round and round me showing off her ballerina skills. For this I will be punish her, later.

Of course, I acquiesce.

‘You go and hide,’ I say, ‘and I will find you.’

‘No,’ says Lilly. ‘You will find me hiding in a grotto and call it an island and you’ll say you are King and I am a slave and mistreat me.’

Never!

‘I’ll hide,’ I say. ‘Count!’

‘One

Two

Three.’

‘Can I take Benny with me?’ I ask.

Benny, shaking off the fleas, jumps up and down, hearing its name.

‘You may,’ says Lilly. ‘Now one two three four go and hide five six seven and hide somewhere amazing eight nine ten eleven run run run.’

‘Come and find me!’ I shout.

‘I will I will I promise I will!’ shouts Lilly.

I kept on shouting. I kept on shouting louder and louder. I no longer shout. I will not surrender. I am still hiding under the table. I have a beard and Benny my dog is no longer a dog. Benny went away bit by bit. He was like the biscuit that you pick at, fragment followed fragment. I play with Benny’s bones for entertainment, sometimes, I arrange his bones to look like a silly walking man. The funny hat I wear is Benny’s skull. Other times, Benny’s skull is a big ship. A big ship on a long odyssey. My father’s feet no longer poke me in the back. For a long time, my father’s feet poked me in the back. My father had very large feet. His father had very small feet. I think of Lilly. Sometimes. I worry she will never find me. My mother had beautiful feet. Now and again, I’d lick them. To hydrate you must understand. ‘Benny,’ she’d shout. ‘Stop it!’ There was a hint of Stilton cheese about them, especially between the toes. Pain is an awful thing. Sometimes, I drum using Benny’s skull and bones to drown out my weeping. I have become quite the drummer.