I found myself thinking of his mother, the witch queen, wondering if she would tell me where he was. The familiar streets were oddly quiet around me. It struck me that neighbourhoods grew up too. Kids get older and leave home, parents just get old. No more kids yelling in the street on weekends, no more dogs barking, no more street games of cricket or water fights, and even the telephone box on the corner hasn’t been vandalised. No one knows I’ve come. It would be no good telling my mother. I tried to tell her once about the next-door neighbours, when I read in the paper Lily had died. She got that vacant look on her face and lit a cigarette in her quick fussy way, as if the cigarette was the only thing that made talking to me bearable. ‘What can you do?’ she asked. So I dropped it. Our old house looked smaller. Next door was the same brooding mansion with its frowning eaves and sullen drooping willows, still infested with her poisonous magic. I was startled to see her sitting on the mouldy sofa on the porch, baggy old skin sucking at her big white teeth.
What do You think about Green Monkey Dreams (2012)?
