3. Other Bloggers

Photo: This magic bunny was uploaded at a later stage

I took a look around the net to see who else is out there blogging away and there are simply thousands of you! It was like sticking a pin in the haystack and was very much attracted by some of the exotic titles- how could anyone want to fish out, I thought, a title like mine “Daily Service”. However that was the first thing I could think of when I was filling out the form with my heart pounding away because I was doing something live- like being on television. Perhaps in another entry I will explain why I call myself “sunflower”, which is rather strange because I am nothing of the kind being one who pines for the bruised skies of Britain.

Anyway, I found a number of you are fans of “Harry Potter” and since the last sequel has just recently been released is perhaps the reason why I hit so many bloggers mentioning the fact. Stopping to reflect a while on the phenomenon a melancholy episode rose to mind. It occurred on one of my afternoon tutoring spells which I do at home since I teach English as a Foreign Language privately to pupils from seven to seventy. I had a group of nine years old boys that particular afternoon when Harry Potter’s last film hit the Italian cinemas and there was a flurry of mums and dads organizing Saturday afternoon outings with their children and hordes of their friends to go and see it. The group of boys kept bumping up and down on their chairs, cheering as I provided some stickers of Harry Potter to put in their diaries and to extract some kind of verbal interaction, that is, in English- all were so exited they couldn’t stay put, all that is- except one.

Let’s call him Mike- his eyes were bright sparkling with intelligence, his mother one of the most exquisite persons you would want to meet- and he sat there, calm and composed but no doubt- so very sad. He reached out for the stickers then hesitated… he tightened his lips.

“What’s wrong?” I said, “Don’t you like Harry Potter?”

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently- he was an outsider, not at all involved and yet I could see from the languid expression of his eyes, he very much longed to be.

“Just think, you’ll be going to the matinee on Saturday with your pals…”

I stopped. Incredulous drops of tears crept silently down his cheek.

“He’s not coming, Miss,” one of the other boys said.

“Not coming…” I stopped in my tracks.

“He can’t Miss, his mum won’t let him.”

“Won’t let him…” I was becoming somewhat of a parrot but I was stupefied.

“They’re not like us, Miss. They’re not Catholics.”

“Not Catholics…”

I did not repeat that because it was treason not being a Catholic, but being in Italy, not to be a Catholic would be rather peculiar even though 90% don’t go to Mass- they are all Catholics- judging by the cemetery down below in the village. Indeed, I was regurgitating what the boy was saying because it was beyond me to suss out what religion had to do with Harry Potter.

“It’s the magic, Miss… they are not allowed to believe in magic.”

“Ah!” was all that passed my lips, as I wasn’t going to tell them, that I didn’t believe in magic either and that it didn’t really exist at all- but neither did Father Christmas- but I’m sure they knew that already. I could do nothing but ask them quietly to put their stickers away, and take out their text books feeling regret that there were religions, Christian at that, which caused unnecessary suffering to its own members.