Three - Me(3)

  The only person who seemed at all aware of my secret fantasy world was my father.  

 

 

  I'd be thinking of my bear--whose only eye I'd snapped off in a moment of angry excitement and who was getting thiner and thinner as I pulled more and more stuffing out of its chest--or I'd be thinking of the finger-sized soccer player who kicked when you pressed a button in his head; it was my third soccer player--I'd broken the first two in bursts of excitement--and now I'd broken this one too, and I'd be wondering if my wounded toy was dying in his hiding place. Or else I'd be lost in fearful imaginings about the martens our maid Esma Hamin claimed to have seen on the roof of the house next door--she'd used the same voice she used when speaking of God--when suddenly I'd hear my father say, "What's going on in your head? Tell me and I'll give you twenty-five kurus."   

  Never sure whether to tell him the whole truth, change it a little, or tell an outright lie, I would fall silent; after a short whiel, he would smile and say, "It's too late now--you should have told me right away."

  Had my father spent time in other world too? It would years before I discovered that my strange pastime was commonly known as daydreaming. So my father's question always induced panic, eager, as always, to avoid disturbing thoughts, I evaded his question and then put it out of mind.