Voldemort and I

In the last Harry Potter, darling wizard Harry tackles the seemingly impossible mission of locating different Horcruxes and attempting to destroy them in his road of finishing Lord Voldemort once and for all. See, Voldemort realized that in order to increase his chances of survival, he should divide his soul and install pars of it in different objects, or a snake – the Horcruxes. This is done with mal-intent, of course, I mean he is Lord Voldemort, the one-who-should-not-be-named, the one who believes in purity of the wizard race, the true leader of the dark side (oh wait, wrong movie). He partitions his soul by killing people, his soul divided into smaller parts and in consequence his whole being suffers as it cannot be complete.
In my life I have formed a few very close friendships. And I’d like to think that I have shared part of my soul with them. Of course I can say some of those friendships have been with objects, like my dear old bike Totto and my new bike E (I have an aversion of snakes so we’ll stop there and cheer Saint Patrick – who, naturally, was born in Wales!!!), but the strong deep connections, those also give back and enrich my soul via this exchange, have been with humans, and of course, some pets. I have also divided my soul. And I can say that it has hurt my wholeness, especially with these great distances that now separate me from many of my loved ones (cheesy moment, I suggest Caerphilly cheddar, a great Welsh cheese).
How different is this partition of the soul than Voldemort’s? It is also a mechanism for survival. The process is more dynamic than dividing the soul with an object, and is based on an expected exchange. Yet that exchange is rarely equivalent on both sides, and this sometimes does lead to pain and hurt. Maybe Voldemort just wanted love and was denied this, and hence shared his intimacies with a snake and a small diary?
Maybe we have misunderstood Lord Voldemort all this time and Harry is the bastard…

Mystery

Tuesday, 6 pm, London. More than 11,000 tube workers, members of the tube union (?) walked out to protest plans to robotize some 800 jobs. The strike is meant to continue for over 24 hours, till Thursday morning. Over ground traffic increased, many folks learned how to use their feet in ways long forgotten and buses were overloaded.

Wednesday morning, 8:00 am, still London. Hillel arrives in the midst of rush hour to one of the main lines to find out that it is not shut completely. Rather, the stops where no connections between different lines meet are completely skipped and a couple of the main lines are not running at all.

Enjoying the experience of being in London, H doesn’t pay much attention to the rather sour mood of many of the fellow passengers. Due to the onslaught of people, he misses the first one he tries to get on. For maybe the first time in the UK, he has to push his way onto a train. Eventually, many people get of and H gets an actual seat. A well dressed man sits next to him and starts chatting with him.

Now this is pretty rare in the tube, where most people seem to carry with them glass boxes which block out all others peeping into their private space and accidentally knocking their bags. But still, H engages. The man asks H about the tube strike and what his reaction was to it when he heard it will be happening. Did he get upset and annoyed or did he just go on his regular plans as usual?

H is wondering whether to tell the man that he actually doesn’t live in London but rather in Cardiff, that capital city in the well shaded areas away from the English limelight. But instead he simply responds that he just went along with his plans. No point in getting annoyed, transit can still be made and a bit of delay will not affect things greatly. The man proceeded to chat more, to which H responded with short yes’s and no’s. At this point the man turns to H and says, why do I feel that for some reason you work in mathematics?

H is a bit shocked. Huh? What in his answers gave that away? Was this man following him? Did a math paper leak out of H’s bag? Huh again? The man begins to explain. H gets up as the train has arrived at his station and the man gets up with him, they both exit as the man begins explaining. Suddenly he looks around and says, wait, this is not my station, and runs back into the train.

Mystery unsolved.