Not Sick Not Well

"All our games were imitations of adult rituals and adult lives, although we didn’t realise it then of course. Then the day came when we stopped playing. We’d gone a couple of months without our usual games, but a few days into the school holidays I got my dolls out and tried to start up again. And it had all gone. The magic didn’t work any more. I could barely even remember how we’d done it, but I tried to recapture the mood, the storylines, the way the dolls had moved and thought and spoken. But now it was like reading a meaningless book. I was shocked that it could have all gone so quickly, sad at how much I’d lost, and a little frightened about what had happened to me and how I’d fill the future hours."