I write this sitting on the little porcelain sink in my cell. It was installed in the late nineties, and in the years before I can attest that we prisoners of Azkaban lived in the filthiest, rankest holes where it was all too likely for one to die of disease. I sit on my sink because it is the only other piece of furniture in my cell save for my bed, which is nothing more than a large plank nailed at a right angle to the wall and a layer of an old, patchy duvet for comfort.
I write this at the behest of a psychologist, Hannah Abbott. I say a psychologist because she is not my psychologist and I have no wish to see one. Dr Abbott has been appointed to the task of studying the psychological effects on prisoners of having Dementors guard this prison, as there is a growing political will to abolish this practice as it is inhumane. Dr Abbott presented us each with diaries to fill, diaries which will presumably be subject to much psychoanalysis and presumptions of mental illnesses.
If I sound level and lucid then I am, the years of being locked up in isolation with only Dementors for company have not destroyed me because there was nothing to destroy. All my life, as I remember, has been a blend of soulless, transparent grey. In Moscow as in London and now the island of Azkaban far up north beyond Scotland, the skies were always grey where I went, heavy with the clouds of a foreboding past tinged with sour regret.
Tucked in the final pages of my diary is a photo, stolen, for I am and will always remain a criminal, though thievery must surely be the least of my crimes. I dare not look at this photo much, and what I have seen of it was in stolen, furtive glances too. Still, I like knowing that it is there, so that I can hold this diary close to myself, and know that what is inside is all that I have known, the best and worst of it.
