This Anomaly

It happens to me about once every six months.

I look at the sun and see only dark colors. And if I try hard enough, I can notice faint sprays of lighter hues, but all this ambition is dangerous because one can go blind from such prolonged gazes. I've also diagnosed myself with a general lack of motivation for anything that doesn't involve aimless typing on the laptop.

These are without a doubt the blessed symptoms of the depression that's about to crash down on me again, and it's not to be taken lightly. In moments like these a thought arises in me with disturbing obsessiveness: You must not stay alone; the situation could worsen. So I send a message in the friends' WhatsApp group, and it reads: "Who's up for a meet?" Everyone responds, and everyone is out of reach.

No choice, I tell myself, the remaining strength must be mustered for a city stroll. I genuinely believe that a person needs to be in motion to slow down their thoughts, and the more muscles in the body are harnessed to the cause, the more likely they are to keep the inner breaking point at bay. By the time that happens, I've already called out of work sick for the day.

So I go outside, wander the boulevard and observe the passersby chattering themselves to death. All the smiling children of society, I suspect, are coming out of the closet today to celebrate at my expense. Even the antipathetic vendor at the corner kiosk is now handing out disturbing smiles as if he's under the inspiration. And he's one of the greatest misanthropes I've ever met. Once, in a moment of distraction, I let him unfold before me his existential doctrine about the pointlessness of humanity, I was so stoned that I ended up hypnotically echoing keywords that kept coming up in the conversation, like fire and brimstone, until he realized he was preaching to the void. Now he's selling smiles for every pocket, served piping hot straight from the blood of his heart.

This anomaly deceives me in its ambiguity.

I keep wandering, and on one of the sidewalks someone I know chooses to smile all the way at me just to say hello, unaware that our existences are currently contradictory. Nothing good will come of this, I say to myself, just don't let her notice the inner rot gnawing at me or a conversation on the subject will open by mistake. She'll probably say - "It's okay, my heart is hungry too", and then in an act of self-defense I'll throw in her face: "So make a filter out of it and smoke your soul to oblivion. Pathos is me, baby". Lucky I'm skilled in such cases - camouflaging my mental terror is an art I've developed over the years, a byproduct of my secretive and guarded nature anyway. So I responded to her with a flirty language: "How lovely, yes, me too, thank you, kisses, goodbye."

I continue the stroll.

Traffic lights, buses on King George Street, crosswalks, how lovely. Couples with dogs, veiled looks, I've scrutinized you all and you all failed. Everything moves sluggishly, as if someone placed a block in my brain's nerve center. There's nothing but a feeling of a massive down. I kept walking a thirsty distance until I reached the end of the neighborhood, where at a bus stop, I lit another cigarette. The heat intensified more and more, and a craving for cheap wine arose in me, I set my feet towards a corner kiosk to get my favorite kind. I gulped down thebottle in a few deep sips until a few drops remained, maybe a thousand. Then, the desire for some vandalism arose, so I moved away from any living soul and there, in an abandoned alley, I launched the bottle straight into a wall.

A thousand wet hopes scattered there on the sidewalk.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice two pairs of eyes of uninvited guests who had witnessed the whole act, seemingly unbothered by the aforementioned hooligan behaviour, because they too have a bellyful of disdain for the existing order. I walked away from there adventure-sated, while taking a self-oath that I'll never do it again. But in the name of all the saints from all religions, the feeling was fucking amazing.

The hours passed under the inspiration of the heavy heat while walking through the streets familiar to the point of dread. I suspected that the daily stroll was not bearing fruit. I mean, my inner state wasn't showing an improving trend. I debated whether to turn towards my apartment and go to sleep and continue wandering the next morning, or to head into the city center right then and hope for the best there. In a moment of spark, I decided to conduct an experiment, checking if I could manage to think of nothing, absolute nothingness for a minute. At first, I didn't succeed. Then I couldn't think of anything but the fact that I was trying not to think. When that passed, I wasn't thinking about anything anymore. If you could succeed for a minute, you'd succeed for ten, and just like that, whole hours passed without thinking.

The day began to turn blue, the sun took on a reddish hue as it sank lower, and the terrifying heat made room for a cool breeze. Emily just called, said maybe you'll come over, as I'm just making some culinary disaster here. We can suffer together. I said, okay I'll come. Despite all the fights and chaos between us, I needed spiritual mediation to save me from trouble and distress. I came to her, city outskirts, big apartment, with hesitant steps.

She stands at the end of the kitchen in front of a pan that doesn't look like a pan, wiping her hands on a small apron and cooking in several pots at the same time - anything to avoid the loneliness. We have finished eating and I urge her to come with me to another location. She complies. I lead her through the rusty railing towards the bed, moving the clothes between us and sitting closer to her. I am already at zero range and I extend my hands, one to her porcelain face and the other to her glorious chest. She looks at me and I, in a soul's agony, try to signal that everything is not-okay, not in words, but with hinting eyes. All my charisma is hesitant because of the situation, and suddenly I understand those who spend hours looking out at the view, wondering why bother to speak at all, when you can just vomit your soul through your eyes.

She looks into my depths as if I am a transparent wall of thoughts. Convinces me that we need to talk about it, that the bereaved look with the swollen eyes from too many sleepless nights frightens her. It settles in my heart that I have to yield to her and allow myself the opportunity to release the dark thoughts weighing heavy on me, even if it means my words will come out in a clumsy mumble and a lack of self-synchronization.

So I began to pour my heart out nonstop, and she looks at me, small and brave, as I cast my sickly light waves onto her. I spoke the truth, I said what I think. That every time I start enjoying light serotonin flows in my brain, a flash of anxiety threatens to easily drag me down to the depths of hell. That during certain periods, existence becomes so ridiculous and idiotic that I simply don't leave the bed out of self-pity and if I do move, it's just to the bathroom, barely. And then it changes, something inside me sprouts, suddenly I'm happy and I don't know why. The faded colors return to themselves and sometimes I hallucinate sunlight even when there is none. And so it goes for long periods, back and forth.

And this was the essence of her response: You're experiencing a small touch of sadness, far from all the intensity you describe, and then your world collapses. That's because you simply don't know how to cope, with anything. I bet you wandered around the city today in a daze, like some moron. If you continue to be preoccupied with repressing and extinguishing emotions, you'll be stuck with this light and distant pattern for the rest of your life. You don't want that.

I'm not sure I agree with her, except for the dazed wandering - I really did walk around for hours today like the last of the morons, and she seems a bit dismissive in her diagnosis. But at least most of it is under control, because she's taking everything away from me with these tough and maternal instincts of hers. She's my biggest believer. I also think she was happy during these hours, for I believe that devoting herself to me from the depths of her soul does her good. She just loves this hole in my heart that needs filling. And I know it's not fair to exploit this fact, but it's either her or staring out the windows and sinking into myself, then dropping a shoe out of the window to gauge the depth and height as a kind of last resort experiment. It's hard to beat that.

And then she hugs me, breathing me in deeply until I almost disappear into the hug. She looks up at me with smudged eyes and starts kissing me, pressing me against her warm, inviting body. I almost stumble from the suddenness, as we collapse embraced onto the bed. I kiss her with eyes wide open and can't see a thing from all the shame, trying to understand what I am doing with all the cards I've just laid out. We got tired. It was already five-thirty in the morning, and outside it was already dawn twilight. She told me let's smoke a cigarette and go to sleep.

We went out to the roof with a fatigue that was wreaking its havoc on us, barely lifting our heads. So we smoked quickly and stuck our heads to the floor so we wouldn't get dizzy. On the last drag, I stole a glance upwards to catch a tiny segment of the light spectrum. I looked at the sun, and it was surrounded by a huge circle of colors that began to encompass almost everything, smearing my entire field of vision in shades of red. I quickly lowered my head and felt some salty drop making its way from my throat to my eye, burning several organs along the way. At that moment, I burst into tears in a kind of powerful and sharp wail while making unclear noises that I couldn't express with words. An adrenaline rush of excitement pounded in my brain, Emily leans towards me and says, "My sweetie, everything is actually okay. I think you're out of disruption."

I nodded in agreement.