There was once a man who
lost his youth.
The
man used to carry on his shoulders the burden of the past, a burden made of
people, now long gone, scars, clear like wounds recently healed – but that never
really healed – and a past made of keeping eyes shut to problems and
people.
He
used to close his eyes to avoid seeing the cruelty of such a sad world and it
was too late to realize, then, that he closed his eyes at reality and now the
little kid buried and unseen for too long was coming to life again and he was
trying to see above the closed door of his now gone future.
The
kid, very much naïve, thought it was wise to taunt the man in order to get out
of the cage the man built for him, instead the man, never too old to run away
from his own monsters, decided it was easier to erase his whole past, instead
of facing life once and for all. And at the drop of a hat, the kid and the
relevant mocking in the man’s head were gone, making space within the wrinkles
for a sad smile and wide open, empty eyes.
After
five hours, fifty-two minutes and twenty-six seconds of sitting on a chair, as
he kept on counting, staring at the white wall, he felt arms around him,
“Jenna, is it you Jenna? Oh Jenna, how lovely are you, Jenna?” He shouted these
words every day. Of course nobody was there. And who was Jenna to him? Was it
just another shadow, another of the broken dreams he named to feel less
frustrated, to feel hugged by a really horrible person rather than by dreadful feelings of disillusionment and anguish? Or was she real? He didn’t
remember: he had erased too much.
That day,
though, he was not alone. Somebody entered the house saying, “A really lovely
man lived here, he sold the house to go and live with his daughter for his last
years” just before seeing the really lovely man sitting on a chair and staring
at the wall. He didn’t look that lovely or welcoming, he didn’t care about
those people. Were they another joke of his mind? Was he dying?
“Man, man! Are you ok?” the young lady went in front of him
and pulled at him. There were no reactions, he was not blinking his eyes. Was
he dead? It was like he could not even see her.
When the ambulance came the girl was really surprised to find
out that the man was still alive, the girl who wanted to sell the place said
that the man was dead, how long has that old man been sitting there by himself?
“Sir Blake Sylv, are you willing to join
our psychiatric counselling group?”
No answer, again. He was looking at the shelf. Many books
were on it. He missed his imaginary shelf, the one he saw on the white wall.
The eyes watering, he wasn’t sure they
were his eyes. He was not crying, just making his eyes drown and
then trying to hide them inside again.
The same was happening to his soul. He was making it drown.
He was reading the titles now. None of
them caught his attention. He used to read meaningless books where titles were titles just because the words or sentences that made them didn’t fit in in hundreds of words and sentences and pages. He felt just
like those restless still titles.
“We have two new members today! Blake Sylv and and Derek Rass!”
Derek nodded when he heard his name. Derek
was coming undone, or, to be fussy, he was going through a life of coming
undone. The last thing he needed or wanted was to go into fake therapy with
strangers who were now talking about their issues like if a competition was
going on and the winner was the one who had one too many problems to share and
the prize were pills.
“Can’t I just have the pills?” Derek asked
the counsellor.
The woman next to him giggled. She was
creepy. She was wearing a black hat and a black scarf, while hugging a bag. Was
she hiding herself?
Derek was
lacking self-identity especially since he had troubles with his wife. He
accused her of literally breaking his heart, like dynamite in a building: “I
didn’t meant literally when I asked you to stab your kiss right through my
chest, twenty years ago!”
Derek had
started therapy because like Blake he had no choice: he went to a police
station because he wanted to report his wife, but found out that his wife was
very much a fantasy that came to life through paintings. Derek was an artist
and he could paint very well, but he did not know where the edge of art ended
and, consequentially, where reality began.
Truth was that
he failed to become a cartoonist and this totally affected him, for ever,
apparently. He did not know what to do
with himself, life was a dream long gone and what was left of that a journey
through the self, derailing into reality.
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