(sigh)
Melancholy City. He’s back for another visit.
When he’s in a period of deep melancholy, a period in which he currently finds himself, another wander through the streets of Melancholy City is inevitable. And when he’s there he longs for it all to be over.
He wishes there were no more days. That his fading from people’s memories would begin. That he no longer existed
Have you ever wished it were over? That you were done.
Before you even ask the question, yes, he knows what he’s saying. He knows the above scenario would mean that he was dead. And surprise, there are days he wishes he were.
He longs to stop trying.
He longs for sleep.
When he’s visiting Melancholy City, sleep is a drug. It takes him to Dreamland. And when he’s in Dreamland he doesn’t have to think. Thinking
(overthinking)
is a must in Melancholy City. But while slumbering in the lighter breezes of the pastel void of Dreamland, he is free. Yes, he knows that Dreamland can be vivid with color. He also knows that sometimes it can be alive with technicolor nightmares. But he so often lives in a fantasy world—even in Anytown—that Dreamland is the better respite from his thoughts.
(mostly)
When he’s in a period of deep melancholy, he wallows in self-pity. There’s a lot he doesn’t like about himself, which he can keep at bay most of the time in Anytown. He ignores his feelings, pretends they don’t exist, pushes them so far into the dark corners of his mind that he believes he’s happy.
But when he visits Melancholy City, he can’t keep the negativity in the darkness.
He sees himself as old and ugly, worthless with shallow tendencies that announce themselves like a scent that enters the room before he does. He wears his anger like a pair of shoes and clomps around hoping to frighten people away otherwise he will condescend and judge until they run. His fear has kept him afraid and alone and lonely.
(and insecure)
When he’s visiting Melancholy City his wounds ache, they bleed. While there he longs to be invisible. He wants to go unnoticed. He stays silent. He tries to give no one anything to talk about, no reason to stare. But inevitably, every laugh he hears piercing the thick air as he passes through stabs him with mockery for something, anything, nothing he’s doing.
As he wanders those desolate streets of MC alone, he thinks about his age and his life and sometimes he wishes his retirement were closer.
(another ending)
Before him there are fewer years left to work than the years of working already behind him.
But then he thinks about retiring from life and wonders how much of a relief that would be.
He knows there’s beauty in the world. He sees it most days. There are colors he wants to surround himself with because they breathe life into his day. He knows the sky, when its blue stretches uncluttered for miles, is a miracle. He loves the green shade of baby leaves that trees produce as they burst back to life in spring after a cold dormant winter. He knows the cooing of a dove is somehow calming.
He’s seen the majesty of a sunrise, the glory of a sunset. He’s smelled the sweet floral fragrance of a pink peony, inhaled the creamy scent of sandalwood drifting off his skin. He’s tasted the bitter sweetness of cinnamon in his coffee, the explosion of flavor from a greasy skillet-fried cheeseburger
He’s felt the rough brush of stubble on his face from a man’s chin during a passionate kiss.
This is life.
But when he’s visiting Melancholy City, he mostly feels like he’s just surviving instead of really living.
(a side effect felt in Anytown)
He’s alive but perfunctorily going through the motions; no thought to carry him through a day.
Or, for that matter, through a life.
The idea of dying
(literally being dead)
freaks him out. But when he’s in one of his periods of deep melancholy, the idea of not being feels like relief.
There are too many days he wishes for what he can only assume is its “sweet release.”
But maybe death is merely a metaphor for ending this way in which he sees himself.
