Misery

He sat at the edge of his chair, feeling his limbs go leaden as he put down the phone. His worst fear has been confirmed. Once again he was denied admission to the program he was applying to.

He dared not breath for fear that his heart might explode from the agony he’s trying to conceal. Surprisingly he seemed to get by, even without breathing. He dared not make any abrupt movement to hold back the tears looming behind his eyes. They’ve been threatening to come out any moment, but he wouldn’t let them.

“Not here, not now”, he said.

He tried to think of somebody to call, not to talk to, just to feel somebody at the end of the line; to feel a living, breathing, presence other than his own. But there’s no one.

Even in the winter of his loneliness he was alone; as in most events in his life– he was alone.

Colleagues from other departments pass along his cubicle from time to time but they never noticed him, not even today, when his actions seem more erratic and suspended. As if he was a part of the furniture.

He’s never had any problems with isolation. In fact, he welcomes his solitude. But there are days when he get lonely too. And today, as in certain days of his life, he felt monumentally alone and lonely.

What happens when a fish suddenly becomes allergic to water?

What happens when a solitary man becomes estranged from his solitude?

This is no unfamiliar territory; he’s been here before. He knows that after a good night’s sleep he will once again welcome the familiar silence he wraps himself with. He knows that the pauses before sweet slumber are the most difficult of times. Those hours that resonate with despair, those minutes that are plagued with hopelessness.

He thrashed around in his thoughts, like a fingerling that’s suddenly thrust out of the water, out of breath, life draining as fast as alcohol evaporating under the sun.

He wanted to reach out to somebody, to anybody—instead he lowered his head as a sea of tears, the same liquid that’s been threatening to burst the dam he hastily created came flooding like the torrential monsoon rain after an elongated summer.

He felt the first teardrop as it rolled down his cheek, the briny liquid tracing the contour of his lips, followed by another, then another.

He was a proud man and he cried tears that only a grown man can cry. He bowed his head and averted his face from a world that never looks his way.

In that instant, he embodied the sadness, and the despair of a solitary man crying for his loneliness.