A Lesson in Loneliness

The house was dark.

Yet it felt more than that.

I stared at the ceiling, time dripping away from my consciousness; my stillness adding aches to my otherwise numb vessel. Tones and shades of gray splashed across my small dwelling, lacking any noticeable sounds of life other than my own insistent breaths. I rolled to my side to sooth the pain swelling in my lower back only to be met with a familiar tinge pinging my shoulder.

“Huh…”

My voice reverberates off the walls, everything else desperately absorbing any utterances of life. I close my eyes as I feel my own voice vibrate into me. For a moment, it felt as if the grays became brighter and the crushing void I lay under relents. I use this momentary motivation to push myself out of bed, stiffness rendering my movements laborious. A grunt turns into a sigh as I stand my complete five foot nine inches and slink my way to the bathroom.

Color bombards my retinas as light hungrily engulfs the dark. I observe the vibrant display of my shower curtain with a listless glare; a reminder of the feeling I could no longer manifest. The morning grog became dull as emptiness returned to fill my bones as I placed my vision into the mirror, my glare seemingly holding him in place. He appeared to be a normal guy, but what was most shocking about looking at him like this was just how similar he looked to me: a long jawline with unkempt facial hair, nose long enough to enter a room long before he did, and hair wild from tossing in his sleep. With a little sprucing up, he might even appear handsome to some.

He could have been my twin, but one thing always stood out to be even more abhorrent than his likeness to me was how naturally his eyes were drenched with hopeless abandonment and loss. Time had shed the novelty of heartbreak from him and what was left became such a natural sadness I wonder if he had ever been happy in all his years. I flash a smile to which he returned with a half-hearted attempt, but there was no spark there; no light left in him. I couldn’t help but choke up as I witnessed tears crawl toward his chin. He notices my reaction and quickly wipes his face.

“At least you’re still going.” I said to him as he whispered the same to me. As soon as I turned the knob on the shower, the warmth of cleansing waters blurred time until I sat in my living room, my mind stuck on the visage of such a sad man. Suddenly, a joyous melody sprang from my phone. The living room shook with excitement; a promise of adventure and companionship as the music filled everything with soothing vibration. Joyous as it was, it did not reach my darkened heart. I picked up the phone and felt the remnant of joyful adventure as if it were being heard underwater — recognizable but too faint to hold on to. I let it play for a while until it stopped ringing. I felt each good vibration ebb away without so much as a trace as the melody faded from my mind. Relief flooded my heart. Numbing pain sat where mourning for melodical death used to be, saving me from reliving loss.

Television dulled my sense of apathy as I tuned into lives fabricated to add vibrancy to our own. Time passed me by until darkness consumed even the world outside. Eventually, even fabricated stories begin to lose its effect as fatigue begins to creep back through my body. I get up, feeling heavy with a cold silence permeating through me. That’s when I remember the medicine bottle left on the kitchen counter. My brain races to remind me of my seizure plagued dog, and the pills that let her sleep easy. Quickly, I remembered my wife would be home soon, and my body began to get lighter. A silent melody sprang into me, freeing me from the encroaching fatigue as I began to reach for the bottle.

Flash!

Lights bloomed from the overhead lamp as I illuminated the living room. Bright light and soft ambiance filled me with motivation — like a switch had been flipped inside of me. It started as a fluttering until it became a bastion of emotion flowing through me. A fire so bright it cast out all shadows from me. This flame burning verve and vigor into this newly brighten world. It was then that I grabbed the seemingly weightless bottle that I remembered:

“She came and picked her up yesterday”, I said aloud as if telling the room what I had forgotten. I stared at the bottle as tones and shades of gray oozed from it, coating everything back into empty stillness. Every vibrant light and explosive, gratifying emotion grown had instantly went back to numbing pain.

I burst into my bathroom, fumbling to flip on the light switch in the pitch blackness until light pummeled into my vision. I stared into his eyes as it receded: hope and happiness, fleeting as it was, glistened in his eyes, until it was gone. He stared back at me, jaw lightly open with furrowing brows as if it were me casting this feeling out, as if I did this to him. His eyes blamed me for everything that caused this.

You destroyed my happiness…

In the seconds before his hopeless gaze returned, his stare blazed with hatred. He hated being me. The flame of life turned into a torrent of regret and shame, and all I could do was stare angrily at my own reflection.

However, something had changed. My world was again swallowed by hopeless despair, and my dwelling lost all sense of livelihood… except for a small seed of brilliance left glistening in my eyes. I frowned as it shined back at me. It was so small yet so warm it lifted some of the empty weight upon my shoulders. Feeling like I could survive — like I could change. Because in the seconds I remembered life from before, I became something more.

I laid down into my bed, the sheets gripping me with their cooling touch before being snuffed out by my comforters warmth, and I feel more alive than I had in days. Time passed day by day, and the void lessened. Now everything had a glint of warmth. I had thought I would feel the overwhelming weight of emptiness for the rest of my life after she left me. I thought all feeling had ceased, and my loneliness had left me cold and dead inside. I felt like I was dead. Life has a will of its own, though. And if a spark can come from something as fleeting as a memory, it will come back if I choose to nurture it — if I choose to nurture myself.

The house was still dark.

Yet it was somehow brighter now.