The Darkness

The darkness had taken her place. There had been a moment, a fragile instant, when the light, which once slipped through her hair like a caress, had retreated. She had given all her light to him. Everything. Every breath, every heartbeat, every fragment of herself. And yet, he had never understood the magnitude of her gift. She believed that loving him meant emptying herself, that love was a promise of dissolution, of merging. But he had never merged with her. He remained a shadow, an idea that never took form, like a dream that fades the moment you try to grasp it.

The door that closed behind him made no sound. It was only a silence that opened up like a chasm. And she stayed there, in the middle of the void that stretched out before her. She had never asked to be loved, but she had never imagined that one day she would become invisible. There were no words, no explanations. He had left, but she did not move. Her mind, like a ruined film, stayed there, repeating the same frame, the same scene, the same distant look he had given her. That moment, the last one, had never been a goodbye. A goodbye is a gesture. There, there wasn’t even a gesture.

The next day was like the day before, and the day before like the day after. Every breath, every step, every moment liquefied into an expanse of monotony that no longer held any meaning. The lights that came through the window were filters of a broken dream. They no longer illuminated her, but crushed her, entering her and making her wither. The room had become cramped, the walls closing in, yet the house seemed too large, too distant from her body. Her skin, deprived of any contact, had stopped feeling the world.

The people outside didn’t know. They walked, ran, laughed. She saw them pass like a silent movie. A movie that didn’t concern her, that didn’t speak to her, that didn’t touch her. They were shadows dancing in the wind, and she, there, motionless, was becoming more and more a shadow of herself. The voices of those bodies crossing paths did nothing but break the silence that had now become flesh, but none of those voices reached her. Nothing could break the wall she had built inside. Not even memories, by now, could touch her.

The phone rang once. Her hand, like a dead weight, remained still. She didn’t answer. What was there to answer? The calls were just distant sounds, noises that no longer meant anything. Every sound that entered the room struck her like a sword, but there was no pain. Only a cold indifference that now inhabited her body. Her skin, more distant than before, was no longer flesh. It was dust, dust that didn’t even accumulate.

Every corner of the house had a growing shadow. The furniture, once loved, was now just clutter, objects that no longer had a defined shape, but existed only to exist. An empty table, an armless chair, the curtain that barely moved. The outside world, once vibrant with colors, was now just a gray mist that permeated the streets. Even the light, coming from outside, no longer reflected in her eyes. It lost itself before it could reach her. And so time stretched, lost like a thin thread in a black hole.

The coffee had no taste anymore, her tired body had become a cave. Her heart, at some point, had stopped beating. There was no pain, no pain because pain no longer made sense. The life outside slid over her. A life that no longer concerned her. She no longer felt part of anything. She no longer felt part of anything.

Every morning, the window slowly opened, but she didn’t see. The slits of light no longer woke her. No ray of sunlight reached her. And yet, she was there. She existed, but her existence made no sound, raised no questions. Like a leaf that has never had roots, but continues to float in the air, carried by a wind that doesn’t know where to take it.

Her mind was her only boundary, and that boundary had now become a prison. She had become the guardian of a world that no longer existed. The door was in front of her, but crossing it would have meant seeking him, and he was no longer there. He didn’t want to be sought. There was nothing more to be done, because nothing had ever really begun.

P.S.: Depression, as often happens, can also stem from a loss of curiosity about life. When we stop looking at the world with curious eyes, when the shades of life seem to fade, we find ourselves trapped in the dark, just like the protagonist of this story. If you want to dive deeper into the connection between the lack of curiosity and depression, I invite you to read my full article, where I explore how rediscovering that spark of curiosity can become the key to escaping this darkness.

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