"I feel like crying," he says to himself, "but I don't even feel that I know how to." The room sat empty and silent - the way it does in those horror movies to build tension, but this was not a horror movie. No, it was simply the world around him caving in.
The reflection of his face in the mirror just worked to amplify the vast array of emotions he felt, but also felt he had no adequate means of expressing. The depression hung in the air as thick as the thickest fog. Of course, no one else could see or feel it. The weight of it all was making it impossible for him to remove himself from the bed he found himself becoming a part of.
"I feel like crying," he repeated to himself aloud. To hear a voice felt almost comforting, and perhaps it would have been had it not been that of his own.
"Cry."
His eyes scan the mirror for anything behind him. His eyes, then, scan the room in front of him. All this happens without so much of a movement of his head, which is not becoming quite obvious that it cannot be moved. The weight of depression hangs so heavy that his entire body has now become paralyzed.
"What is the matter? Have you created such a perplexing concept within yourself that you've created paralysis?"
The paralysis was so deep that he couldn't even move his mouth to speak, but he knew that it couldn't possibly be the case. He knew that whatever force was creating this panic inducing paralysis had to be the doing of whoever held this voice. He knew that it was beyond his control, for if it were well within his control then he would have dropped the suffering by now.
For a mere moment a thought popped into his head - I could break free if I could just shed a tear. The thought vanished in a firm realization of how preposterous the concept was.
"Stop punishing yourself for the life in which you lead, for you are the one in control of the path you walk. Of course, you may not be in control of all your circumstances, but you are in control of how you handle them."
Flashes of his life flow in and out of his mind - the one night stands with women he deemed crazy, realizing that he simply didn't understand them well enough to consider them anything other than crazy. The absurdity of carrying jobs that rendered nothing more than a desire for a swift death and the ability to pay bills. A flash of a childhood in which he desired, so much, to have an ever growing hole inside his ever growing complex personality filled with something substantial, and only finding existentialism as a companion. Religion popped into his head, and how reading holy books is what ultimately led him astray from it. Crushes on girls that led him to feeling rejected before he ever even initiated anything.
All the thoughts growing, tangling, and evolving into a thought of feeling wholly inadequate.
"You see, there it is. The root of your problems is coming to you. Now. What do these things have in common?"
It took a few moments. He always knew his strengths. He always knew his weaknesses. He had even grown very adept at understanding why he felt the way he did when he felt any way at all. He had, however, never found a means to guide his own life in a direction that he wanted.
His lips moved slightly and let out a squeak in attempt at making a noise.
"Correct. You are correct."
The words led to a bit of confusion as it had now dawned on him that the voice sounded quite familiar, and while realizing whose voice it was he began to shed a tear.
Yes, yes... the voice was that of his own, and as his eyes opened, waking from sleep in the middle of the night, he realized that he was crying. It wasn't many tears, not a river by any means, but it was consistent. It was a silent cry, a cry that no one knew, not even his wife laying beside him, but it was a cry that lifted the weight of depression an incremental amount.
First step, he thought to himself. Now... now comes the hard part.
-Dustin S. Stover
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