Category : Stories

Sub Category : YoungAdult

He has been in this existence of his for many months now, whittling away at the shape of his mind trying to find a pocket of motivation for the unmotivated soul. He smiles when the smile is beckoned; when he feels the love from those that love him, or when he hears a punchline that draws out the laughter in him. He dare not ignore their efforts. Maybe they know where he is in his mind the way he looks at his anxious hands. Maybe they know what he doesn’t see when they see his wandering eyes void of the colour brown in all but his iris. Maybe they know what he dreams of when they listen to him sleep, deep and moving only a little. Or maybe they don’t know at all.
He has waited for the sun to rise before he goes to sleep one too many times. He doesn’t know why he does this. It could be that he wants to make sure the world turns even though for him life stands still. It could be that he wants to watch the world breathe in slumber before he succumbs to it, to know that there’s no fear in the embrace of sleep. Whatever the reason, there he is, sitting before the dimly lit screen under a warm, dull light, trying to weave together his thoughts the way he promised himself he would. He thought he had found himself in the passion that chose him but he keeps losing the flame, that torch, that flickering light. He keeps sitting down and turning around rather than walking the entire way.
He has thought of the many possibilities life could have been if it had not been this. Failing at most of his responsibilities has left him feeling hollow, destitute in terms of self-worth, unable to comprehend what the morrow might bring. He can’t seem to meet the meagre expectations he feels others hold of him. He can’t seem to breathe fast enough to catch his breath at the end of each endeavour. He can’t seem to swim far enough to reach the lands of hope and opportunities that call out to him, that command him to come, to begin and to endure. He can’t seem to be enough. 
He has lost more things, more people than his younger self once thought he ever would. Truth be told, he was not always careless, yet when it mattered, he can’t help but think he should have cared more. When they waved him goodbye, he should have told them to stay. When he handed in his papers, he should have read through them a third time. When he crossed the road, he should have looked both ways twice. Funnily enough, crossing the road has been his only achievement in lieu of everything else he seemed to think was life and death. The roads he had paved now lay overturned, impassable to his greatest efforts, but most of the time, it was he who broke the road in the first place.
He had realised these confessions are not his. These are snatches of what the voices keep telling him, the same voices that superimpose upon each other, each becoming louder the more they scream. 
He closed his ears yet they do not quieten. He closed his thoughts yet they do not waver. He closed his heart yet they do not stop their hate. He has wondered who’s voices these were that would tell him to look away when he saw himself in the mirror, the same voices that would make his favourite song sound like a eulogy. These were the voices that drowned out the gentle cuddles of his loving cat, covering him in a blanket of self-deprecation that kept him snugly cold. These were the voices in his head.
And by definition, the voices only get louder.
He is tired of the deafening sounds. He is tired of sitting on the street corners of his mind, watching his time slip away. His time, his time to be him, his time to be alive, slipping away like sand in an hourglass. He is tired of the waves of self-loathing that erodes every little success he had held dear, everything he thought meant the world to him yet were merely castles of glass upon pillars of sand. He is tired of digging canals in the soft soils of his memory, trying to bring to the fore an image or two that could possibly save him. He is tired of depending on the unaccountable echoes of his own opinions of himself. He is tired of these opinions because honestly, he can’t be all that bad now, can he...?
He is opening his eyes and staring across the table only to see himself staring back. Is it really him....? Or is it only a reflection of this psyche that struggles and beats at the walls of self-imposed limitations? He watches the light shadows shift and fight, the voices getting louder as he knows he can push past the seams and break through. He watches as each layer of his soul, his mind, his self, is stripped away, layers of impatience, frustration, loneliness and envy. Finally, he watches the spectre that was him watching him, waiting for him to remove the final layer, that one shell where the voices resided and echoed and screamed and reverberated. He knows this layer, he knows it well, a net in the disguise of a shield. 
“I don’t doubt myself anymore.”
And by determination, the voices died down.
For him to push through the bleakness and see the light required him to not stop, never stop trying. For him to subdue the beast that was his depression demanded that he did not hesitate, he did not waver. For him to reach this determination had forced him to watch the sun rise again. For him to accept himself for all his failures allowed him to see the side of him that had made it into the forty-second year of his life. For him to believe in his abilities again taught him the many things about himself he had once taken for granted. For him to smile again made him remember the one woman who had truly loved him unconditionally and the reflection in her eyes as she told him he meant the world to her.
For him, this was only a beginning. Let the voices of support ring in his ears, his heart, and his soul. Let them superimpose. By definition, the voices will get louder.