The sun shone
over the hills, and the dawn broke over the city of Oslo. It is another day in
paradise, or so they say.
"Wake up,
Maddie, wake up!" she told herself, but to no avail. The alarm kept
buzzing and buzzing, but her body refused to hear. Her legs went straight into
numbness while the muscles cramped, and the migraines filled her head.
"You have to get up," she said to herself again, but the bed felt like a boat sailing over stormy water.
She grew up in
a case of fragile glass, and nothing could hammer it away. The disease was
getting worse, so it seemed. Engulfed in a triangle of pain, depression, and
loneliness, there was nothing a cocktail of pills couldn't solve.
"You must
do it," she said and somehow got up, with her frail posture supported only
by a cane. A shot of tramadol, another shot of espresso, a bite of dark
chocolate, and a hot bath were enough to forget the existential depression.
The Ph.D. looks closer than ever, so maybe that was enough to cheer her up; soon, a new checkmark will be added to the list. And yet, she's never been so fragile.
It's been 5
years and 40 days. Love never seemed so far.
Just one
checkmark was missing; "Somebody to love, just for one day," she
wrote back then.
It was a frosty
afternoon, and pain-ridden Maddie was in no mood when another alarm buzzed.
Should she even
go? No one will ever love her, she was sure. If so, what's the meaning of
going? Memories of shattered glass floated. Her imagination flew to another
land, another time, and she dreamt about the hope that no longer existed.
There was only
one way to make this go away, musing about trips around the world as if nothing
else mattered. At least there was one meaning to life, she was thinking.
They went to
the local cinematheque together. Today marked the grand opening of the Mexican
film festival. "After you", he said, and she led them to the place
she felt the most comfortable in - the cinema, in which they presented all
these depressive, neo-realistic features about life itself. There were no superheroes or larger-than-life characters there, just sad stories, with a film noir-esque lighting. It was so fitting.
"May I say
something?", he said when the film was over. "Huh?"; "You
are quite fond of misery, aren't you? seems like you dive into that existential
depression, and you don't let go. On your first date for goodness knows how
long, you pick a boring depressive realistic film"?
What a buffoon,
she thought to herself. It would have been better to stay home and daydream
about foreign lands.
"You know,
you remind me of Midori-Chan", he said, and Maddie's face turned red.
"The old Japanese woman from that film. A sick woman, dreaming about traveling the world, just to escape her own
predicament".
Poor Maddie was
quite reserved, but this travesty was enough to make her angry enough to slap
him. "I still think that you're very cute though," he said, and
Maddie sighed. She highly disliked him, but he did get something right about
her. When was the last time someone told her she was cute?
They kissed,
and she was happy at least one loop of misery had ended.
Another night
goes down in Oslo. Another checkmark was added to the list, making Maddie feel
a bit less miserable, dreaming about traveling the world, a love that wasn't
there, and a heartbreak that never left.
Swallowing
another clonazepam and tramadol, she realized the sad sentiment will always
stay.
