This is a partner round, so please go read my lovely partner
sra33 HERE EDIT: This is a fictional story, although I can sympathize with the main character.
The shadows in my room turn darker as I travel down a well-worn path.
I have been here before.
The light sitngs my eyes now, but once I played in it. Those memories are fuzzy now, faded by the dark. Once upon a time I believed in once upon a time, but now I cannot seem to care about it at all. What is the point of dreaming if nothing ever changed?
So I sit in the dark, walk in the shadows, and hide myself from the light that holds too many truths.
Why is it when I have a smile on my face, people believe I am happy? I am not happy, but I am always smiling. I should have so much to live for, to look forward to, but I cannot do it. I look forward and all I see is the possibility of being where I am in my life for the rest of my years.
This thought alone makes me weep.
So if I cannot look to the future, I can only live in the present, and that is even worse. Because I do not care about anything in my life right now. Or I care too much. I cannot decide which. I wish I cared. But I can barely move myself to walk down this path, let alone stand in the sun.
I hear there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I have been in the tunnel for so long, that the shadows of what might have been and what will never be don't even faze me anymore. Anyway, the tunnel is so much easier: it is cool and comforting.
I shiver, but I cannot bring myself to get a blanket. It doesn't matter, I won't need it. Why treat my body any better than I should have to?
The path I walk is worn by my own footsteps.
I have been here before.
The first time I came here, I stood at the edge of the forest, peering in, but turning back before I got lost. That was before, when there seemed to be a reason to turn back, when I wanted more from life. When I lived instead of existed.
Now I know this forest, the branches brushing against my arms, welcoming me back again. I do not fear this place, it is familiar, the silence enveloping me. I always like the silence, because it seems to approve of my apathy. It seems to understand that I do not want to live my life day after day, going through the same motions.
Perhaps it understands that I care that I don't care, that being here is an action, which is more than I can say about anything else in my life.
I have never been past this clearing. I know once I go past it, I cannot turn back. I should turn back, for my family. But the dark has been more of a sister to me with the passing weeks. I feel numb when I think of my blood, feel like nothing can change anyway, so I might as well go with the one thing that has been my comfort.
I step forward.
It isn't so bad here. The moon may be gone, but the quiet of the night makes it feel like something is going to happen. Maybe something horrible, but I know the dark won't let it happen. We stand together and protect each other as sisters should. She will stay with me as long as I want her to.
I should turn back, but I feel so good here, and I have already traveled so far. I cannot bring myself to want to turn back. Is it laziness? Am I being selfish? I do not care, because I am with my sister, and she is guiding me along the path. I am not alone. But I am on unfamiliar ground, and it begins to surround me: the silence, the dark, the cold.
I will not turn back on this path. For once I am making a decision, I am choosing to do something. I will not turn back at all. It's only me here, and the dark. I cannot forget the dark. The dark is cool and quiet and evil and cruel and I cannot see through, but I will not turn back from the sister that has sheltered me. The dark is here, and I want to see what used to be, the dark is too dark, is too dark, why can't I see? She is my sister, the dark, she surrounds me, envelops me, is pushing me along this path I turned onto because I could not be bothered to go anywhere else and I cannot turn back, cannot turn back once I begin, my sister is gone and my hand reaches out and she is there, the dark it guides because I cannot see the dark is my only friend but now I do not know the dark she knows, she knows, the dark it knows, she guides me because if I see I will want to turn back the dark will protect me I have to believe, the dark will protect me from dark things and I will not turn back from its dark path before I cannot I will go on in the dark in my room the pain the pain the pain the dark my foot reaches out the dark is pushing the dark is singing her dark songs to lure me move forward move forward the dark and me and her song makes three the dark the dark how I love the dark and how she loves me the dark is no longer my friend, she is pushing the dark my hand the dark my foot the dark is singing the dark I will not turn back the dark I cannot turn back the dark I will not the dark I must not the dark I don't want the dark my pain the dark my loss the dark in the room oh the dark the dark the dark the dark the dark the dark the dark the dark the dark oh please help me the dark…
I see a face, it isn't clear, except it seems like my own. I am frozen, stuck somewhere between the dark and myself. I look at the face across from mine, and turn around, the return trip slow and painful, and I can feel the energy leaving me…
I stand in a real forest now, leaning my face towards sunlight.
It has been three weeks, and the bandages on my arms catch on my sweater. People stare. I don't care about what they think, because I did what I did for a reason.
I had been treading water for so long, I did not know where to swim. I had lost all interest in swimming at all, if I continue the metaphor. So going to the deep end and sinking was at least an action, I suppose.
My psychiatrist tells me that I was depressed, that apathy was a symptom. I guess. He tells me I have to relearn how to want things in my life, to dream.
The only thing I want is to never be in the dark again. I cannot bring myself to be motivated by anything else except the fear of the pain and the dark and the cold.
But it is a beginning. I should care about other things, but if I care about one thing, then I have one thing to live for. To hold onto in the night when I can see the edge of the path again, and think it might just be okay to walk it again.
I may be indifferent to many things, but my life is no longer one of them.