Dark Horse Arts and Sciences

As I have grown older and older, I have tended to have a likeness for loneliness. On any given day, you leave me all alone, that will be the best day of my life. Sometimes, what I want is complete absence of human beings. Presence of human beings annoy me, they seem a burden to me now. I just want to be left all alone. Reading novels along with sipping my coffee, with a bit of slow, soothing music enveloping the vicinity, that’s what I exactly want at this old age of mine. I have been lonely my whole life. But I have rarely got bored with it. Monotony is something that has a complete different meaning in my dictionary. However, I find myself bored amidst a crowd of people, all chattering away nonsensical stuff that doesn’t have to do anything with me. I would try to escape from that monotonous meeting and just go to my room and lie on my bed, reading or writing. Furthermore, I love reading sad stuff, writings filled with a sense of melancholic, bleak undertone. Somehow, I find joy in reading sad stuff. I feel like at least there is someone as lonely as I am in this world; someone who shares the same emotions and experiences inside; someone who has embraced loneliness with open arms, although it doesn’t imply that I am a melancholic person or someone who is utterly depressed. 

Sadness and depression are a whole lot different. Sadness may exist within you for a few hours or days, but depression remains. It stays there, within your self-convoluted soul that is now defeated. Depression kills you from inside, gradually converting you into a hollow, empty shell with nothing but self-hatred. People feel depressed when they are alone for a longer period of time. They feel disoriented, disillusioned for being alone, friendless. Even I went through a serious rough patch last year during the corona crisis. But I have to admit, during those times only, I began to appreciate how powerful loneliness can be. How it can move your inner self through something that we don’t usually foresee. Loneliness is not always being sad and sitting in a room. It can be more than that. It can be a cliché, but you only find your true self when you are all alone. You start discovering new stuff about you. 

Now that I am old and dying, I have started to realize how those all the time I spent in utter self-isolation were the most beautiful periods of time for me. They always induced a sense of profound serenity within me, the kind of peacefulness you find at the dawn, just before the sunrise. 

I was married for a fruitful 21 years. My wife was the most elegant and beautiful woman I had ever seen. We had a really strong bonding. Our marriage was a smooth one. Yeah, there was that occasional argument, after which we wouldn’t talk for a whole day, but things settled down smoothly each time. She always tried her best to make me happy, whichever way she liked. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t give her the most beautiful thing a man can bestow upon his woman, a child. I couldn’t give her a child, which indeed, is my most regrettable thing in my whole life. We tried a lot, but it just didn’t occur. When we went to see our physician, he said it was me who couldn’t conceive a child. It was utterly devastating and resentful. I couldn’t match my eyes with hers for days to come. I felt so embarrassed and depressed that I didn’t get out of the house for a month or so. 

After that, we didn’t even perform intercourse any more. I lost complete interest in everything. 

Despite the fact that she was extremely beautiful, she didn’t turn me on any more. I wouldn’t get sexually excited seeing her naked body any more. That desire of lust had vanished somewhere, like water vapour. Even her elegant curvy breasts couldn’t do their magic on me. However, I would get angry and irritated very easily on very silly topics. Not only that, but I would scold her unnecessarily. Sometimes, I even beat her. I once beat her with my leather belt for not putting salt in salad. Gradually, I became a depleted man, devoid of any emotion for anyone, not even for my dear wife. She was there, but somewhere inside, I had lost all feelings for her. And slowly and steadily, I became an old man, with no one to look after. I kept lying on my bed for days and nights, with food being served by a servant just at lunch and dinner hours. That was it. Besides that, nobody would visit me, if there was anyone in the first place. Gradually, I got accustomed to the aura of utter loneliness. The inner self inside me got acquainted with the social abandonment and isolation. 

During those horrid lonely times only, that I discovered a beautiful thing called reading. I would call that servant of mine, and give him some money to buy any book he wanted from the shop and give me. And I would read almost all day. Despite being old and wrinkled, I still possessed a decent eyesight. So, I didn’t need any spectacles. 

I read as much as I wanted during that period. Mostly, I read lots of Japanese authors. Natsume Soseki, Kobe Abe, Akurakawa, Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami; these were the authors that I loved to read. Somehow, I would find myself in their novels. Lonely, deprived of friends, hungry for love. 

So, here I am, left all alone with my withered body and defeated soul, waiting for death, my final destination, to arrive and just take me away somewhere, far from this harsh, bitter reality; rescue me from this unbearable loneliness; liberate me from this deep, cold ocean of melancholy and desolation called life.