He stares blankly at his coffee, wondering how long he’s been sitting, cup in hand. The last sip must have been hot. He can still feel the blister on the tip of his tongue.
A dark sadness hangs on his face like a Picasso. He hates the look.
“Definitely his blue period,” he muses, half smirking at his reflection in the dining room mirror.
He mostly avoids reflective surfaces. Feeling depressed is terrible enough; he doesn’t need to see it. He doesn’t need to be reminded of it.
His cat circles impatiently, rubbing against his calf. “Time to eat,” he purrs. . . . “Snap out of it!” he meows.
On days like today, he’s grateful for his cat. The cat’s well-timed reminders keep the man from the doorknob and belt and the dark thoughts that tie everything together.
He whispers, “My demise will have to wait; there’s a cat to feed and a litterbox to clean.”
His apartment is a shambles. It mirrors the cluttered chaos in his head. Based on experience, he knows a good house cleaning will lift his spirits.
He often wonders how feng shui works its magic on the mind. “I’ll have to google that,” he says toward his full-bellied cat, who bathes contently in a patch of sun on the kitchen floor.
The sink is full. There’s half-eaten food caked on dishes, the remnants of last week’s menu. Why not just clean up after each meal? Especially knowing that cleanliness and order help quell his anxiety.
“Why do I let things pile up?
What keeps me from staying on top of things?
Will I ever grow out of this?
That last question knocks around the inside of his skull like an unselected lottery ping-pong ball.
Will I ever grow out of this?
Of course, he didn’t know the answer to that question. He remembers a bright era of pre-affliction, which gives him hope. He thinks, “If I magically went from being happy to depressed, why can’t I miraculously go from depressed to happy?”
Unfortunately, there’s a history – a consistent footprint on the ladder of his family’s DNA. He’s been branded in a sense, and sometimes that feels so fatalistic he simply wants to give up.
But he doesn’t.
He continues to clean.
bendingtheneedle 