“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they’ve all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. “ – The Sandman
I set in front of the PC, randomly surfing sites, absorbing useless bits of information.
A cold air brushed my face, sending shivers down my spine. The familiar figure set down beside me.
“Hello there, it’s been a long time.”
I sighed and nodded my head.
“Did you miss me?”
I sighed again and answered, “Not really no. I don’t think anyone will miss you, Despair.”
Despair grinned, “As a matter of fact, some do.”
“Well I don’t. So please leave.”
“You know that I don’t actually leave. I am always here beside you, hiding in the background, or in nights like this, I appear from the shadows when you miss me.”
“I said before, I do not miss you.”
“Oh yes you do. Every time you miss me, I will appear. Your thoughts of me give me the power to appear from the shadows, to become real, to sit beside you. You can deny all you want, but I know you know, because I am in your heart. I know how you feel.”
I sat in silence. The familiar dull throbbing pain in the heart is back again.
“Painful isn’t it?”
There was no point denying that. The pain was causing tears to well up in my eyes.
“The scars in your heart are more evident tonight. I can see it.”
I nodded. I sighed again. “The scars in my heart, they don’t heal. The pain is always there, and I have since learnt to endure it, ignore it. “
Despair chuckled, “But on nights like this, the pain resurfaces. And it is just too painful for you to ignore it. Which is why I am here now.”
I kept quiet.
Despair chuckled again, “And tonight, there is someone else here.”
I turned my head and realised Regret had just shown up.
Regret said in a sad voice, “I was beginning to think you had forgotten me.”
Obviously I didn’t. The pain in my heart started to pierce through my heart. The pain was becoming more unbearable. And then as if the room was not crowded enough, the familiar feeling of heaviness on my shoulders appeared.
Sadness sat there looking at me silently, watching as the tears in my eyes rushed down my cheeks.
The scars I had, they don’t go away. Every major or minor setback episode leaves a permanent scar in me, one that never heals. I can learn to ignore the pain, I can strengthen myself to endure it, but it will never leave, it is always there.
And because the scars are within me, only me, and no one else, can learn to ignore it, endure it. They are mine, and mine only. Only I can deal with the internal demons that comes with it. On nights like this when I let my guard down, my internal demons run free, the scars become more evident, the pain becomes more unbearable.
Despair, Regret and Sadness looked at me as if they understood. Then they crept closer.
I sighed again one more time. It was going to be a long night.
