Short Stories and Oneshots

Melancholy

It's late.

You know that it's late. You can see, perfectly clearly, that little '12:21 AM' at the bottom of your screen.

You're tired. You haven't slept much this week, and you had to get up too early yesterday. Your eyes are heavy, and your head feels full of fog.

So, why? Why are you still awake, when the rest of the house is quiet, when you know you should be catching up on the rest you've missed? Why are you doing what you know will only cause you harm?

You don't know.

You are not writing. You are not drawing. You are not reading. You are not even tinkering around on Minecraft.

You are simply sitting, with music playing faintly in your ears and your head far too full of far too many thoughts.

You wish you could be better.

This is stupid, you already know. Better how? At what? You cannot just wish for those things, you know this. You have to try.

But you do try. You try so hard, and it's never enough.

Maybe it will be enough someday, you think sometimes. See, that thought would be fine if it weren't for the 'maybe' and the 'someday'. Those do not help you. They do not ease your feelings.

You wish you could do something with this emotion, this heavy, dragging emotion that fills your head and suffocates you. You wish you could do some kind of interesting vent art, or channel this into a dark part of a story.

But you don't have the energy.

Is this because of how you feel, or is it because of your tiredness?

You don't know.

There's so, so many things you don't know. Your life is simply full of uncertainties and the insecurities that stem from those. You want to know. You want to know so badly that it hurts. But you don't.

You rub your fingers against your eyes. You feel so fragile, like an old paper doll soon to fold and tear. You should sleep.

But you don't. You are still bleakly awake, your lamp still switched stubbornly on. What are you doing? What are you trying to prove?

Absent-mindedly, you run your fingers down your arm, feeling the raised marks of the scars. Some of them are thin white lines. Others are fat pink marks.

None of them are new. You do not need a knife to inflict damage. You are hurting enough already.

The song changes. You do not have the music up loud; or maybe you do and your thoughts are just drowning it out. Though, the funny thing is, you get so deep inside your own head that when you finally resurface, you can never remember what you were thinking about. Like a dream- right on the tips of your fingers, but still unreachable.

You wonder if this is normal, if it happens to other people. If anyone else gets so wrapped up in their own thoughts that everything else vanishes.

You wish you could talk to the girl you like about this. She's so easy to talk to- that's part of the reason you like her. She understands things, things relating to ideas and words and other writing-related topics. You do not stammer as much around her, when it's just the two of you talking about your thought processes instead of writing the script you're supposed to be working on.

But you do not want to admit how weak you can be, how susceptible to your own thoughts you are. And by the time you see her again, at the beginning of the next week, you will have forgotten all about this.

You suddenly suck in a deep gulp of air. It happened again- you were so deep down that you forgot to breathe.

There's no air down there, in that horribly fascinating abyss of your brain.

You straighten up slowly. Your back aches, but not that bad. You know you should sleep. You know you should let your body rest. After all, this is no fault of your physical self. Your body is a disappointment, but it is not to blame. It is not only a bother because of the small frame and pale skin it insists on retaining, but the fact that it needs to be managed at all. You do not like having no choice but to eat or sleep.

But you don't sleep. You let the minutes tick by, sitting, thinking, waiting. Waiting for what, though?

An answer, perhaps. You have so many queries, and no answers for any of them. It would be easier, maybe, if you knew how to even ask the questions.

But you don't. You don't, you don't, you don't. You don't do anything.

It's edging closer to 1AM. You are aware of this, but you do not know how it happened. How can time pass so quickly when there's nothing going on?

Your stomach feels heavy. This may be because you haven't eaten anything substantial in a while, though you think it's because of that unnamed feeling that exists only to drag you down.

It's not guilt. It's not shame. It's not disappointment. It's not sadness. It's not frustration. It's some heavy, dark, mixture of all of them.

It is a feeling that does not have a clear name, because those who experience it fear it too much to give it a title. You certainly do.

You instinctively shy away from this idea. Somehow, this is what finally stirs you into action. Small, weary, unsure motions, but motion nonetheless.

You remove the things from your bed: two books, a pair of purple earbuds attached to the more broken of your two Kindles, your sketchbook, and your immensely heavy messenger bag that feels incredibly light compared to the weight of your heart.

You peel your headphones off, run your fingers through your hair. You know you are being neglectful yet again, but you do not have the energy to brush your teeth. It's incredible that you even have the motivation to tug off your bra and replace it with a more comfortable shirt.

The quiet is so unbearably heavy. You dislike noise, but silence can be just as bad at times. You did not notice when you had your music going, but now the soundlessness presses down on you like a bag of cement tossed over your shoulders.

It is 12:55. You have been sitting here, doing nothing, for almost an hour. You should be ashamed of this, and you know it. But you are numb, unfeeling to anything other than that heavy, dead feeling that poisons you when you try to move.

The light goes off. You're only vaguely aware of your own hand reaching up to switch it off, but you must've. You lay in a ball, your arms and legs tucked up against your body as though you're afraid something will leach out of you should you truly relax. Something like your humanity, or the scraps of sanity and emotion you have left.

Your brain flickers one last time, before giving into equally bland and heavy dreams.

Melancholy. That's the word.