14.10.2025
The night before, he had watched a play. And unexpectedly within the performance, the players had begun talking about heartbreak. It was a complete departure from what had been taking place and an absolute surprise. It was an outpouring of mourning.
He had watched uncomfortably, trying to forget their words as they spoke. He had thought that he had succeeded. That he had diverted his attention.
In other words, he had fooled himself.
Because in the morning, he woke up from a dream of heartbreak. He could see her face, more clearly than in a photograph, the face in life. Someone was telling a story about her. Her face was sad. They were saying that she was to marry someone else.
The mourning was not over. It had been years and he was still mourning her. She was alive and he was mourning her. It was never going to end.
He could not cry. He could not let it out. So his stomach churned with nausea and his thoughts kept on returning to her. His dreams cried for him.
He wanted to be free of her. He wanted his freedom. If he couldn’t have love, could he at least have freedom? He wanted her out of his mind. That mind was his. If she could not be his, she was not wanted in his mind.
Recently a fantasy had begun to take hold. To drink himself to death. It would be so easy, complete oblivion. Like the Indian film ‘Devdas’. Which was surprising. Because he abhorred drinking. But it was just an alteration of the usual fantasies of extinction aroused by his romantic failure. He was going to be haunted by the ghosts of the living dead forever. And there was never going to be any consolation in his life.
diary of a lone man 