The feeling is strange; quite familiar yet too strange. I never know how to define it. I want to smile, laugh along with everyone but something in me grabs my heart tight, crushes it to pieces. The brightness inside of me is gulped by something dark. No, I would be wrong to say it is dark - it is an emptiness, a void.
I’ve always been a loner. I’m the guy who’d always sit in the back so that he doesn’t have to interact with anyone. But that wasn't the only reason. If you sit in the back, you can observe the whole class. And I love that, reading their body language, trying to understand what they’re saying without uttering a single word.
I know everything. I know about the people who bring lunch from home, I know who are the bullies of the class, I know who are the most popular ones and who are the least.
Ayan is one of the popular ones. He’s a star of the school football team. Everyone’s in love with him, especially the girls. I never talked to him. I never needed to actually. Although he wouldn’t talk to me even if I wanted to, I’m sure he doesn’t have time for people like us.
I don’t miss a thing, not even a slight change in someone’s behaviour. Maybe that’s why I was the only one to notice it in his eyes. Sadness. Something was bothering him a lot. I recognized it so easily because I see it every day. In the mirror, when I look into my own eyes. Unlike other days, I felt an urge to talk to him.
“Hey, Ayan! Wait a second”, I shouted, as he was walking down the stairs.
“Excuse me! Do I know you?”, Ayan asked, with his eyebrows raised.
“We’re in the same class!”, I tried to put on a friendly smile.
“Oh, I’m sorry! I probably didn’t notice you.”, he looked puzzled.
“It’s alright! I’m not really noticeable.”
I paused for a moment and asked, “Is something bothering you?”
“What? I don’t understand.....”, he mumbled.
“I can tell, trust me, I don’t know how, but I can.”
I was starting to sound desperate. But I was trying hard not to.
“No, I’m fine”, he said quickly.
And then, he prepared to leave.
“Look, You don’t know me, man! I can be very persuasive. I’d keep asking you this every single day until we graduate!”
I must’ve sounded like a maniac, but at that point, I couldn’t care less about how I was sounding. I just had to know. And I just had to help him.
I don’t know why it’s so important for me to help out everyone through their depression, but it just is. Maybe it’s because no one ever does it for me.
He looked at me, startled. As if he couldn’t believe what I had just said. And then, maybe just to get rid of me, he said,
“Okay, fine! If it’s really that important for you to know. Mr Alam told me that I’d be left off this year because I’m gonna fail at Maths!”
He seemed really embarrassed. He didn’t even look at me once while saying it. He was looking away the whole time.
“That it!” I let out a sigh, “I can help you with that, I’m pretty good at it”
“Really? And exactly why would you do that?”, he seemed confused.
“Just helping out a friend in need”, I smiled. Although in my head I knew that he wasn’t or was never gonna be my friend. After all of this is over, he’s just gonna be someone I know, like every other person I’ve helped before.
“Do you want me to come by your house or do you want to come by mine?”, I asked.
“Come by my house I guess”, he tried to smile at me out of courtesy.
“Okay then! I’ll call you, Give me your number.”
I was at the public library. I’d come by every afternoon and spend as much time as I can. I’ve always loved reading, reading and silence, and this place offers both of them. So while I’m here, I’m never bored, I enjoy every moment of it, and experience silence as a sort of stillness of heart and mind. But most importantly, whenever I’m here, I don’t feel lonely at all.
It was another usual day at the library until I heard someone crying in the aisle between history and fantasy sections. A girl, around my age, crying relentlessly.
“Is everything alright?”, I asked.
“Yes, yes!”, she seemed embarrassed.
She made a futile attempt at hiding her tears.
“Come on! Tell me. Lemme help you.”, I tried sounding as polite as possible.
“Why would I tell you anything? I don’t even know you!”, she mumbled.
“Because I’m a complete stranger! So, I can’t tell any of your friends about this. Plus, You don’t care about what I think, so it’s definitely not embarrassing at all”, I tried to assure her.
“Don’t worry! Your secret will be safe with me. Just talk to me. It won’t do you any harm. It’ll only make you feel better. Trust me!”
She looked right at me as if she was trying to see through me. And after staring for a while, she seemed a little bit convinced.
“He broke up with me. My boyfriend. Now, why would he do that? Is there something wrong with me? There has to be”, she broke into tears again.
I sat down beside her.
“Okay stop! Now tell me everything from the beginning”, I told her.
I sat there for an hour. It was a hard one, I’ll admit. But finally, I made her feel a little bit better. She smiled a little.
“You’ll be fine! By the way, I gotta go home now.”, I told her.
“Okay! But I don’t even know your name”, she told me as I was leaving.
I looked back at her and smiled.
“You don’t need to.”
If it’s not clear already, I’m good at making people feel better. What’s my secret? I have a lot of practice on myself. Every single day I’d wake up and stand in front of the mirror. And I’d say to myself, “You’re good enough! Everything’s fine! You don’t have to kill yourself!”. And to be honest, I kind of believe myself. Well, me being still alive proves it, right?
“You’re here, dude! I got you all the stuff you asked for.”, says Wolf.
He goes by the name, Gray Wolf. It’s not his real name, obviously. I don’t know his real name. I never asked. Although, he wouldn’t have told me his real name even if I had asked. He doesn’t talk much.
He gives me the stuff I ask for and leaves. Well, most of the days. Some days, he’d stick around. We’d get high together. And sometimes when the LSD is in full effect, he’d start talking. He’d ask me questions, like if I’m ever happy. I’d say yes, sometimes. When I’m hallucinating. I do hallucinate about things that are not amusing. Like I’d look up and see a corpse hanging by a noose from the lamp. But sometimes I hallucinate about wonderful things. Like everything around me would start swirling around slowly. And then I’d start feeling as light as a feather. I’d start floating and I wouldn’t stop until I reach the clouds. I’d feel....free. And for that brief amount of time, I’m happy.