nightdream

life of pi spoilers ahead

last night i was sad. i felt it coming on early in the day – that feeling that everything is wrong, that any other perspective is nothing but an illusion. i'm defective, i thought, not for the first time, the world is defective, everything tilts toward sadness.

but no, i said. i'm sad because i'm sad, and it doesn't mean anything. tomorrow may be different. five minutes from now may be different.

today is different. not happy, not sad. i've had moments of each, but yesterday, all that – i see now it was about the life of pi, about the hyena killing the zebra, tearing open its belly and eating its guts. it was about the hyena beheading orange juice, the orangutan that had been rescued as an infant and raised together with pi like a sibling. it was about pi stranded on that boat, terrorized by the hyena and the tiger, and about feeling sorry for them all – for pi and especially for the animals, who never asked to be put on the ship, who weren't willingly moving to their new zoo homes, who were stranded together in a 26-foot lifeboat when that ship sank.

i know it's just a story. it's all just a story. you, me, the whole thing.

yesterday i was sad. really sad. the kind of sad that wants to sink into despair. i was sad because i was sad. and it didn't mean anything.

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I was going through some 30-year-old papers yesterday and stumbled on this free write. I'm posting it as a reminder to myself that sadness comes and goes, even when it sometimes feels like it's all that there is.