A million to one

The greying hair and furrowed face frame the haggard, basset-hound eyes. They start to glisten in the light of the kitchen - highlighting and reflecting back the image that is sadness. Sadness is acceptable in so many places. In so many moments it is poignant and beautiful. But it seems so wholly unfair to see this unbearable sadness thrust upon another human being. To see a proud man be crippled and broken under its weight. To see him be plagued and hounded by the aching loneliness that now leaves him hopeless - it breaks my heart.

The sadness in his eyes is so intense at that moment. I feel the horror and the helplessness rise inside of me. I want to do something - anything - to ease his pain. Instead, I sit and watch and internalise, uselessly. The sadness transcends it's normal form, lying thick in the silence. It hurts to listen to it. It seeps from his bones til it fills the whole room - slowly pervading through the cracks and crevices to taint any posibble place of happiness or contentment.

The ironic thing is that, out of anything, I think that the most commonly experienced feelings on earth is that of loneliness. Billions of us are united chiefly by our feeling of being alone. I think that it is this that is the tragedy of humans - not anger, or violence, or war, or corruption - but our failure to support each other in the simplest of ways, and to give to others what we truly need ourselves.

I wish that I could give some sort of meaning and philosphy to this. I wish I could draw some conclusion and make this memory constructive. But I can't. It is simply one of a million examples and living proof of the tragedy that is human suffering. There is no sense or justification to it - it simply is.

Reviews

[Ahmad Cox]

Amazing and insightful. I believe you truly have spoken a lot of wisdom in this story through your story. Unfortunately we often don't take the time to connect to our fellow man and we seem to become more disjointed from each other as time goes on.

[Lane-roe]

Thankyou! :)