Depression

"...by the way would you like to join me?"

He reads the message, and smiles to himself.

Forty-five minutes till Sunday mass begins.

What about these fleeting thoughts of filling those minutes repairing the broken fan-blade of the laptop cooling pad; and these idle ambitions to clean the ridiculously grimy kitchen counter-top...?

What about this resin glue I've just bought minutes ago, and these table-wipes and super-strength industrial cleaner...?

Well, what about them?

Yes. Yes I would love to join you.

*****
There is a strange sadness afflicting this country.

And perhaps I am afraid of becoming infected - or perhaps I already have been.

Perhaps the reason I catch myself offguard, smiling, with my thumb on my mobile's OK button is simply because of this gilded cage we have built around ourselves in our own minds, in this shiny city we call home. Perhaps I am distracting myself from it all, like everyone else; content to pass each coming moment in the safety of the matrix.

Or perhaps this gut feeling - that it would all have been the same - anywhere in the world - is true.
Perhaps i would have known you before I met you - when I met you - if i had found you in London, or Paris... and perhaps we would have laughed, just the same by the Thames, or the Louvre.

The paths before me are as uncertain as they always were; I still do not know where they lead - except far away from this false utopia, this prison of perfection.

Right now, right here... all I know is that - a brief thirty minutes snatched out of time this afternoon, laughing with you...

is enough.

*****
Perhaps in the wake of your departure I will encounter depression... or perhaps I will feel only apathy.

But this much is true - I will miss you.