on the other hand

it could have been so that the cause of his lack of interest towards practically everything was the weight of the years on his shoulders; that the reasons for his cynicism and passive aggressiveness were something that he no longer had any power over. it was very well possible that love songs and enthusiasm of the young irritated him only because he wasn't able to recognize the source of them in himself anymore, couldn't even remember how it had felt when he had, and that the void left behind was now strong enough to dull his senses and turn everything into a gray mass of indifference.



he got up in the morning because he ran out of sleep, ate because he had to, worked because it was what was expected of him. occasionally he met a person he had considered a friend what felt like a lifetime ago, but those kind of interactions were fewer and fewer in number -- partly because he found them exhausting and tedious and partly because his company was not what it had used to be. he wasn't sad about this development just as he wasn't sad about anything else, or glad for that matter; the phone that remained silent and the doorbell that no longer rang were something that stirred no emotion in him.


it could have been that the moment when he had fell into this state of numbness had been a specific one, or it could have been that it had happened slowly, creeping up on him like dusk after a day filled with sunshine. he couldn't have remembered even if he had bothered trying -- it goes without saying that he didn't. the truth of the matter was that he was not unhappy, not at all; for with the lack of joy came the lack of grief, and in the world he lived in, this seemed like a rather good option.