The Melancholia of Joseph

When she was a young lecturer she was invited to give a talk in front of national TV about sadness. She turned to the classics, and found that melancholy is one of the cardinal sins, to be replaced by sloth in the modern times. 

She has always understood, and came to love because of solitude, sadness. She had been sad for her entire life, only interspersed with mania every two weeks. It is this sadness that makes her real, makes her strong, and makes her grieve in the middle of the night for a self that will never be normal. She took medicines that drove her insane for six hours, she wounded herself with more than 400 scars if only to translate the fundamental wrongness in her head to something she could see. Something she could heal.

She met him online, as she did with so many of them. His profile, although nearly ranting about yet another date that went badly, was full of sadness: it was almost as if he didn't want to be found. In that first night they literally slept together, hearing each other breathe throughout the cold night, and in the morning, he promised, "I'm here. Good morning." She loved his good mornings. He would never have been found by her, ever.

Found and superliked him, however,  she did. She instantly felt drawn and eventually in love with his profile: finally, a kindred spirit lurking within a man that just wants to not exist! Let them disappear together in a Californian forest!

She would send him things that she wrote in the past. He read all of them, and told her she was her favorite writer. 

He bought tickets to France before meeting her; he invited her to come with him only two weeks after they were talking. Her French visa got denied: and within two minutes he has changed his itinerary to the Philippines. It was the sweetest thing that she had ever received, and no one will be able to top it. 

He arrived. The sex was sublime, with his sensitive uncircumsion. He came inside her every time, wanting to get her pregnant with his seed. 

For you see, he had brushed off his major depressive disorder with a nonchalance that he was going to pay for much later. She did things fast, and intensely; and so he felt he should also. They met, they love-bombed, they had sex, and planned to marry. 

On his way back home, though, not quite knowing what he was doing on the plane, he filmed from his window seat the eventual disappearance of the Philippines, first among clouds, then from sight altogether. He was going back home, to his job, his life, his dogs, his eternal mistress melancholia, his music. He had over 300 playlists, and he made her two. He loved sound: in a world full of noise, music is the only thing that makes sense. 

He loved sound so much that he alone passed her test: it was a metal cast puzzle, level 10 difficulty, with no obvious or hidden way to solve it. So airtight was its construction that the objective of dismantling it seemed nigh possible. He asked her, "What sound does this make?" And he got the answer: nobody ever did. 

They were making love once in the night, and in an orgasm made to make them both cry, he asked what could have been the theme of their entire fling: "How in the world did you find me?" 

For he never wanted to be found; he only wanted to stay in his lonesome void with the French edition of Camus, his rather eccentric music, and his dogs. 

"How did you find me, baby?" He told her he would keep her, and she believed it with her gut. She had found his sadness beautiful, and like a bird about to mate, he prepared a nest for her with no trappings but honesty and himself.

She never quite got settled in; he withdrew once more to his mistress. She was his first love, the greatest fucking he ever cared to admit, and ultimately a loss so deep he will never forget. He remembers everything, with the same fervor with which he hates capitalism and assholes that stop in the middle of escalators.

He is alone again.