canned life

He was staring at a candle burning down for about an hour. Staring out of the window, seeing nothing but the white wall of the house next door. Lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling as the sun set and the world was dipped into bluish grey for the next six hours.

He was thinking.

What was the sense of that entire time passing? What was the sense of him hanging around, either not doing anything particular or just fulfilling his duties as a middle class white European- studying, paying bills, going in and out of the flat for unimportant issues…existing.

He wasn’t sure if on this planet it was at all possible to add something to this plain existence, wherever he looked and whatever he could think of- problems and colourless regularities. If he were a millionaire, what would change in that scheme? He’d have other problems and still die of boredom. If he were homeless? Die of hunger or some strange disease.

Oh happiness, where had it gone? He was puzzled. How on earth did he forget how to be happy? He imagined his inner pessimist preaching to his timid inner optimist: “There’s no way of getting around it, finally you realised it! I always told you so…” He shook his head in slight panic. No, this wasn’t possible! This couldn’t be true. Other people were happy, they couldn’t pretend a thing like this, the world couldn’t be that cruel…

It was summer and it was almost dark outside, his favourite time of the day- all the lights that went on, window by window, the cool air, the beautiful lilac sky, a marvelous play of colours enhanced by all those particular evening noises and smells, that tickled hopes and expectations deep inside him, that allowed him to take a deep breath as in preparation for the day to come, that made him forget about the drab, locked up labyrinth world of his mind and just watch the spectacle.

As ever so often he took his bicycle out of the cellar and went for a ride through the cities’ busy streets, enjoying beeping cars, traffic lights, strangers’ faces, occasional bits of music coming from shops or street musicians and the general pleasant noise and chaos.

His usual destination were the hills outside the city where he could sit down in the grass and spend an hour or two looking down at the humming town and letting the wind tousle his hair, the soughing sound being disturbed only by a few lonely crickets. Yes, he loved it. This summer evening ritual was like inhaling, swallowing life, chewing on happiness. This very happiness he missed when he drowned in daily sorrows, hour by hour and week by week.

…So often have people dreamt of saving great moments in jars, to open them whenever they felt miserable and to take a sniff of a different place and time.

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