Darkness

• Erica Beattie, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2019

depression
/d?'pr??(?)n/
noun
1. feelings of severe despondency and dejection.
"self-doubt creeps in and that swiftly turns to depression"

Depression is a horrible, horrible thing. It leaves you sleepless as the owl’s howl. It leaves you shaking uncontrollably with tears rolling down your cheeks.

Depression has consumed me.

It has taken over my whole body and left me powerless. As weak as a thin twig, as light as a feather.

I want to smile, but I can’t.

Five years ago, Depression sewed my mouth shut and attached long strings to my arms and legs. I no longer voice my opinions. I no longer have independent control over my own body. I’ve been captured, shoved into a cage of darkness, and locked inside for five years straight with no room to move. My limbs have long since fallen asleep. I gave up trying to escape years ago, knowing it was a futile attempt. It has a good hold on me. A hold much stronger than I.

Depression… is my life.

Some people don’t understand what it can do to one’s self esteem. They don’t feel what I feel every single day. I watch them laugh, talk, run on the school oval, knowing instantly that they have no sympathy towards a captured individual. But that’s what Depression is. It drags you away from happiness, introducing you to sadness. You suddenly become the bad guy, treated like a ragdoll and played with like a puppet as if you’re nothing more than an object.

Every single person you pass in the streets is judging you. A single glance suddenly means a lot. They look. You assume. You assume that your shirt is one made for a toddler. You assume you’re walking like Donald Duck. You assume you reek of sewage drains. All these assumptions, they bring you down eventually. You lose, not that you had any chance of winning anyway.

Depression moulds you into a person you can’t even recognise yourself. One day you’re laughing with your friends, the next you’re huddled up into a corner of a dark, dark room, contemplating thoughts no person should ever have.

People wonder what’s wrong with me, I don’t talk, smile, laugh like a person should; but all I I can do is just look down and walk away. It’s all I’m allowed to do these days. It becomes a pattern eventually. A routine that you know like the back of your hand.

Maybe one day I’ll be relieved. My cage will be unlocked for the first time in half a decade. It’ll happen, I keep telling myself. But that little flicker of hope that I’ve held onto so tightly all these years is becoming smaller and smaller as the days go by with absolutely no change. I’m losing hope, but I don’t want to admit it because all I have ever wanted is to be free.
The End