The Night He was Sad but Didn't Know Why

He was unusually early at home that night. Quarter past seven. His apartment was empty and so was his bed. No one was there to welcome him except the unmoving furniture, all covered in dust and stale memories. Or to cuddle with him under the sheets of the bed that was covered with love of which only the scent still lingered but in itself, dissipated in time. 

His mind felt empty, as lifeless as his apartment. His phone, clasped around his fingers, started to blink. The phone was ringing but no audible sound was heard. Verbs can be so confusing.  He had put his phone in silent mode ever since he decided that no one was worthy of a good ol' ringtome. "Drei calling...", the blinking screen displayed. He answered the phone. Friends were asking him to go out for the Saturday night. He refused and  recited a monologue:

"Tonight, I want to wallow in my sadness. My emptiness. My solitude. I wanted to remember things that I lost but could not retrieve. Memories lost that could never be re-done. People who left, and left without a trace. Just for one night, I wanted to remember."

He wanted to remember.

Few minutes have passed, he was restless. Struggling on how he will be able to make it through the remaining hours of the night. Or for as long as the sun doesn't rise. He didn't dare risk going  to sleep this early for he would risk waking up in those ungodly hours which have higher affinity for boredom. Suicide rates are high in bored people they say. Probably, that's one legitimate explanation of the phrase "dying out of boredom".

At 8:45, he decided to go to the supermarket which was a couple of blocks away. He decided to cook his recipe, the one he concocted for a high school cooking project, the one that delights every bud who makes love with it. It was her favorite. He wanted to remember. 

Chopped button mushrooms, half cooked pasta, opened canned tuna, minced garlic, and cut tetra packs of cream were all over the table. But in the middle of the preparation, he realized that no one would eat the lot of it anyway. He has this habit of not eating what he cooks. To taste, yes, but not to finish it up. He wasn't hungry for food. He was hungry for something else. The night would seem more lonely if a plate full of pasta lay untouched above the table, he thought. He scrapped the whole idea, leaving the half cooked pasta and other ingredients in the kitchen table.

Man has this compulsion to fill empty time with activities, useful or not, so as to avoid the emptiness that comes from within. He resorted instead to going to the nearby convenience store. They say chocolates have these properties that stimulate the release of endorphins - those feel good chemicals. He was hoping they would work on him tonight, A few minutes after, he was already on one of the seats, enjoying a drumstick of Cornetto. Chocolate flavor. In front of him was a glass window which reflected someone familiar. A young man unsympathetically enjoying a Cornetto, devoid of all the melancholia the guy from the other side of the glass was feeling at that time. Some of the ice cream went to his face but he didn't care. He wanted to remember. The time when there was someone who will wipe all the stains with a Kleenex after he finished. 

The image was carefree and happy like a child. 

Reflections can be such liars.

After a sweet treat, he walked home. His ears covered with earphones which do function far from an actual phone. For one, it doesn't carry any conversation. It plays music. A repertoire bounded by a memory  worth of a couple of gigabytes. The acoustic version of Maroon 5's Misery was on.

I am in misery. 

There ain't no body who can comfort me. 

Oh yeah!

Why won't you answer me?

The silence is slowly killing me.

Oh yeah!

There's always some kind of comfort in those kind of songs. It was played on a loop until he arrived home.

He was again sitting squarely in his room. From the cupboard, he saw recently opened bottles of vodka, rum, brandy, and grenadine that his friend, Ryan, left the last time he hosted a drinking session. Quickly, he scanned behind the pile of books and found the only thing that touches his lips these days - a shot glass. He poured the vodka on it and added some of the grenadine syrup which had a sparkling red color. The grenadine settled on the bottom of the shot glass as a red blob while the clear vodka enclosed it from the side of the shot glass and above. The two drinks  looked wonderful. Yet they weren't meant to be mixed without losing the vodka's clarity and the grenadine's vibrancy.

Hello Mr.Vodka and Ms.Grenadine! It's been a long time since we had each other for company! He said to the lifeless shot glass as it neared his lips. As he finished the few milliliters of alcohol and syrup, he realized that the tonic tasted more bitter when drank alone.

He raised up his glass and said cheers to the empty house. To the lonely bed. To the uncooked pasta. To the untouched ingredients. To the receipt of the Cornetto. To the bottles of grenadine and vodka.

And yes, that night, he remembered.