Melancholy (Collection of Short Stories)

Purgatory Valley

There were walls on either side of the valley that reflected each other, a webbed sky that spoke of truth and sang lullabies, a glass floor that obliterated light. I found myself reflected in the walls, I felt the tips of my toes fog up the floor, and I heard my truth spoken through a webbed sky.

"This was all very complicated," I thought.

"This is all very simple," the sky chimed.

I was distraught, for some reason I hadn't wanted the sky to say that. I wanted it to stop.

"Please don't," I say, soggy clouds lingering in my words.

"I won't then." It answered.

I sighed relief and continued down my path. Then I began to wonder, what was I doing in this valley of thought? Why did I traverse between two walls, why was I reflected in each? Why did my reflection overlap into thousands of fractured shadows of myself?

"Why am I here?" the sky simplified.

"I said don't!" I screamed.

"I am you." it said.

"Shut up!" I wailed.

"I am you." it said.

"I hate you," I answer.

"I hate you." it echoed.

Suddenly I felt very alone, and all I wanted was someone to touch me, to call my name. It was then that I realized I had forgotten my name. I had forgotten my voice, and my face, and how long my hair grew last summer, or if it had grown at all.

"Who am I?" the sky asked very worriedly.

"I do not know..." I answered, terrified.

"Why?! Why do I exist?!" It shrieked, very suddenly. I couldn't answer.

"What am I?! What are you?!" It continued it's shrieking. My jaw became slack, and I began to wonder what all of my reflections were doing, kneeling with their hands folded. After all, I wasn't kneeling. I wasn't crying either. Then they all looked at me, and the shrieks of the webbed sky became a chorus of utterly unanswerable questions.

"I thought you were me?" I whimpered. Tears streamed out of the listless eyes of my reflections, and their eyebrows furrowed.

"How can we be you?" They asked.

"I do not know," I answered frightfully.

"Then why would you say that?" They grumbled, like a volcano bubbling.

"I do not know!" I cried. "It's just what I thought! And I wanted to help! You all seemed so distressed, not knowing who you were!"

"And if we are you, who are you?" They sighed, becoming irritated.

"I do not know that either." I sighed, becoming more depressed.

"How can we be you then? If you know nothing of yourself?" They rushed words like swords through my gut, and again I could not answer. Finally, my knees gave, and I wept, and I prayed. My reflections looked up at the webbed sky in confusion.

"This was all very complicated," They thought.

"This is all very simple," The sky said, and I began to feel very dizzy.