Live Forever

As the wind ripples through the curtains. 

The sound of a murmur downstairs makes an annoying whisper of unidentified creatures. 

Tick… Tock… Tick… Tock… 

Many cars’ beeps crossed by, squealing, screeching, honking. 

Often heard blares. 

Beep… beep… beep… beep… screech… ruuurrrump… palump… 

Tick.. Tock.. Tick.. Tock.. 

drip, drop, plop… 

many cars’ beeps crossed by, squealing, screeching, honking. 

Often heard blares. 

As the wind ripples through the curtains. 

The sound of a murmur downstairs makes an annoying whisper of unidentified creatures. 

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock,

 it sounded hardly, 

tick tock tick tock 

and it goes faster, 

ticktockticktockticktockticktock.

On school.

Collins: Hey, Sef, we got deadlines to meet, hope we can delve all book contents to finish the project.

Joseph: Yes, Collins! I will. We can start at 9:30pm in my house?

Collins: Yes, Of course, Sef!

Lance suddenly appears.

Lance: Oh hey there, how are you doing?

Joseph: We’re fine. We’re running errands nowadays, hoping days would run smoothly with us.

Lance: What?!! You’ve been stressing this past few days. Collins, Sef. Look. (looking to each other’s faces) look on your face, you both seem like the Demogorgon in Stranger Things, Ouch! (it hurts, whispering) 

Don’t be too serious, guys! I have Netflix app on my phone and now watching Stranger Things, I’m on its season 2, Are you up? If you didn’t watch it yet, we can start over. Just for you guys, don’t worry I will not spoil, huh.

Collins: No, Lance! We can’t, Right, Sef?

Joseph: Yes, I am sorry, Lance. We’re not yet half of it so we doubted we might be leaning on cramming. Hope we hate that thing.

L: Okay! --- seems like I ended up a sort of B.I badass kind of person. [whispers]

J: What did you say?

L: Oh nothing, I go bye! Oh, I forgot, If I were you, everything here is nothing serious, we can catch up after last class period, do have relaxation and watch Stranger Things! Bye! [walks faster]

9:12pm. On mobile text conversation.

Collins: Sef, How’s the research? 

Joseph: It’s okay. I’ve had all the book resources now. I felt it’s tiring, I am fully drained. How about you?

C: Well, it’s also draining and meeting the half of it either.

J: sounds good. (also checking Facebook Feed)

Lance texts Joseph.

Lance: What’s up, Sef?

Joseph: I’m doing good, why?

L: Why don’t you hang up with me tonight, I’ am really startling about Stranger Things. All episodes are damn exciting, and I suggest you also watch it.

J: hmm… I think, you’re right… I’m fully drained and exhausted about the project. I think I need some break. I’ll go to your place. 

L: No, Sef, it’s better if I go to your place.

J: Okay, it’s up to you.

In the street.

Lance: La… La… La… La… La… Is this Collins? Who’s he with? [looking in distance] Hey, Collins! [shouts] 

Collins: Oh Lance, where you going? Why you’re still up in the street?

L: I must either ask you that, who are you with? Where are you going? 

C: He’s Ethan, we’re gonna go to Joseph’s place for research.

L: Me neither but he said we’re gonna watch Stranger Things now.

C: No, we’ll do our project tonight, no more Stranger Things involved. Now, Lance, Go home! Ethan, Let’s go!

L: No, I’m gonna go with you.

C: Go home, Lance, go home! I’m telling you!

L: Okay, as if I have a choice.

Collins and Ethan walking faster and Lance still following them heading to Joseph’s house.

At Joseph’s house door.

Collins: [knocking] Joseph! We’re here!

Joseph: (upstairs) Oh my, I forgot, Ethan and Collins, they’ve got to be here for project. [walking downstairs]

Mother: Are you going out? It’s too late now. Stay here. (watching show on television)

J: No, Mom, I’m not going anywhere, just outside.

M: No, stay here!

J: Did you hear what I said, mom? I said I’m not going anywhere, I’m just gonna go outside. Don’t let the words come over and over again. I heard what you said. Okay!

(comes in silence)

Collins: hey, Joseph! Lance isn’t being good to you but what you are doing? 

J: What? 

C: Both of you are going to watch that damn Stranger Things. Did you forget what’s plan tonight? 9:30pm right?

J: But, you know what it feels like, Collins. On how to be drained. I am out of my mind. I need some short break.

(Lance appears)

L: Exactly, Joseph! Besides, you can do your thing while watching, right, (looking to, one by one) Ethan, Collins, Joseph?

C: Hey, Lance! You’re kind of a bitch. Just go home! You’re not doing good to us. Just go home, Lance!

Ethan: Joseph, we need a thoroughly examine about our research, we need long preparations.

J: Just by tonight, Ethan, Collins, I’m begging you, please!

C: Are you out of your mind? Come on, Joseph! Do you really need good grades? Are you still you? Come on, Joseph! Come on, answer me!

Ethan: We need your help, Joseph. Our research can’t be done without your help. It’s our dreams, we should have been through this tough process.

L: No, stop. Both of you. Did you hear what he said? JUST BY TONIGHT. Do I need to spell it out for you? Ethan, Collins?

C: No, Lance, you should stop! You motherfvcking idiot!

J: You all stop.

C: You, stupid! (facing Lance) leave us alone, do you hear that? Leave us alone!

J: I said stop! (covers ears with both hands)

L: What’s your problem, Collins? You’re making this critical.

J: Stop, stop… [voice breaking]

E: Joseph, we need to finish the project on time. Be punctual.

C: Joseph, we need good grades, my parents will get angry if I can’t make it. Please.

L: You fvcking good peop----

J: I SAID STOP!!!! Stop! Stop! STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! three of you, go home! I don’t wanna see your face again, leave me alone, I want myself alone, go home now!!!!!!! (door slams)

Mother: Have you eaten your dinner? 

(Joseph didn’t response)

Walking upstairs very fast.

(door slams) Lied down on bed. Staring at the ceiling. Joseph suddenly weeps. His heart beats fast. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. And it goes slower. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Comes in silence. No blinking of the eyes like all senses ended up being funeral in his brain. Clock’s ticking. Hours of staring at the ceiling. Like the body’s fully DEAD. Can’t move any of it!

As the wind ripples through the curtains. 

The sound of a murmur downstairs makes an annoying whisper of unidentified creatures. 

Tick… Tock… Tick… Tock… 

Many cars’ beeps crossed by, squealing, screeching, honking. 

Often heard blares. 

Beep… beep… beep… beep… screech… ruuurrrump… palump… [alarm beeps] (9:30 pm)

Tick.. Tock.. Tick.. Tock.. 

drip, drop, plop… 

many cars’ beeps crossed by, squealing, screeching, honking. 

Often heard blares. 

As the wind ripples through the curtains. 

The sound of a murmur downstairs makes an annoying whisper of unidentified creatures. 

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock, 

it sounded hardly, 

tick tock tick tock 

and it goes faster, 

ticktockticktockticktockticktock.

The end.

Depression. Each one of us doesn't know how it exactly what it means. There’s no rhyme. A melody. A noise. A feeling. There’s no to hear. To smell. To taste nor to touch. A FUNERAL in my brain. Because I AM DEAD, I AM DEAD. I am in a grave, losing all the senses. Do you feel that? Because me, yes, I FEEL IT. I feel the emptiness and numbness at the moment I AM IN. When life is all about the terrible things wanted to see you every day, they love you, they hug you so tight and that’s how miserable the day may seem to you. 

 “How are you doing?” my friend asked. I replied, “I’m fine.” (With slight move of lips out)

Dealing with saying that you’re fine is --- a GENIUS. The word “fine” is a flimsy and feeble word that we mean what we really feel inside. To hide the grief that we possessed. 

People often asking us, we never said we’re not okay, we never said we’re fine. The happiest people are the sole loneliest ones, hid the grief, pains, and all the hurts that heart feels within. How are you doing? “I am fine” 

That’s how depression looks like. We don’t know the people who have it.

Collins and Ethan who are deeply goal-oriented, responsible individuals. Lance who is a procrastinator and getting things easier and for him, nothing’s serious. These people, I mean whisperers, are inside our brain. Dictates what we should do, decides what’s our choice. Good vs evil. Two is fighting together in our thoughts, making us feel the shambles, scattered, chaos mind. Ended up we don’t know what to do. 

As Andrew Solomon’s YouTube Ted Talk video, he said that “The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality, and it was vitality that seemed to seep away from me in that moment”. Depression is cynical believing around is against your will. Grief, dear best friend of depression, is explicitly reactive. It’s turning up a kind of nullity to do less, thinking less, and feeling less, then, the anxiety sets in. At the moment that all these things are in, our minds tend to forget how to be happy anymore. It lowers the saturation, losing interests and vitality, snaps the gratification out and blew away. You and I don’t feel happy very easily at all, not to say it’s impossible to feel happy, but it doesn’t come as easily as it does to most. Some people have their huge problems, having psychological knots. But as I came into it, things come out into fruition to cloud that depression is not just only evil, yet it is coming an approbation of deepening identity. 

As I have read one of the comments on Chad Temperton’s YouTube Ted Talk video, “a lot of depressed people are very intelligent because they spend a lot of time thinking about everything from everyone’s perspective and are aware that ignorance is both bliss and dangerous”, this catches my attention as I am overthinking every bit of actions that seem to be caught on tangled hidden information. It demands clues to be right. It is not stabilizing in betwixt normal level but on its lowest and highest point. Depression has both negative and positive impacts in our lives, has its dark thoughts, self-loathing, great distrust, isolation, resentment, prolonged unhappiness, and hurts from the past. Even though it overpowers us, in the face of depression, people can achieve big things and that’s a powerful thing. If you feel it, if you feel that you’re worthless, alone and ashamed, I am gonna play that moment over and over again in my head until it stops. Because--- I don’t want to die, I want myself to live forever. 

Depression has a torturous engagement tactic, us, have many suicidal and dark thoughts, but, it is a mechanism of resilience to reasons for living as it is a highly privileged, genuine rapture. It builds us to be strong, if you supersede it with your weakness, its wound spots won’t be healed but rather it is widening all its marks, you will feel the pain and choose choices that you want to die or to just not want to feel like it anymore. We think problems aren’t incredibly valuable, but it is not. If we feel the grief, self-loathing, lacking will of life, anxieties, and on tenterhooks, we barely react because mood is adaptive, taking different moods at its worst and best. We must learn to live with depression, move forward, have progression, work on yourself physically and mentally because we want ourselves not to be weakened by these knots but to --- LIVE FOREVER.