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How do you keep happiness? How do you prevent it from slipping like sand through your fingers? When does holding onto that same happiness become corrosive?
As a child, Akk would look at the seagulls in his hometown and wonder what it would be like to fly away, to be free. He used to think that his life would some day feel like the flight of a bird but it hasn’t happened. Akk used to add “yet” at the end of that sentence. Now it feels like a mockery.
He has heard all those people talk about mental health, how it works and how one day it gets better, though it’s nothing but a monotonous cacophony in his ears. Sure, there are better days, days where the sun seems yellow instead of grey, where the world takes him with it instead of moving around him.
Still, most days are black and white and his mouth tastes like ash as he lies on his bed staring at the ceiling all day. He had an exam a few days ago. When his mother asked him, he told her he did well. God, Akk hates lying to her, she doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve to worry either, though. So Akk keeps things to himself. He makes up friends to pretend he has met to anyone who asks. Whenever he’s back home, he smiles through all interactions and claims university life as great. Perhaps it is. Perhaps Akk is just selfish.
It should be great, after all. Everyone else he knows is happy. They post pictures of friends and parties and study groups on social media, which, to Akk is one more sign he’s fallen behind.
At nights, when he’s alone and the world is quiet, undemanding, Akk looks up and promises to be perfect again if someone up there gives him the strength to get out of bed for more than a few hours. If they’re listening, they have not helped him.
Whenever he manages to tear through the prison of his bedsheets he does make an effort. He talks to Aye on the phone, putting huge amounts of strength into sounding normal, happy. He convinces himself to brush his teeth, and sometimes succeeds in eating something. Akk’s gotten thinner, paler. He gets complimented on it by old acquaintances and friends so he pays it no mind. He has no reason to. It’s finally something good on him for the world to focus on.
Ayan has not visited in the months they’ve been apart, in different cities, Akk convinced him not to every time. Were he to come, he’d see through Akk in a way no one else can, and Akk isn’t certain he could push the ugliness down far enough.
The creature under his skin is truly monstrous. It makes his skin feel tight and his eyes constantly sting with tears he is too tired to shed. It whispers in his ears, mean, miserable things, though they always convince him. The creature ensures he is never able to walk past a group of people without feeling eyes on him, feeling the laughs he hears like knives in his back. It is truly incredible how the little monster tells him he is both the centre of the worst kind of attention and truly worthless and invisible at the same time.
When Akk looks at the mirror, he is afraid the creature is going to crawl through his skin. He can feel it simmer and wait for the best time. It’s been so long, and Akk can’t tell the difference between himself and the monster anymore.
Another day has gone by. The sun has set again. He didn’t do anything, once again. His school material remains unstudied. If it goes on like this, he won’t be able to graduate in time and then everyone will know what a failure he is. The mask won’t be enough to hide everything. The darkness around him comforts him as he cries, too numb by now to make even the tiniest of sounds. Tears simply make their escape as he hopes all will go away. Akk does what he does best. He sleeps.