Tell me, what do you know about despair?

I can tell you about that time, the time I sat on the floor of my hotel room in Dallas, in total silence except for the wind howling outside in mockery of my crestfallen, wounded spirit, soul, whatever. As nature unites, in triumph, with my adversary — “fate”, I reach out to grab my hair, as I often do, in moments like these, but I had just gotten a haircut and there was nothing to hold on to. Even my hair has failed in providing moderate, immediate pain to distract from the anguish that I now feel. A slight feeling of betrayal joins the troupe, one more thing allied against me. I look out the window to the endlessness I cannot see, believe me, there has never been a sky so dark, a night so devoid of stars, so much that all I can see is my own reflection bouncing off the transparent glass.

I have a thought about tears, but I am too lost to remember the mechanism to conjure up even a tiny bit. Moreover, I cannot remember if it helped the last time. When was the last time? My mind wanders on an odyssey until it settles on a vivid image of me in tears bringing me to tears. But now, why am I crying? Is it because of my current misfortune or that I think I have had too many misfortunes or was it just the memory, who knows? Despair doesn’t allow for philosophizing or any form of profound analysis at least not at this moment.

I could talk some more about my misfortune, the one that has me on the floor of a hotel room, the same room I imagine, was occupied not too long ago by a person, people of orthogonal disposition. Maybe there was a celebration, maybe not. Were there drops of champagne drizzling on the same spot where I now sit or drops of blood? I thought about the drops of blood, about a man dying as the world goes on and suddenly my problem is resized, I stand up, I press on.

Tosin Ogundare, Ph.D.

Engineer, Aspiring Writer & Musician