/some griefs can never be put right

It hasn’t been his day. It hasn’t been his week. It hasn’t been his month. Barring a couple of chance encounters with zufriedenheit, it hasn’t been his year. It was a peak summer day and like all relentless summer days, it was engulfed in a miasma of unpleasantries — temperature, temperament, you name it.

He was watching life pass by, literally and metaphorically. An ache was on the top of his stomach, an apprehension that was like a sick thought. It was a Weltschmerz — which the Germans used to call “Welshrats” — the world sadness that rises into the soul like a gas and spreads despair so that you probe for the offending event and can find none.

Beep-bop rings the notification. He double-taps the notification, enters his passcode, and contrary to his physical environment, he feels the water brimming and sloshing in him like a drink in a glass that is unsteady and too full.

He always believed that some griefs can never be put right and it was growing like a wildfire inside him, consuming him. But this minor blip on the screen made him see that although there’s not an abundance of them, there are a few things he has gotten right. And he’d rather continue sticking to them. For that gives him purpose and meaning.

His situation mirrored a photograph he made on a day right after the summers were over. He thought he’d share it with what he is typing right now. Maybe his summer was also getting over. Maybe his autumn is arriving.