The Magic Watch

I had never felt it before. It was foreign to me.

Depression. Grief. Whatever people called it.

My therapist says I'm suffering from depression. But he doesn't know how I truly feel.

It's emotional cancer, destroying everything that makes you happy; what makes you, well, you. It takes everything away and leaves you in complete agony that swallows you. It drags you, kicking and screaming, into a bottomless abyss. You are consumed until there is nothing left. Eventually the tears stop and you are just left… hollow.

The first few days after his death were the worst. I would drive by our favourite bridge everyday thinking it would be so easy just to end my suffering. Now, I would wake each morning with my insides burning. My body feels like soup, my heart tearing itself to pieces and my mind is in complete disarray. I just want to curl back under my covers until the sun would set again, wishing that it wouldn't.

I could stare at that brass pocket watch all day. I wear it now, around my neck as I watch the crows in front of me. Everyone dressed in the colour of mourning mumble greetings to each other. This was supposed to be a commemoration, an honouring, of him.

How he would've hated this. His wife surrounded by strangers all sharing her misery. I'm disgusted by the look of sympathy that is shot in my direction now and again.

I loathe it all.

I remove the watch from around me. It sits in my palm. This rusted disk consoled me whenever he went away. It was a token. He left it to remind me that time will pass but the more it did, the sooner he would come home. This time, it had been nothing but a lie.

He had been the adventurous one. He would suggest our next climbing scheme. I was never as outgoing as he. Now, because of that, I must bury an empty casket. The watch would normally bring me a smile. Not now. How could I laugh again? He only lives in my dreams and in that watch.

I noticed something then. A small button at the top I had never seen before. Stunned, I pressed my index finger to it. At first nothing happened. The black Roman numerals stared at me as if to taunt.

Frustrated, I pressed it again and the clock face sprang up. I jumped back, startled. Underneath was a picture. But not just any. The one we took of the two of us making raspberries atop the peak of Mt. Kosciuszko. It had been one of the best days together. A small note was written below us. It said "I'll be home soon, beautiful, so keep smiling."

That was when I laughed, for the first time in my life, it had seemed.

He was gone. I was told I had to accept it.