The Broken Heart Syndrome

I could not sleep last night. At two in the morning I found myself twisting and turning on my bed, trying to find a comfortable position to sleep. My body was exhausted but my thoughts were racing. I had been thinking of someone or something; I wasn’t sure. I felt something flutter in my guts. Were they butterflies? I could not tell. All I wanted was to sleep. Time seemed to have slowed down and in what seemed as eternity, half an hour had passed and the sensation grew stronger. I sat up. My room-mates were sleeping peacefully and I felt jealous. “Stop thinking about…”, I told myself. I tried to sleep again but to no effect. In that pain I found myself truly alone. I found myself anxious.

I gave up my effort to sleep and sat down to read, neither Gabo nor Neruda was able to sway my thoughts then. I was thinking constantly and furiously while the pain seemed to move up my body and into my stomach. I moved to poetry then to tragedy. I yearned for some comfort, some peace. Time had dragged itself till then and it was around four in the morning. “Na neend, na chain”, such a stupid line. The solitude felt absolute. It was like a brick wall, unyielding. I wished to talk, moan or even scream out loud but how could I? I had to bear it, it was my burden and I had to remain calm. I knew I had to ‘be a man’ about it and keep my pain to myself.

The tea shop opened at five and I was there, unsure how I reached there. I had still been thinking and felt a twinge of heart burn. The tea was sweet, I felt bitter; the irony of bitter sweet symphony was revealed and it seemed sad."Why?", the question kept coming back to me. My head was hurting, the tea had made my condition worse, I felt delirious. A few people joined me at the shop talking about knick-knacks and hustle-bustle. I was there but I had already drifted miles away. I was among them but different in both time and space. My thoughts were relentless and I was slipping within myself.

I decided to take a stroll. The morning breeze was cool and gentle, almost feminine. I walked. At a distance I could hear a few dogs howl and the distant drone of early morning traffic was surreal. My heart ached, I felt a dagger being pushed in. “Have mercy”, the prayer of an atheist rang to none. “I don’t deserve this”, I thought “I am a decent person, I mean well. Why should it be my fate?”. The streets remained empty, not a soul in sight. The breeze still blew calmly, nothing had changed. Frame after frame, the pictures crossed my mind, of what was and what could have been. The melancholy was unreal. I kept on walking, transitioning between reality and my dream. My breathing grew harder and my heart rate started to increase. The pain had reached its crescendo and I felt a tear drop on my cheek. I could sense a climax. I looked around. There was still no one; No one would stand witness, no one would ever know; I felt like a thief. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the inevitable. “Is this it?”, I thought, “Is this how it will all end? Is this how I’ll die?”.

A long and silent fart later, I understood it was all gas.

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