Downcast

She sat by the window, thinking of injustice. Thinking of unfairness, of hurt, of brokenness of spirit. Of all the terrible plagues of the soul that have infested human minds and hearts since the day we first gained the gift of knowledge. She wallowed in the tortruous cycle of inexplicable guilt and inscrutable anger, raging at the futility of existence.

She felt as if she was drowning, under the terminal despair. Her hands clenched into fists, but no tension was released. Pent up and left to rot, the wellspring of frustration, plugged under the manifold domains of her mind, every day ever growing, threatening to release itself in all its deadly fury, a fury that had no visible end.

She had oftimes wondered why she felt so wretched, so lost. For the part of her that bandied with logic and the empirical saw no respite in the luxuries afforded her. True, she had obligations, she had stress, but none of these were truly a burden she couldn't handle; she knew some who had more. Much more. And yet they were cheerful and bright, or at least more so than she was. She thought herself a rag-doll, having no control over her own life, left to move to wherever the tides would bring her. She resented that existence, and hated the world for it.

But why?

Why had happiness abandoned her, like an unfaithful lover? Why did she find no trace of peace and inner freedom when she delved with her mind's eye into the confines of her soul? Self-introspection had served nothing, turning her into a laconic, resentful, quiet girl who, once popular, was now shunned by friend and family alike. Where had her reservoir of contentment gone? Where had she lost it, and how could she find it? Could she?

She stared at the doorknob, the locked door, to her rumpled bed, to the strewn books, and the messy pile of clothes on the floor. Her eyes roved over the chaos of her room, to the filthy walls, dirtied by her fits of rage and endemic futility, gazed defiantly at the torn posters of the idols of her youth, at the broken figurines of her brother's old toys. Her gaze turned morose as she cast it upon her own body, the rumpled shirt, jeans, and sweater she had slept in after last night's crying bout.

To her arms, where faint, red, jagged scars destroyed the soft smoothness of her youthful skin, applied methodically with a borrowed kitchen knife.

The world had done this to her. And the more she railed, the more the inscrutable pressures of a cruel life gained on her, squeezing out all shreds of vitality and hope and happiness from her soul, crushing her under a weight only she could feel.

A faint wind blew, and the sun cast shadows on the ledge.

It was a beautiful day outside.