The Chains of Pain

The man pushed his chair out from his desk and rose to his feet, head drooping and shoulders sagging. He went to the stove in the corner of the room and rested his hands on the surface, hoping for a wave of warmth to flow from the stove to his body.

The stove had long since lost its warmth, however, for the short hand passed 12 long ago. The man instead slumped against the stove without getting the little comfort he so desperately wanted. He coughed and blew his nose on the folds of his shirt, for he was suffering from his rhinitis as always.

He had an odd kind of rhinitis that never completely left his body. The edges of the man’s nostrils felt very sore as a result of it, and his eyelids were inflamed. The rhinitis dwelled on the man’s limbs and head like an cumbersome intoxication. Was the dreadful room the man was confined to by his doctor for his rhinitis a contributing factor to his chronic weakness and fatigue? God knew whether or not the man was making the right choice. The never ending rhinitis and the constant cramping in his abdomen and chest might have made it necessary to stay in the room.

The wind outside screamed through the stove pipe like a banshee. This room -- no, this narrow prison -- did not promote healthy thoughts and the rhythm of the man’s blood that came from his negative mentality. The room, plain and bare, was nothing more than an eyesore. Its spindly-legged furniture and faded wall paper consisting of oblique squares were very depressing in their bleakness and dullness.

The man lingered by the stove and glanced at the work he had fled from. This pressure, this burden, this terrible task that was his pride and misery, this sea he had to drink up, his very heaven and damnation seemed endless. Wa...

... middle of paper ...

...ife beautiful and good names. He must not attribute his suffering to the stuffy room. To be able to disregard the physical and be healthy enough to maintain lofty feelings, to be naive in the predicament alone, yet sophisticated towards all other things -- that is what it means to believe in pain.

The man then thought a most disturbing thought. What if he had such a deep, fervent belief in pain that anything that occurred amid his pain could not be either useless or bad?

He shifted his eyes to the manuscript and folded his arms tightly across his chest. Yes, he was bound to these chains of pain and anguish, for it is he who brought it upon himself. He could not escape this fate. The man tore the manuscript in half and crammed the pieces down his throat, knowing that it was nothing more than a failure. The man accepted what was to become of him, and went to sleep.