Intro

Here's the intro to a short story I'm currently working on....

I’m don’t think I’m clinically depressed. I just think I’m just a realist. Clinical depression is someone who actually has a decent life, but still can’t get himself out of bed in the morning. It’s the wealthy accountant, living in suburbia, with a beautiful wife and three blonde children who looks out at the sunrise and cries uncontrollably. That’s clinical depression.

I am completely broke and owe thousands of dollars to Sally Mae, my father, a couple of friends. I’ve had loved ones die far too young. I’ve been unemployed for a year and a half. I'm single and lonely. I’ve spent the last 38 hours in bed. My problem isn't depression. The problem lies in reality.

I don’t know what made me decide to start writing today. I guess in some way, it’s cathartic. Somehow the motion of pressing the keys on my iBook G4 helps me cope with the heartache of life.

Life comes to me in snapshots. Moments embedded in my mind. My mother and I playing basketball on my back porch. My brother and I coated in muck after romping through the mud puddles in the driveway. My sister’s face after giving birth to her first child. My father trick-or-treating with us and constantly repeating, “It’s a scary one boys and girls.” These will be forever mine. And sometimes I wonder if life is just a pursuit of snapshots.

But I am also in awe of the pain around me. Children starving, AIDS, cancer, suicide, drug addiction, death. Life seems morbid and random. Heroes die and murderers live. Where is the sense? Where is the logic? Why was I given a mind, if in all my humanity, I cannot comprehend anything?

I guess that’s where my story begins. Me. Depressed. Finally getting out of bed after a 38-hour nap…

I lay on my back looking up at the unfinished wooden ceiling above me. I take a deep breath. I try not to think about debt for once. Just a day without that thought would be amazing. I sit there and contemplate for a moment if it is time for me to get out of bed yet? I guess it is. The old milk jug that holds my piss is almost full.