Dany

Do you know what despair is?

Sometimes, things are deeply wrong. Physical pain, betrayal, loss. We’re used to calling it a “rough patch.” But despair is different. It’s when the light in your life goes out, and you realize the switch has been torn out by the roots. Nothing can be fixed. There is no more future, only a narrowing corridor with a blank wall at the end.

You know how it goes? They shuttle you from office to office for a long time. First the GP, then specialists, then endless waits for ultrasounds. Then they take tests. They send them to some lab in another city—because “only they have the right equipment.”

Then a week passes, and you get a call. The voice on the other end is polite, almost sympathetic. They say the tests got lost. Sorry, they say—human error—we need to redo them. In reality, nothing was lost. The result simply came back positive, and before stunning you with the final verdict, they want to run a second test to be absolutely sure.

And then, when the confirmation arrives for the second time, you realize: this is it. The countdown has begun.

For the first couple of hours after the news, I tried to bargain with fate out of sheer habit. “Well, it happens to everyone,” an inner voice whispered. But as the shadows deepened, the realization hit harder: all my plans—the ones that, only yesterday, gave me a reason to live—were crumbling into dust. Like a house of cards someone had knocked over just for the hell of it.

And I knew exactly who that “someone” was. I stared into the empty corner of my bedroom and saw Him there. The One who could have stopped this, but didn’t. On purpose. In cold blood.

“Happy now, you sick bastard?” I rasped into the silence.

My voice broke, fading to a whisper, but a fire was screaming inside me.

“You planned this whole thing, didn’t you? You waited. You waited patiently until I’d built a life, until I thought I’d finally found my footing. You gave me hope just so you could tear it away in a heartbeat.

You’re no judge—you’re a sociopath who doesn’t kill the flesh, but hope itself. My death isn’t enough for you; you had to destroy everything I got out of bed for first. You’re an architect of ruin, rigging the foundation with explosives while the house is still going up. Why? To watch the debris fly? To savor the moment my ‘tomorrow’ turned into ‘never’?”

I crawled under the covers, but they offered no warmth. A cold knot of rage and helplessness coiled in my chest. The entire world outside the window felt like a backdrop to His drawn-out joke.

“If you’re there... if you’re really what I think you are... then you’re the loneliest, most spiteful thing in the universe.”

My eyes were heavy with exhaustion. My consciousness began to drift, clinging to one last, almost frantic spark. And just before I finally sank into oblivion, I whispered:

“But if you’re not... if there’s even a shred of meaning in all this absurdity... give me some small sign of hope.”