@feyxtai
➣The Midnight Hour: LONELINESS
✁ ——- [cut] ———
“The lines are open, and it looks like we already have our first caller. The night hears you. Tell me, what’s on your mind..?”
a strange feeling, loneliness - a bitter taste; a sinking heart perhaps it was not permanent but a weight to bear, either way.
The pocket journal that sat between the open pages of a much larger, leather bound book in his lap is quietly picked up, displaced somewhere to the side of him along with the pen - he would find it later, he always did; with as much certainty that he knew the night would fade, as would the strange feeling he always found himself struggling with in the quietness of the night, in the silence of his apartment. Maybe that was why he found himself picking up the voices of otherwise strangers, personalities that he would never have a face to, but regardless, were there for comfort in the night hours when there was no one else to talk to - even if there was typically no conversation between himself and said voice; just him listening quietly to whatever they, and at times, someone else had to say. And usually, it stayed that way. But tonight didn’t seem the same in many ways.
He lifted his phone from the arm of the couch, slender fingers slightly trembling as the music that now filled the room faded into the background. Don’t do it. There’s no point. As compelling as it is, let other people say their pieces instead, it’s better that way.
Every time he listened to this show in specific, the one he listened to most, he always had the urge; feeling compelled by the voice of the host to call in to the line; to have a chance to talk to something that had become somewhat of an invisible comfort. But there was something that stopped him almost every time when he went to dial-in, mostly his own reasoning; he felt uninteresting, and oddly afraid to open up in such a way, especially when it took so much of him just to open up to those he knew so closely. But…for the first time, he couldn’t seem to completely stop himself. And it was frightening, yet calming all at the same time when the line clicked in answer, the words “Tell me, what’s on your mind..?” ringing in his ears, for a moment.
He wanted to hang up right then and there in that second pause that seemed to stretch for an eternity, his tongue-tied.
"What’s on my mind is nothing, yet everything all at once.” he answers honestly, speaking softly; he’s on auto-pilot at this point, the voice in the back of his mind telling him how dumb he was was silenced for the time being - everything was, for just that moment. “I guess one could call the everything and nothingness by the name of loneliness. It seems no matter what I do, I’m always left feeling this way at the end of the day - could you tell me, what do you make of the feeling of loneliness?”
"Oh, this isn’t about me. Not tonight. This is about you.” A breath, a hum, just gathering his thoughts. “I’m an old soul, I’ve had plenty of time to contemplate loneliness.”
It wasn’t unusual for his listeners to start asking him questions, trying to peel off the mask hiding the man on the radio. Dodging them was almost fun, some nights. He was far more interested in hearing about his callers than he was tossing out breadcrumbs about himself.
“True loneliness is a sense of isolation, even when you’re surrounded by people that care for you...or at least people that you don’t mind being around. If this is something you are feeling at home every night, perhaps you’re missing something in your life. Could be a person. Could be a sense of being, a hobby, direction in your life. I’m no psychiatrist, so...I can’t exactly say. Just...from personal experience, it’s an emptiness. One that we’re either unable to or are afraid to fill.”
He paused, switching to different background music; the random stretches of silence were getting to him. Just something a bit more quiet and a little less somber. He needed to draw the caller back in, engage him, get him talking properly.
“Tell me...have you lost someone recently? Lost a job? Moved away from family? What is it that could have such a young-sounding person so lonely?”
