“I’m miserable,” she utters despondently.
Her head drops to the table,
face smushed into the sleeves of her sweatshirt.
“I just want to be happy.”

Happy? Hell, I’d settle for functional.

“Is that too much to ask?”
She sniffles into her sleeve.

“Not at all,” he says.
“Everyone deserves to be happy.”
Kind eyes. Calm voice. Practiced cadence.

How does one deserve an emotion? I wonder.
Either you feel it, or you don’t.

Or is it a state, and not an emotion?
The state of happiness…
Can one deserve to be in a state?

What about the state of depression?
No one deserves that, that’s for sure.
Then again, no one would likely say,
“I just want to be depressed.”

The clock on the wall seems frozen.
I will the hands to move more quickly.
They don’t.
Perhaps I don’t deserve a faster clock.

He turns toward me. Observation mode.
I don’t meet his gaze, but I don’t look away, either.
Blank eyes. Silence. Practiced apathy.

“And how are you this morning?” he asks gently.
I consider the question.
Perhaps I should have prepared a response.
It’s not like I didn’t know he’d ask.

“Depressed,” I say.
“That’s why I’m here.”

I just want to be well.
Is that too much to ask?

The Daily Post Discovery Challenge: Radical Authenticity