Depression (Essay)

Long and about as thick as my wrist, it starts with a stirring in my abdomen; a snakelike-writhing. It stares at my heart, making slow circles on the inside my ribcage like a stalking wolf at the edge of a hunter’s dying fire, yellow eyes on the nervous man huddled beside it, no firewood left. The stirring can not be seen by anyone. The sensation itself is almost ticklish, like a healing wound. It might even be enjoyable if I didn’t know what was coming. My chest cavity, unmade for more residents than it already has – namely my lungs, liver, pancreas, heart and such – begins to feel tight, restricted. This can go on for minutes, days, or weeks – as long as it circles inside me. The sensation doesn’t go away unless I am utterly distracted from it, which is difficult once it starts. However, a walk in nature or some types of play can keep it at bay. But these are always temporary, because the thing is still there, always.

It seems its presence in my breast also has the effect of poisoning my mind so that, unless distracted as I said, I can concentrate on little else but its presence. Wouldn’t you also be concerned with a malignant, malicious thing in your body? You would particularly if you knew what happens next. This thing, once it has rested from its circling in the deep red of my inner body, grows a hand from its leading end. The thing has no head, but if it did, it would be replaced by a muscular man’s hand, the hand of a blue-collar worker, a boxer’s hand. Whereas the thing had once made circles on the outer wall of my inner ribcage, it now goes inward, towards my inferior vena cava; the big vein that feeds the heart and leads directly up into it from the nether regions of the body.

I had an anatomy class once. There were three cadavers. One was a woman with an orange-sized lump that had grown around this same vein deep inside her. It was some kind of cancer. Maybe she was sad, too, and her snake-thing had taken permanent residence there. Maybe that’s what cancer is, I don’t know. What I do know is that the snake-thing begins wrapping around this vein low, towards my intestines, brushing my spine and then my internal organs, spine and organs, spine and organs. When it passes my spine, the muscles surrounding my backbone ratchet tighter. When it passes my organs they seem to recoil in fear and disgust, constricting, ratcheting tighter and tighter. This continues until the hand is within reach of my heart. It pauses, a cobra preparing to strike, regarding without eyes its target. It is then that the hand changes. Fingers elongate and become the size of sausages. The hand itself triples in thickness, with lumpy muscles apparent through tight skin. Where the hand had at first been muscular but man-sized, it continues to grow until it’s the size of a baseball mitt. Each finger begins caressing my heart maliciously, teasingly. At the same time, the snake part tightens around the big vein. But just like a hungry dog can not lick at a fresh piece of meat for long without taking it whole, so is this hand. It’s a rapist in the presence of a virgin alone at home; a junkie staring at a loaded needle; a serial thief looking at a purse in a lonely, unlocked car. It loves its target for itself only, for its own use. Each caress of the fingers gets stronger, more forceful until my heart is enveloped completely within the muscular grip. And then it begins to squeeze, vise-like, as it somehow feeds, devouring my heart.

I first notice the effects of this constriction and devouring of my heart when I wish to speak to someone about something and cannot. Tears come to my eyes and must look for somewhere to hide in shame. Unsavory thoughts get pushed upwards through my bloodstream into my mind; violent thoughts, mostly towards my-self. Why? I must kill this snake, even if it means killing the host. One or the other must die. Or both.

This is when “the procedure” usually begins. With tears obscuring my vision, no matter how much vision is needed at the time, my jaw begins to drop until it appears that it will unhinge. Simultaneously, my lower diaphragm retreats, drawing a huge gulp of air into my lungs. The air is an elixir of sorts, since it always makes me feel better for an instant because I see that we are at this point in the process. The snake-thing somehow eats most of the air as soon as it passes my lips, so it does me no lasting good in and of itself.

Finally, all at once, the air that the snake has not eaten leaves my body with a throaty demarcation, as if the air is being chased out by a demon, for it is. The air keeps retreating from my core, voice box vibrating low and hard. My jaw continues to drop, my eyes widen. Red blood and then shredded skin and then white tendon splatter the window in front of me, if I am in my vehicle. In fact, I almost always find myself there when the effects of the snake-like thing bear fruit as I have described. It’s a matter of privacy; my car is the only place I can go to throw this miscarriage.

When I am done with this procedure, there may be - in rapid succession - another, and then another and then another and then another and then another and then another. By this time I am usually parked on the side of the road, if I was driving, out of safety for those not so afflicted.

Oddly, as violent as it is, the procedure is usually the beginning of the end of the current incarnation of the snake-like thing. It appears that he dislikes a good cleansing, which is what happens when I take in the air and dispel it so violently. After a while, minutes or days or weeks, he shrinks and becomes still, almost dead. I can become human again.  

But alas, this is merely a hibernation of indeterminate length. The mucous that covers his body never dries. He always returns, stirring in me anew.