You

"I don't understand... ," I hear your voice trail off. There's a pause at your end. I wait. "It's just that," you end the silence, "I don't know how to put it. At times I feel there's a demon inside me who fights against my happiness. When everything seems to be going fine this demon raises its ugly head and starts nibbling away my happiness, leaving a vast gaping hole inside me. It's such a terrible feeling to be defeated over and over again. It keeps me reminding what a big waste my whole life is."

"Maybe you're being a little hyper here," I try to interrupt. "Surely, things are not as bleak as you are trying to portray."

"But they are," you almost shout back. "Everything is so frustratingly bleak that I don't find any reason to continue like this. I don't find anything happy about myself. I don't find anything happy about my whole existence. Everything is so mundane. So boring. So utterly desolate. There's no spark of happiness. Nothing to... "

Here you fumble for words. I don't say anything. The silence lingers between us. I can almost see you now. I can imagine your posture as you talk. I can see you pacing in a lonely room in a faraway city, your face contorted with pain, one hand holding the cellphone to ear and the other moving animatedly, as if trying to grasp the unspoken words out of thin air. I wonder if you are drunk tonight. Or have you smoked a joint? In any case, you are not in your normal self. But I find your voice undistorted and your words still distinct.

"You know the other day I was feeling like this, utterly dejected, and I went out for a walk in the city," you begin again with a surprisingly soft voice. "I roamed around the streets for hours. I like the anonymity the city crowds offer and I often let myself loose like that. Finally, after much aimless walking I sat down on a quiet park bench. It was a beautiful day and as I sat under the shade of this leafy tree, without my knowing, I began feeling happy. Yes, I must say I had been happy. All my worries melted away with the breeze. I don't know how long I was absorbed like this but the moment I began realizing that I was feeling happy something snapped inside me and all my happiness evaporated in a few minutes. I could feel the change taking place in me. Yet I couldn't help it. And afterwards I got so terribly depressed that I went home and shut myself for the rest of the day. It was just one instance, you see. I face this day in and day out -- a fleeting moment of happiness is engulfed by an eternity of dark depressing time."

You again pause for a moment. And your words keep fluttering in my head like a bunch of butterflies.

"Perhaps happiness is overrated," I finally say with as much conviction as I could muster.

None of us speak for the next few seconds. Silence spreads its tentacles again. I take a quick glance at my cellphone screen. The call is on.

"Perhaps," you say finally, "I don't know... "