My friend

I have a friend.

A friend who relishes his dark and melancholic existence. He has all the things need in the world, yet he desires for something - not a material thing - which pushes him into this darker life.

How can I describe my friend? He is not the sharpest of the lot but not too dull either. Yet, he wants to be smart and intelligent like the people he reads about everyday. Those who accomplish so much in their lives, some younger than him, and achieve so much fame and fortune.

Music makes my friend sad. Not that he does not like music, no, he loves music. Music is a big part of his life. Yet listening to the melodious of tunes makes him somber. Oddly, he finds this gloominess quite uplifting. My friend is not a musician though. Not that he has any talent be one. He has seen and read about musicians achieving so much success in their career only to be destroyed by adulating fans who leave them for the next big act. Their lives spiraling down a moral decay into a vortex out of which they can never come back. Artists who, after falling from their glory days, seek solace in alcohol and drugs to overcome their depression to ultimately find their untimely end from the barrel end of a shotgun. No, my friend is characterized by more of a thoughtful sadness, one which he thinks will follow him to the last throes of his life.

My friend has friends. Not too many of them. He enjoys their company and they his. But at the same time he keeps his distance from them. Never can anything too personal come between them. His deepest thoughts are his own and they are too sacred to be shared with even the closest of his acquaintances.

This is the story of my friend. I just thought you'd like to know.

Are you my friend?