Mister Loneliness

There was a man whose name was loneliness. He was kind of an ordinary man, the one you would not really notice when you were sitting opposite him on the metro, grey nondescript suit, glasses, nondescript haircut, nondescript leather suitcase.

Everyday he got home from work, Mister Loneliness would sit at his window and look outside, contemplating the world, looking at cars driving by, people passing, falling rain lit up by on orange streetlight on a cold an dreary evening.

Sometimes he would see people stopping and saying hello to each other, but never for long. Sometimes he would see couples passing by holding hands, but not often. He never really understood what that meant, in fact, that is still saying too much, his mind would not even register it as special. They were just like the cars passing by.

He could feel quite comfortable at times, sitting there in his warm and cosy sofa. Sometimes you might even say he felt something like – really? – happiness.

But still, there was something, underneath this warm, cosy feeling, something missing, a longing. He would not call it like that, in fact, he would not call much, Mister Loneliness did not have a lot of words. But if you looked carefully – which no one ever did, unnoticed as he was by life’s passers-by’s – but if you decided to do it, if you would be one of the birds sitting on the window pane, looking curiously inside, you could see it, this emptiness, this tinge of sadness in his eyes, this unborn tear.

Do you know this man? Have you ever seen him? Like really seen him? On the street? Hidden behind the reflection of a window? In the metro? In the mirror? Is it you? Is it the guy you just passed on the street – that one, you probably did not notice him, the one with the blue jacket? Did you look at him? Would you dare?

Would you cry his unborn tears? Or will they forever remain like rain falling under an orange streetlight on a cold and dreary evening, noticed only by some birds sitting on a window pane?

Did you see this lonely face?