It usually takes a very specific kind of event to leave the imprint of a memorable sorrow on one's mind. Or, a specific kind of person.
Well.
In my own experiments with the middle ether, it has been brought forth that grief that stems from any form of unexplicable love is a particularly agonizing kind.
In his book Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes: "If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment."
What of the silent and gentle shattering of an experimental heart, much like a Fabergé egg that has found itself in the middle of a clumsy heist? What would you have me do then, Marcus? Do a silly jig, maybe?
Friends of mine who are more beach folk than city folk sometimes talk about things like grief in the form of waves. "Let it wash over you," they say. "Let it wash over you, and then let it go."
Okay.
I have been trying to let it wash over me, but it seems to be stuck in my hair. I have been trying to let it go, but it seems to be stuck in my throat. It's in my skin, sometimes, not even under it. The air I breathe appears to be steeped in the very thing, dense and foggy.
Nice waves, though. Sure. Sure, Marcus. Thanks.
If only there was a little meaning to some of these things, it would be a simple matter of placing it in a faraway room in the memory palace.
But it is not so. It is not so, and the waves keep coming. That's fine. I'm learning to swim.