Ink

A flash piece reflecting on identity, burnout, and the significance of a blot of ink.

I'm the one who gives nothing away. I absorb it all and keep it to myself. As a result, I leave myself open to interpretation, and that's part of the problem. I'm both the widow's veil and Coco's little cocktail dress. Yeah, glamour and grief, fashion and fate. No wonder I need therapy.

There's no doubt I'm strong and bold, but boldly and strongly what? The others radiate their personalities. There's the cool corporate serious one, the lively passionate one. Then there's the cheerfully bright and sunny one and the effortlessly natural one, but me? I'm the loudest one with nothing to say.

My psychiatrist, Dr White, says I'm making progress but how can such a fresh-faced innocent know how it feels to be a creature of the dark? To carry the weight of the gothic, to represent the void, to have the dog of depression named after you?

One dusky speck, one dark mote of me soiling her immaculate lab coat could not be tolerated. It would scream like a banshee until bleached into oblivion.

Perhaps I underestimated her. She's both reflective and illuminating. She is all in one and I am but an absence. By my nature, I can't be illuminated. I dwell in the shadows, forever denying the eye, my meaning hidden in visual silence.

I tell her, people think of me as an extreme. Uncompromising, ultimate. Without nuance or gradation. She says I signify distinguished luxury, I subtly signal class and elegance. She tells me I'm timeless, sophisticated and, in an understated way, even cool.

But I say I'm not. I'm too serious to be cool. I'm too mired in villainy to be classy or sophisticated. She smiles condescendingly. "You're carrying a lot. Too much perhaps. Burnout can cloud your self-esteem."

It makes sense. I do feel overworked, constantly at everyone's beck and call. Too often the easiest option when decision becomes fraught. The safer alternative, the non-committal choice. The cliché. But I could be so much more, a looming thundercloud, as dramatic as a cloak, pretentious as a goth's eyebrow, as sinful as silk. I could be the wicked witch's heart or the solemn good book.

I'm deeper than space, thicker than treacle. I'm the dangerous darkness that hides the unknown, the scorpions, the sinister secrets and sacred sacrifices.

She makes a note on a clean sheet of paper but there's a blot of ink. Quickly, she looks to see if I noticed the spill. "I think that's enough for today," she says.