The Demon of Sadness

(Title of the original: Ο Δαίμων της Λύπης)

By Eleni Ladia (Rendered in English by Vassilis C. Militsis)

“All the demons teach the soul to love pleasure; the demon of sadness alone deigneth not to do it”.

Evagrius Ponticus

It was destined for Timotheos in his maturity to know the Demon of Sadness in person. Until then he felt only the sadness in his soul, an unearthly sadness irrelevant to his personal life. Since childhood he had empathized and felt strongly for the unhappy so much so that what boon transpired in his life was annihilated before the interminable misery in the world.

Under his meek and prepossessing appearance lurked sadness like a worm that slowly gnawed at him. And there were times when Timotheos’ heart softened like wax and everything was engraved in it indelibly. This transcendental grief split him in two, exhausted him and caused him to feel that he did not stand firmly on both feet upon the ground. One foot was riveted on the earth and the other hovered in chaos.

Timotheos was never certain of the value of life and all it contained. In fact, as he was growing older, as a result of his despair, he acquired a humoristic perception of the world and God. All seemed to him puerile and false, and every human act was undermined by the same childish scene, which he had not lived himself, but nonetheless he could not forget. A scene never to be deleted! He was referring to a team of children who in all earnestness were building castles on the sand, prone to ruin against the surf and the weather. This scene, the sand, the waves and the thwarted endeavor became a menacing barrier before every joy or success and resulted to a childish and innocent death mask. Since Timotheos came face to face with the other aspect of things and even though he distrusted everything, his grief wasted him way.

“I was born with it”, Timotheos sometimes mused when his memory ran back to the early antiquity, to the dawn of man, to the original shadowy image, to chaos. He could not attribute his sadness to no other explanation. And yet those who observed the superficial life of Timotheos, would find it difficult to construe this deep-rooted and lurking sadness. Like most people, Timotheos lived and loved, fell in love and was interested in many diverse issues that make up the life of a most normal individual. Sadness had become for him a personal, incurable malady. Even in the moments of creation – for Timotheos possessed the gift of music – his sadness, almost personalized, imbued his compositions and seized him with the sense of futility.

In this way Timotheos’ life flowed by until his maturity, a life marked with the consciousness of evanescence and transience as though he lived in a hotel room out of which he would check out in a few days; days that sped away, borrowed – thus he believed – on an interest to be quickly squared.

He had expected his end even since his adolescence. Present was being erased like a decal to appear in the end a bas relief without substance…

The occurrence with the Demon of Sadness took place one spring day, similar to a host of others lived and experienced by Timotheos. He woke up almost at dawn, in the twilight zone of ghosts and sat in the verandah of his house. The view around him was wonderful and a blessed soul, as he was wont to say, would glorify life. However, he was unable to find sense in anything, and he always acted as if he were bound to pay an inexplicable debt. Never could he probe into this debt, nor could he curb the infernal desire to go on living without being able to take his own life, which according to his convictions would have been more honest. Certainly, Timotheos never complained about anything, and whoever asked him about his health, he would always reply with the cliché “I’m fine!” however, only he knew the gravity of this rejoinder, for, even as a grammar school pupil, he still wished to be on the last but one day of his death.

“The world is made of paper”, he mused once as he was looking at a flower that was struggling to exist in a pot. “I could destroy this paper universe if I had the courage to go blind on purpose, for I am the creator of this delusion”.

Timotheos acquiesced and they both went out in the verandah. The first question that was formed in Timotheos’ mind was Sophronios’ age. “How come did he know me as a child being at the same time a friend of my parents’ since he and I are almost coeval?” He could hardly pose him his question when the tall and lean man began to speak and narrate family events in detail, reveal secrets of his parents known to no man save Timotheos, and, to the latter’s shock, refer to facts of Timotheos’ most intimate life. And indeed he pointed out the scene of the children building castles in the sand, which sent a shiver down his spine.

“And what are you leading to” Timotheos asked him curtly to put an end to this revelatory soliloquy.

Sophronios paused and cast a penetrating look at him. Then for the first time Timotheos beheld his countenance. It was a veritable sorrowful face, terrible and beyond description. Timotheos unwittingly shrank deeper in his armchair.

“I should smile with you”, said Sophronios, “but I have never smiled in my life let alone having laughed”.

“Never?” asked Timotheos being at a loss for a better question.

“Never. And not few years, perhaps centuries, weigh upon me”, he added in low spirits.

“Anyway, what do you want from me?” Timotheos asked impatiently. “Why have you come?”

“You have to see me, to know me in person, because you are on the ultimate but one day before your death. You are dying…”

“No!” The word stormed out of Timotheos’ mouth, although he always looked forward to the day when there would be an end to a meaningless life. He stood up from his armchair, ghastly pale and looked desperately at the flowers in the veranda. His eyes stared intently at the flower that struggled to survive in the pot. Even the flower you are looking at”, went on Sophronios, “will wither tomorrow. It will die with you as all things will”.

“I must confess I don’t want to die”, replied Timotheos huskily struggling to preserve his composure. “It is true I’ve been expecting it all my life, my illness has been the sadness of my soul, but now that the end is near, I don’t want it; at least not like this: ceremoniously and with foreknowledge. I would rather it happened suddenly and unexpectedly”.

“You are inconsistent”, responded Sophronios stressing each word. “Your entire life you’ve been looking forward to this day, and now you renege on it. However, you ought to know that what we passionately wish for, some day will come to pass. Only time is unknown to you”.

“To you?” resumed Timotheos. “You mean to us. It’s us. Why don’t you fall in the same category yourself?”

“Indeed to you, Timotheos. For I am contained nowhere. I am a spirit and take flesh whenever and in any fashion I want. I permeate all things like the wind. Do not pretend that you don’t know me. You well know that I am the Demon of Sadness, and sadness is your malady. You are dying of it”.

Timotheos made an effort to run and escape but invisible fetters kept him bound in the verandah. In his agitation he saw the flowers in the pots as if he knew them for the first time. Then an ant carrying a burden disproportionate to his body caught his eye. He forgot his own predicament impressed by the ant’s persistence to transport its food to its colony.

“It’s stupid”, declared Timotheos encouraged by his own words. “I admit being a fool not to accept the wisdom contained in small things”.

“You’re looking for a smile”, said Sophronios who could read Timotheos’ thoughts. “It’s hard to find it”. “It’s not impossible, though”, faltered Timotheos. The Demon of Sadness sighed and uttered cruelly: “Impossible”.

Panic seized Timotheos’ mind in his difficult effort to find a smile. He tried to smile but his muscles would not obey; his face remained grave and cold like a plaster cast. His attempts left the mark of bitterness and a grimace-like smile. For the first time he realized that a spontaneous smile did not originate in irony or gall. Smile is the preamble to delight. Timotheos taxed his memory to delve into by-gone joyful events, but his memory came back idle from the past.

He was encouraged by his thoughts and looked around him thirstily hoping to find a spring. He looked at the sky again; he saw the flowers, the ant which ungrudgingly plodded on with its burden. Ignoring Sophronios’ presence, he wanted to play as he did when he was a child. He sat down on the ground and making shapes with his fingers blocked the course of the creature, which, possessed by the instinct of self-preservation, was trying hard to find a new way out. Timotheos’ rival hand, however, checked its recourses.

“And if I kill it, I won’t annihilate its species, nor stop its endeavors” brooded Timotheos. «Millions of ants will be doing the same acts, involved in the game of life. And if I die, my species won’t disappear. Others like me will be treading on the same paths”.

“And I shall be eternal”, the Demon of Sadness took up Timotheos’ train of thought. “I will go on waging battle against life”.

“And life will be fighting you, Sophronios”, he said aloud and looking at him in the eye he smiled.

12^th July 1998