Three Days of Happiness

63
“Can’t say that’s uncommon,” I squeezed in.
“Indeed it isn’t. It’s a very common kind of disappointment. Of
course, the agony felt will vary from person to person. You, of
course, were a person who needed to be superior to everyone.
Lacking someone to depend on, you had only yourself to prop up
your world. When that pillar crumbled, the pain was enough to set
you onto destruction.”
“Destruction?”, I repeated.
“You came to realize you were approaching your late thirties. It
became your lonely hobby to ride motorcycles around aimlessly.
But, as you yourself knew, it was a dangerous hobby. Particularly
for someone who has half given up on life. ...The one small mercy is
that when you one day crashed into someone’s car, you did not
injure any pedestrians, only yourself. But a very severe injury it was
- you lost half your face, the ability to walk, and most of your
fingers.”
It was easy to understand the meaning of “lost half your face,” but
harder to imagine.
Perhaps it was something dreadful enough that people would just
look at it, and their only thought would be “a place where there
was once a face.”
“As your appearance was the only thing you could rely upon, you
began to consider going through with your last resort. But you
couldn’t bring yourself to take the final plunge - you couldn’t let go
of that last sliver of hope. “Even so, maybe something good will still