The Hypnotist

There's something about the end of the year that makes me feel depressed. As if my life isn’t going anywhere. It might be the fact that it’s been another pointless year almost passed, or it could be the fact that summer has been and gone, and there’s nothing you can do to bring back those gloriously sticky summer nights out in the garden sitting by a fire. On the other hand, one can look forward to the delights of Halloween and Christmas, and if you live in America, Thanksgiving.
Even so, there’s just something about the end of the year that’s always made me feel depressed. It might be the autumn leaves dropping off the trees when they were once so beautifully ripe and succulent, swaying gently in the breeze as they soaked up the sunlight that beamed down on them. It might be the lost youth of summer fun and games in the beaming sunshine, playing catch with a Frisbee, sitting on the swings, trips down to the beach. Mind you, there’s always snowball fights to be had, and there’s a lot of fun and games you can have in the snow… snow angels, snowmen, snowballs, snow cones… everything beginning with the word ‘snow’ is fun, so it has to be a happy time; they don’t call it the festive season for nothing!
But still, there’s just something about the end of the year that makes me feel depressed. It might be the paltry embers of a dying sun, fading away out of our minds and out of our hearts, the grass freezing over and crunching underfoot when so tragically close was the time when we were walking barefoot through this same patch, talking about the future, and all the summer fun we’d be having… watching the deer and lambs playfully scampering on the moors, and just lying on the grass knowing we had each other, and appreciating it with everything we had; but still, there’s the sad sting of summer loss… when you find yourself suddenly alone for the winter, and it makes it even harder to get through the year without breaking down at the dinner table, because there’s just something about Christmas that makes you want to be loved, and when you think back to summer, when you thought it would last, and you thought you’d actually found somebody who loved you back… and suddenly she vanishes from out your life and leaves you in a corner, afraid and on your own.
I can’t remember the number of films I’ve seen based around the tagline “nobody should be alone for christmas”, and when you look in on all the smug couples devouring their carcasses and forcing spoilt brats to eat their Brussels sprouts, and trying to get grandma away from the sherry, you just think there should be more to this season than heartbreaking misery and nothing left but the memories of a beautiful summer with the love that once blossomed and has now been suffocated by a dense layer of snow that leaves no trace of its existence. There are the little things; the gutwrenching pain whenever I think of her, the photographs, terrible reminders of a blood-stained summer with a blissful few months that were destined never to last, and the tears that I cry every night - desperate, hopeless, pathetic screams of pain and injustice in a world that doesn't care, even in a time of giving.
This christmas, I don't want books, games or clothes. I just want to feel her hand in mine, I just want one more minute of sitting under the shade of a tree with her head in my lap as I read to her and see her beautiful eyes looking up at me, I just want one more day of holding her and kissing her and telling her how much I love her...

But it won't happen. Nothing will ever bring her back, no matter how many tears I shed, or how withdrawn and reclusive I become, or how much my heart aches when I think of her, and as the snow falls and the flakes melt as they hit my hands and my face, I wipe my eyes and walk home through the beautiful snow-covered streets, silent and alone.