Drabble 137 – Ataraxia

Anger is what gets me through the day.

Sadness, for me, is an all-consuming emotion. I feel it everywhere. It weighs on me like wet clothes, dragging me down, making it hard to move.

Anger I feel in my chest. It hurts, sometimes, because anger burns while sadness feels heavy. But I can do something with anger; pain makes me want to move, to act. Whenever possible, I try to get angry.

This isn’t something that comes naturally to me, unfortunately. It has taken me years to cultivate a healthy sense of anger–that is, anger that inspires, not anger that turns inward, dissolving into sadness yet again. I’m still working on it. I think of how difficult it is for me to get angry, sometimes, and, like magic, I become angry.

Anyway, here’s a drabble.

ATARAXIA

(n.) From Greek ἀταραξία, for “not perturbed”

A state of serenity, calmness.

Outside, a whisper becomes a conversation becomes a shout.

Inside, the king eats grapes big as eyeballs, popping them because he likes the squish. They stain his fingers purple, and the queen tells him in monotone that he looks like a leper.

Outside, one person suggests weapons. Another disagrees. Another always carries weapons, because she must protect her body.

Inside, the king turns his nose up at a feast. He’s eaten too many grapes and is no longer hungry.

Outside, their bellies rumbling, ten fists rise in anger. Twenty. Fifty. They walk, together, and that night they eat like kings.