Spleen

Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique, Défilent lentement dans mon âme; l’Espoir, Vaincu, pleure, et l’Angoisse atroce, despotique, Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir. (extract from “Spleen”by C. Baudelaire)

Where I come from, even the air is melancholic.

At dusk, when the light gives out its final rasping breaths, ghosts come out from the bowels of the earth to remind you of who you are. I have breathed that air for years, and I have lost count of how many times my lungs got filled and emptied of that “pneuma” of existence. Melancholy gives back to us our most solid and sad awareness: the idea of the end. All that is left to do, with aware forgetfulness, is to deceive our fate by facing the spiteful barbaric fury of our times and transforming our existence in resistance. From the lungs, that scent of death has found its home in the bowels and in the mind, drumming in our head the same incessant question: “Where are we going?”