True Suffering

I could be lonely. I could be sick. I could have a child and have no means to care for it and no paper on which to write a letter to the Sisters of Mercy for his doorstep basket. I could be starving, or under fire. I could be losing my wife to man with big muscles and golden hair and more income. I could be disabled. I could have just accidentally swallowed some poison that looked exactly like lemonade. I could be the thrall of some alien tyrant on a frozen planet in another solar system where thralls are worked mercilessly for twenty years and then tortured to death for thirty. I could be really, really ugly. (Like, bulldog ugly.) I could be friendless (perhaps as a result of my extreme ugliness). I could be dying. I could be wanted for a crime I did not commit. I could be inexplicably depressed. I could be a brilliant singer who was born without a voice.

But I am not.

I'll tell you one thing, though: if this idiot behind the drive-through window doesn't hurry up with my coffee, I'm going to lose control. One thing I cannot take is slow service. It drives me nuts.

Degas: Melancholy