Despair & Joy

A story about how difficult it is for one to love, and for another to hate. A story about how who we are can barely be changed. And that includes by us, ourselves.


Joy was standing in the middle of the crossroad. Cars were passing her by with honks. She was spreading her arms and turning around. Her tight skirt was cutting into her legs. She sniffed and attracted some rather inappropriate attention to her sore nose. Though, again, for someone standing in the middle of a crossroad, not so much attention. People didn't seem to really care about her. Every other driver nearly drove her over, but not really - she seemed more lucky than actually avoiding.
She was scum to them. Most of them were just passing this neighbourhood. Strangely, all the cars were limousines carrying self-confidently looking men in 3-piece suits.

A rather strange setting, however, it's not the only strange thing about this story.

Suddenly, one of the cars, as the driver saw Joy, steered to the side. He absolutely calmly, with a cold suverenity drove right into the traffic lights pole. Sparks came out of the traffic lights, smoke came out of the car and he, seemingly not shaken even a little bit, got out of the car, put on his sunglasses (though it was already dark) and proceeded to make his way to Joy.

He approached her silently,  with absolute certainty and only when he was a meter or two far from her, he suddenly jumped. He jumped and grabbed her and together they fell on the sidewalk. He gave his suit a few slaps to get the dust out and helped her on her feet.
"What's your name?" he said.
"It's Joy, sweetheart. And what about yours, care to share?" she answered. She was being very proffesional - at least considering her line of work - and also very proud.
"Joy, now, is it? What a convenient name for, ehm, a lady of the night." He said that, with despise and interest mixed in his voice. But then he realized he really wouldn't want to upset this "fine lady" and so he added "Name's Despair." He said it with an obviously well practiced smile, that was, just as obviously, supposed to be charming..
But she, she didn't really care about no prince Charming! She's too proud - and reasonably proud - of her job to know better than to treat customers by any other measure, than the cash they give.
"Oh, the name doesn't give promises that I can't fulfill, handsome. I can make every inch of your handsome body swivel in ecstasy just with a flick of my wrist. Or, darling, I can treat you even more fine that you can imagine, now, did I hear the whisper of banknotes rubbed against each other?" she made sure she appended some exceptionally expressive body talk to her actual talk.

"Make me feel the best you can." He said and laid out an carefully folded array of 100 dollar notes in front of her.
She did a good job trying to keep her pokerface on, when she saw those pieces of paper, her one-way ticket out of the ghetto as she imagined them to be. You could say she entered a gold rush just then. Her eyes flashed and with a seductive giggle and a fashionable smile she reacted:"Ho, ho, sexy boy, this will take you as far as heaven is wide. And when you leave here - I guarantee you, hon - you won't call yourself Despair anymore. Now, follow me up to my little bed kingdom, haha!"

What happened thereafter can everyone with imagination at least as vivid as, say, a tree stump can imagine. The question is, therefore, not what happened, but how.

Despair was very shy and evasive at first. For Joy's taste he was tooling around too much. But then again, Joy's taste was nothing but a set of guidelines. And they both knew he's not tooling around to be gentle. He did so, because he didn't know what to do. It was very frustrating. He thought: I can't let all this money go to waste, no, I'll find a way to get what I want. Just as I always say; I always do!

xxx

Just as Despair was done, he rolled up in the corner of the bed and started crying. Joy tried to approach but... what does Joy know about dealing with... despair?  Not a bit, that's what. She laid a hand on his shoulder to cheer him up, but he grabbed her and pushed her off the bed. . His sobbing turned into a rather violent mix of screams, cries and deep breathing.

Despair has been looking too long for a way to start feeling better. A sort of "emotional trampoline" he would refer to it, if he were to talk about it. However, he still didn't find any such trampoline. He really needed to bounce a little up, but he was still down. Down on his feeling, down on his luck. Joy was supposed to be his trampoline. But what he got? Oh, such humiliation for nothing! What have I done, he thinks to himself. "How could I?" - he is starting to really hate himself by now. "I have a family and a wife" he curses himself.

He wasn't calling himself Despair anymore, when he left. Joy was right about that. But I'm sure she had another name in mind than "Dead Man Walking".

See, Dead Man Walking's trampoline plan didn't really work out. His trampoline didn't bounce him up high. It broke the floorboard it was standing on and it fell down, down into the oblivion. He knew there was no chance of bringing him back to life; he also knew he wouldn't keep walking for too long.