Happiness in a bottle sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? I would have thought so too, if I hadn’t experienced it for myself.
It was awful. You would think that being happy would make you, well, happy. But the thing is, when you force your body to be happy, you feel happy, but you’re not actually happy.
I drank my happiness in a bottle as soon as I got my hands on it. It tasted like warm chocolate chip cookies topped off with a scoop of rich, slightly melted vanilla ice cream. In other words, it tasted like heaven. I felt my body relax itself, and my lips automatically curled up in the biggest smile my face has ever experienced.
This was the beginning of what I thought would be the best day of my life.
I think it was after I ate lunch, at around 1 pm. That’s when things started to take a turn for the worse. I was still grinning stupidly, feeling like everything in the world was right, walking around the park with a skip in my step.
And that’s when I saw them.
A boy and a girl, both no more than 10 years of age, were huddling next to each other in a dark, secluded alleyway, dirt caked on their skin. I could see flies zipping in and out of their matted hair like it was their home. Their clothes… Let’s just say that I would have thought them to be old dish rags if I hadn’t seen them on the bodies of the shivering children. Their wan faces with visible tear streaks would have broken my heart into two…
…but I couldn’t stop smiling.
I was happy, and that’s all that mattered, apparently.
Something from deep inside me that was unaffected by the forced happiness wanted to reach out to them, help them, give them food and a place to stay. It wanted to embrace them and tell them that they were safe now, and that everything was going to be okay from now on, but my body kept strolling along without a care in the world. I scolded it profusely.
Why aren’t you going over to those children?
Are you really so apathetic?
Go! You have to help them, dammit!
What the hell is wrong with you?
But my body was not in sync with my mind.
I sauntered past them, ignoring their pleading stares. I was stupidly gleeful, and that was all that mattered. But no one saw that as I walked them, tears were dripping from my chin as I smiled.
“Oh man! What a lovely afternoon!” I exclaimed, voice unwavering despite the salty droplets falling from my eyes at a steady rate.
I wanted to stop myself. But I couldn’t. My feet wouldn’t stop moving. My arms wouldn’t stop swaying at my sides. My mouth wouldn’t stop curling into a bright crescent shape. I couldn’t stop being happy. I cursed myself and whatever supreme beings are up there.
What kind of cruel being would let this happen?
Why did I have to drink the happiness today?
I.
Want.
To.
Stop.
Being.
Happy.
Just this once.
But life is uncaring. It goes on, no matter how much you want it to stop, no matter how much you’re suffering, no matter how much you need to stop, life goes on.
Life goes on.
And so, happiness in a bottle. It’s a curse hiding behind the mask of a blessing.
If you ever encounter a vial of this stuff yourself, I won’t stop you from drinking it, but let me tell you that what I went through that day is what’s killing me inside today. I’ve never healed from that experience and honestly, the pain is not worth all the happiness in the world.
If not used with care, happiness can be hell.
