The dealer of feelings

5.

He grabs me by the arms. The look in his eyes, on his face, is screaming it from miles, and I would have known even if he had not uttered a single word more. Despair. This is the face of a man who has decided I am his last - and probably only - hope. "Please. I'll not need much aside from that. I'm- I'm ready to pay as much as you'd like. Just... name your price." He pauses to catch his breath; the despair is filling his lungs almost to the point where they will burst, I can feel that. In turn, I feel the pity starting to simmer inside my own heart.

Were I anyone else and not Alex Elroy, I would have most probably asked the highest price I could think of for half the vials of sadness I have on me; this is how you get the banknotes rolling the easiest. But I am me, and I am not a greedy bastard - or so I like to think of myself, at least. "So you couldn't make yourself feel anything by eating or drinking-"

"No, no, no. Nothing else helped. Listen to me." The man puts a hand on my shoulder. I shiver from the sudden contact; physical contact isn't among the things I like, and I am still getting used to people brushing against me when I get on the public transport or in crowds. "I had an entire grocery list, you see. Like those you get given once you get old enough to be able to realise what you feel and analyse your feelings - do you remember them? A list of feelings you are going to experience in the next few years or so. And, well... I got through all of them but the sadness, at some point."

Another sigh rolls from his lips, and the crown prince looks up at me again. My heart stutters at how dead inside he looks, and the bag slides off from my shoulder, as if willing to open itself and give the man the poison he has named. "I've tried anger, too, but it's really... exhausting, and it mixes with the fear too easily, and with the disgust, too. And when those mix, it's, uh... unpleasant, to say the least."

He wrinkles his nose ever-so-slightly, a shadow of dislike running over his face like a sea wave washing over the shore before disappearing and melting into its sisters and brothers, the next waves. "That's exactly why I thought I needed sadness. I haven't tried it before in my life. Ever. Believe it or not. So, I hit the road, so to say, on a quest to find sadness. A prince on his white horse." Here, he chuckles. But I can feel there is no mirth in his laughter; it's as dry as last year's fallen leaf, too crunchy under your shoe and ready to fall apart at the slightest whisper of the wind."I'm begging you. I couldn't find sadness anywhere; it turns out that people have stopped recycling it as often as they used to before, and there isn't as much of it as there used to be. And," before I can open my mouth again, he adds through stutters of worry, his voice shaky, "I couldn't find any. I'm desperate."