December 12, 2007

• The Second Kind of Loneliness

  “There are times, out here at Cerberus, when I think I’m the only man in the universe. Earth was a fever dream. The people I remember were just creations of my own mind.

  There are times, out here, when I want someone to talk to so badly that I scream, and start pounding on the walls. There are times when the boredom crawls under my skin and all but drives me mad.

  But there are other times, too. When the ringships come. When I go outside to make repairs. Or when I just sit in the control chair, imaging myself out into the darkness to watch the stars.

  Lonely? Yes. But a solemn, brooding, tragic loneliness that a man hates with a passion– and yet loves so much he craves for more.

  And then there is the second kind of loneliness.

  You don’t need the Cerberus Star Ring for that kind. You can find it anywhere on Earth. I know. I did. I found it everywhere I went, in everything I did.

  It’s the loneliness of people trapped within themselves. The loneliness of people who have said the wrong thing so often that they don’t have the courage to say anything anymore.

  The loneliness, not of distance, but of fear.

  The loneliness of people who sit alone in furnished rooms in crowded cities, because they’ve got nowhere to go and no one to talk to. The loneliness of guys who go to bars to meet someone, only to discover they don’t know how to strike up a conversation, and wouldn’t have the courage to do so if they did.

  There’s no grandeur to that kind of loneliness. No purpose and no poetry. It’s loneliness without meaning. It’s sad and squalid and pathetic, and it stinks of self-pity.

  Oh yes, it hurts at times to be alone among the stars.

  But it hurts a lot more to be alone at a party. A lot more.”

  The above was an excerpt from the short story “The Second Kind of Loneliness” by George RR Martin who is by far my favorite living author and I who I believe to be one of the greatest published authors in living memory. I read this story in the anthology Dreamsongs volume 1.

  I found this particular story to be…. unique.

  It seemed worth sharing.

  • 1:56 am
  • 2 Comments