> Memories are the worst.
> When you desperately need happiness and contentment… all you have are memories. Memories of gone days. Memories of emotions and expressions you never will feel again. Memories which only poke fresh wounds, which only serve to tell you 'haha, you screwed up, what a shame!' before leaving again.
> And when you lie in bed, shaking to the core, living only because you are too scared to die, memories can take you back to places of pain. To worlds you may have long escaped physically, but which still stay with you. To worlds which you will forever be cursed with living in, albeit only in your head.
> Memories are the worst.

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The article sat on the table in front of the coffee table, only a small part of a larger newspaper. A spilt cup of coffee sat beside the extract, partially staining it brown and wrinkling it. And beside that was… what was it again? It had been so long… Oh yes. A ring. 24-karat gold, carefully forged by expert blacksmiths for… a woman.

Her name had been long forgotten. But her memory still lived on, permanently lodging a home inside his head. Memories of happiness, which only threw fuel on the blazes of depression.

He shook his head and continued looking across the room which he had completely disregarded.

The table was brown mahogany, a beautiful carved construction made with the utmost care and consideration. Why had anyone spent so much time on a table? He tried to recollect his thoughts.

A flash of white.

The room was plunged into white oblivion which slowly faded out into… a different room? The room was laid out the same, but it was obvious that this wasn't the same room. The marks of grief, the handprints where he had smashed the wall begging his deity for forgiveness and mercy - they weren't there. In their place was a newly-painted wall. Oh the floor in front of him were blocks of wood, measured, along with carpenters' tools.

A flash of white again.

The room was disarrayed into oblivion again, but this time it was chaotic. A black hole, only white, sucking the memory into its singularity and reorienting him into the present. The handprints slowly faded into view, as did the marks on the wall. The ring which she had thrown across the room in her fury. And the article… the article, so coveted, proof that he wasn't the only one suffering because of his brain.

And the table… who had made the table again? Oh right. He had.

He continued looking around the room. The table was host to a vase of flowers, long wilted, crumbling to carbon. A painting on the wall, once beautiful, the watercolours now retreating down the paper as if the frame provided solace from the remains of the room… where had he gotten the money to buy that?

Another flash of white.

Again, the room was thrown into white nothingness, but this time he was ready. When the white faded, it wasn't the room which greeted him, but an artist's easel, and a familiar face, brow furrowed with concentration as brushes manipulated the paper on the easel to form a masterpiece.

Another flash of white.

Back to the present. Back to pain. Back to suffering.

He had had enough. With an aura of discontentment and sadness, he heaved himself back into the armchair which had become his home, closed his eyes, and welcomed the blissful ignorance of sleep.