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Ibai's pen stopped moving for a minute. How was his mother doing, he wondered? Hopefully well. The rest of the family, too.

The news of his father's death had had a strange effect on him.

He supposed this was what people meant when they referred to being "sad"--this oppressive feeling, deep in his chest and in his mind. Like someone had draped weights all over him.

Even though he was thirty-five years old, sadness was a thing unfamiliar to him. Sure, he'd known that horrible stuff could happen, that the world beyond his little "cage" in Marshrock could be cruel and unforgiving. Anyone who had watched a serious movie or read a sad story could tell that much.

But this?

Actually experiencing it?

It was absolutely awful. And the worst thing about it, Ibai thought, was that there was nothing he could do. Because in the end, it wasn't really about him, was it? It was about what had happened to his father.

In a weird way, sadness was a surprisingly selfish compulsion. It was like it wanted him to focus on himself, on this horrible feeling within him, instead of on his father--on the actual loss. And wasn't that what he was supposed to be focusing on? The object of his grief?

Was this what sadness was really meant to feel like?

It was confusing.

His body didn't always feel in perfect concert with his thoughts. Occasionally, there would just be tears in his eyes for no apparent reason to him, and he found himself thinking of the past a lot more as well.

That part, at least, he didn't hate. It felt nice to remember the past. It seemed like a better thing to do than simply dwelling on how terrible he felt. Less self-concerned, maybe.

He wondered if he would ever be the same again. Or if anything would, really.