A/N: Ok, so this is what happens when I spend my afternoon in my bedroom, on a rainy summer's day, listening to The Smiths. Yep, it's depressing, perhaps soul-crushingly so. And really rather strange. But I hope it's good, at least in some way. And anyway, what do you expect? I mean, have you heard The Smiths? :P Jotted down in my old Maths book, for whatever reason (maybe because Maths is also very depressing), and written at some point last summer. Anyway, enjoy! (If that's the right word). Never was a tree as dark as this; a mulberry tree, in the dankest depths of the woods, with its glistening purple poisonous berries, which in their own way gave life, but also took it away. The most terrible thing in the world was to be immortal - able to feel the worst pain, but not ending, ever, no matter what you did - ever feeling, ever hurting, ever dying, but not dead; never dead. But the most terrible thing in the world, surely, was to lose your memory - all your memories; the essence of who you are - your personality, your feelings, your family, your friends. The basest of human emotion, and indeed, being, gone. And the worst thing is also the best thing about it - you'll never know the most terrible thing that ever happened to you - because you'll have forgotten. And will continue to forget, forever. So you will be trapped there, in eternal suffering, forever forgetting then returning to the pain. You can get used to suffering; pain will lessen if given the time. But when everything is continually forgotten, then every moment of pain will be as fresh as the first, for, to you, it will be. How can you survive this - this endless tangle of pain and loss - loss of loss, loss that can't even be gained, itself - nothing gained but pain? And yet, you must survive - not because you want to - want is long gone, along with everything else that made you human, except your pain - but because it is so. You must survive, for no purpose other than that you have been made that way. That is the cruelty of those purple berries - they show you how life is so much worse than death, though, of course, you cannot appreciate it in the form of coherent thought. Instead, it is simply expressed - simpler, should I say - in the being of pain that you have become. It shouldn't be called a mulberry. Mirthlessberry would be a more apt title. Don't say I didn't warn you. I'm not sure this even makes sense, but I guess it's no exactly supposed to; it's just a stream of consciousness, a splurge of feeling, if you like. Don't worry, though, I'm genuinely not depressed; I was just in one of those moods where I wanted to write something utterly depressing. I just hope I haven't made any of you too glum. Reviews even make The Smiths smile! (or maybe not. But still.) Naha :)