INSTRUCTIONS FOR MELANCHOLY
First, choose an armchair where the afternoon light settles without asking permission. Open a window somewhere in your soul. Put on a record that doesn’t exist. Listen to the instruments weep without being played. Walk barefoot over unsent letters.
The crackle is important. Then be wary of the slowness of the clocks.
Caress an empty coat. Smell its ghosts. Keep close at hand a saving glass of brandy from Jerez, a book opened in the middle, and a poem that you don’t know whether it saddens you or saves you.
If a bird appears, gaze at it as if it were a memory. Feel a whisper on the back of your neck: it is not the wind. Cover yourself with a blanket of fallen vine leaves and breathe as if each exhalation released an autumn.
When you start to feel better, don’t run away. Melancholy needs company, too.
Francisco Xavier Lama López
