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Flowers

8 years ago946 words

Since the world works in mysterious ways, immediately following my ∞ glimpse into oblivion ∞, I randomly saw ∞ this miniseries thing ∞ that dealt with suicide and depression in a way that brought me to tears. Sources call it a dark comedy, or even a sitcom, but I think that's misleading; it's quite intensely emotional and really quite odd. It gave me ideas about how I could use my own creative work to address the issues that are most resonant to me.



The first episode begins with the father, Maurice Flowers, trying - but failing - to hang himself. It takes him the remaining six episodes to admit this to his family. Though the characters are deliberately bizarre, his depression is depicted realistically, as are the effects it has on those around him. This surprised me; I assumed after seeing the first hanging that it'd become a running joke, as in other comedies. "Oh, he's trying to hang himself again, haha". Like Moe from The Simpsons. I suppose I've seen such things treated so flippantly so often that it's shocking - in a good way - to see it given the gravity it deserves.

In an attempt to finally tell his wife, he decides to take her to a nice hotel. Along the way, they stop at a petrol station, and she talks about how difficult his dark mood is to endure. She asks how long it'll last; it's been 'boring' for a long time now. She was a happy person before she met him, she says. She asks him to explain it; he can't. She asks him to at least try. He describes it as a big invisible monster that never goes away. She asks how she can help... What will make him happy? Is it love? "Love just makes it worse", he replies. He's struggling, and gets out of the car to smoke... She drives away and leaves him there.

It's such a terrible trap to fall into... You get depressed. People want to 'cheer you up', to quickly fix you so you're entertaining to them again. They struggle, and fail, because it's not something you're easily freed from. Then they leave you, because you're too difficult. You feel worse...

Another character is initially portrayed as a mentally unhinged creep who probably murdered his wife, and who's now set his sights on Maurice's wife. He loves her, he says, and expresses it in a way that made me worry whether my own expressions of appreciation and affection towards my friends are so cringeworthily off-putting! Eventually, he corners Maurice on a rooftop with a knife, ranting about showing him where his wife died... It turns out his wife committed suicide, and this rooftop is where they found the body. He rants at Maurice not because he's a dangerous murderer, but because he was torn apart by her death and doesn't want Maurice's wife to go through what he went through. He thought it'd go away after a few months, he says, the feeling of loss and guilt and pain, but it didn't. It never goes away. That's what you leave behind, he says, when you do such a selfish thing. It brought me to tears thinking of the harm I'd cause if I gave in myself. I care too much about my mother and my friend to inflict that upon them...

Maurice - despite his depression - is an apparently successful author of a series of children's books about a family of goblins called The Grubbs. The books are quite dark and moody, which I assumed at first would just be seen as a source of humour. Absurdity. They're illustrated by Shun, an eager-to-please and energetically positive young Japanese man who lives with the Flowers family, who's treated as comic relief at first. Though he likes everyone and tries to be their friend and make them happy, nobody likes him. Ha ha. Comedy! Towards the end of the series, the Grubbs books are dropped by their publisher because Maurice is so difficult to work with and keeps missing deadlines... so Shun goes to speak to them, to convince them to reconsider. He - in an unnervingly positive but not 'wacky' tone - tells them about an earthquake that hit his village in Japan, killing all his family. He had nothing left, nowhere to go... He wandered into a book shop, and was drawn to a Japanese translation of one of the Grubbs books. The world it portrayed was a dark one; the Grubbs goblins were miserable and their lives were difficult. But that's exactly why it resonated with him. His own life was empty and miserable too, and seeing others in the same position, seeing them survive despite all that, gave him hope. Saved his life. He wrote Maurice a letter and offered to be his illustrator, then flew to England and devoted himself to him ever since.

That made me cry too... Made me think about what I can do with my own creative work to truly make a difference in people's lives, despite the darkness in my own. I'd much rather do that than just make silly fantasy RPGs where you fight monsters and save the world from an Evil Villain for no good reason. I have ideas for what I could do, but I still need to refine them.

So yes. Things like this move and inspire me... and I wish I could make something myself that makes others feel similar things. That helps someone, no matter how slightly.