Black clouds over the skyline
Ephraim is not my friend’s real name but I like the name and he likes his privacy so I picked it up and that’s how we’ll call him.
I know Ephraim from way back but we barely meet. We were working on a project together once and became really good friends. Good friends in the sense that I probably clicked the like button on each and every family photo he have ever posted but the last I saw him was maybe five or six years ago. But I really like him. Lately he surprised me with a visit.
Ephraim told me he met many great people during the last year. People that cared about him and were glad to share a cup of coffee and offer their kind words. He felt loved and important and was also fortunate to feel valuable when some experience he had and an insight he shared enlightened someone. And yet, he said, melancholy never left.
“A big black cloud was pouring rain and casted his shadow all this time. Big drops of dark rain. I felt and I still feel ashamed.” Ephraim said ”I tried to collect the pieces, to start over, to find a meaning. And I managed somehow. But it never really leaves me. I can rationalize but I am still hurt. Deep inside I still feel worthless.”
Ephraim didn’t look too sad when we met and frankly I was surprised with his bitterness though I could relate. Boy, I could relate.
Like Ephraim I had to shut my startup down. It was 23 months ago. Previously we raised money, we invested a lot of our money and many years. But now it’s history.
Like Ephraim, for the longest time I felt ashamed and kept blaming myself that I didn’t know what I was doing and that in my vanity I messed it all up. Messed it up for my investors, for myself and for everyone involved. While Ephraim had his business running for three years more or less, our did for seven. Seven years of research, salaries, rent, travel costs, crazy hours and infinite stress.
It was three days before our end of runway, before we had to shut down the operation and fire everyone. We were out of the office, trying to figure out a creative way to save the company when I received a call from one of our engineers. At the beginning I didn’t understand what he was saying. Who bought what? What? Who? Wow. He told me that a purchase was made! Some woman started a 10$ monthly subscription plan. I was perplexed. I was happy and devastated at the same time. I tried to see it as a sign of luck coming from the divine. We tried to raise more capital but ultimately had to turn off the lights. We refunded her. I wish I could resurrect the project, I still believed in its importance but couldn’t find more investors or customers that would.
As Ephraim was talking he kept mentioning the black cloud. And I just knew I heard it before. I tried to recall who said it, who wrote it or maybe sang about it. And thought he probably caught it on the radio.
“A black cloud have poured rain all over my town for the last year. It filled every hole in the ground. It made puddles of despair and ruined the sight. From time to time the rain stopped and the sun was showing but the scent of sulfur was always there.” he said and oh boy - I then recalled where I’ve heard it before.
I wrote this poem 20 years ago, when I was in the eleventh grade.
Here’s a quick translation (from Hebrew):
THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR
Two kids were sitting by the shore and built a castle, with a firm wall and windows. A castle with a tower and a gate. A castle made of simple sand, sea sand.
Like before, I saw big clouds climbing over the skyline and still no rain had fallen, no rain like before.
They seemed black like the soot of fire and ashes, so why did I expect them to bring the rain?
It started getting cold and I rubbed my hands together, it will hurt eventually and I will stop.
The movement in the street became poor, the people didn’t seem different anymore. Like those actors that have the role of getting in, out and back to shady faded houses in an endless unified dance.
I rubbed my eyes and kept on looking.
The waves kept hitting the silent shore and got back to the sea. The castle got back to being just grains of sand in the great sea.Just a faint memory that I’ll remember
and maybe -
the girl by my side.12/21/1998
I am pretty sure I added the girl at the end just to make it a little less gloomy. I had no girl when I was 16. This tone of eternal sadness was there during my highschool years, never left completely and made a grand comeback after my life work, my startup had shut down.
I realized I thought my startup would have saved me, save my soul. It will give me eternal life — it will prove me right, smart, capable. Hi, we had some scientific breakthroughs but we didn’t achieve glory. We didn’t save the princess. We didn’t slay the dragon. We are the knights that came back empty handed. How do you live after that? In the fairytales they always follow the path of the glorious. How should the rest live though? How would those that tried but never slayed the dragon live?
Actually, when you come to think of that, outside of the fairytales, heroes kill themselves — right? The heroes, they don’t live happily ever after — right? Rockstars live fast and die young, too young. Sometimes they die by their own hands, surely by their own recklessness.
So maybe I’ve been barking on the wrong tree all this time. Maybe the remedy is not there. Maybe sadness strikes the victor even more fiercely. Maybe that’s the reason we fear success.
Did it ever happen to you that someone shared an experience that was so profound and similar to an experience you had that you lost track of what he was going through and what you did? With Ephraim I felt that the pain he was in was mine too. It was my story he was telling me.
“But, Ephraim,” I said “if the black acidic rain did not kill us yet then maybe we are stronger than what it seems. Maybe going through all of this is part of the bigger story. Maybe it’s still a part of the quest for glory. Maybe.”
