The doctor's violent ceiling lights continued their battle against the darkness.

"...I usually instruct my clients not to do their own diagnosis. Otherwise we're out of a job!" The personable young doctor laughed that contagious laugh of his to put the husband and wife at ease. Michelle squeezed her husband's left thigh for assurance, "but Dr. Richard, it says here one can die from undiagnosed DB. We were reading some of the symptoms earlier, it seems like Mike might..."

"Officially we're calling it the Blues, Ms. Rodriguez. Sorry for interrupting but terminology is important here." Michelle shifted in her seat twice and squeezed her husband's thigh a little harder. "Right. Sorry. Anyways I read on the internet that the Blues become more dangerous the longer it is undiagnosed. I'm afraid my husband here has it." The husband looked up at Dr. Richard for the first time since coming in. He didn't say anything, but his eyes shouted, "I might have it. Who cares." Richard nodded several times - he had heard him loud and clear. "Mr. Rodriguez, would you mind telling me some changes you've had over these past two months?"

Rodriguez squeezed his eyes and chuckled just loud enough to be heard over the ceiling lights and the beat of the doctor's mechanical watch.

"No need to put your raygun to my head, doc

What they don't tell you about the Blues is that you begin to use well whiskey as lip balm

That you're up for eight hours and sleep for sixteen

Or that you'll spend your most valuable currency, time, at bars with popcorn machines

And that you'll scribble madness and fire on the edge of the book you brought to read

but you don't bring it to read, you bring it to avoid people talking to you

and the book is about DEATH and WAR and GENOCIDE

But what I'll tell you about my blues,

is that Cupid shot the wrong man

with the wrong ammunition."

Mike had it. The Blues had taken him and destroyed his marriage. This disease took shelter in our last refuge. Our soul. Pills did nothing, shrink sessions did nothing, and time, more often than not, only worsened the condition. Blues never pulled you towards suicide, but stripped the pleasure from life. The flip was switched and everything was now black and white.

The doctor's fist went over his mouth and he coughed that polite cough one does to be recognized. "Mr. Rodriguez... you have the blues." Mike smiled without warmth. "I know, doc. Have you seen my red shoes? I use them to dance the Blues." The wife broke down crying, still not letting go of her soon to be ex-husbands thigh.

"Mike," the doctor slowed his speech considerably, "all you can do now is pull your raincoat a little bit tighter and continue walking through the slanted torrent. There's no cure for this."