I'm not sure why I even bother any more as I glance around at the kids playing frisbee, loving pet owners taking their dogs for walks, and watchful parents clumping together discussing their precious little ones playing on the playground. I feel the sun on my skin, but the warmth doesn't register. The beauty of the flowers, the stark green of the grass and trees, crystalline sky - I can't see it. It's as if my eyes are covered with some sort of film, dulling anything that's supposed to bring joy to normal people. I feel nothing. Only empty.

Every Friday I walk this park. Half hoping something has changed, but knowing it hasn't. Every Friday I sit at the same bench, with the same blank notebook and the same pencil, and stare blankly at my surroundings, waiting for inspiration to come, knowing it never will.

This Friday there was change; albeit very minor change. As I approached my usual perch, I discover a quarter of it is already taken up by a homely looking man with a gruff beard and even more gruff looking clothes. I nod silently in acknowledgement to this change, and sit.

There comes a point in time when writers block is no longer simply "writers block". There comes a time when that morphs, grows and expands until it becomes a vast sea of uncertainty and doubt.

I have been swallowed by that sea. Every Friday I sit on this bench and try fruitlessly to fight the waves, only to be pulled under again. Soon, I will run out of air, and the world will fade away. I will get up, and return to my home. Hoping something will be better next week, knowing it won't.

A phlegmy cough startles me from my contemplation, and I find my attention directed at the man sitting beside me. His ice blue eyes meet mine, and in their depths I find kindness and understanding. He smiles a broken smile full of broken teeth, and lets out a hoarse laugh - more of a wheeze than anything really. Before I can say or do anything, I am interrupted by his rough tenor voice. It scratched my ears as if it though hardly ever used. It sputtered from his throat like water from a rusty faucet. Slowly at first, and suddenly all at once.

"Look at you. What, 25 at most? And yet you've got about as much life in you as my late grandmother - may God keep her in his loving embrace." Puzzled into silence, I simply let him continue.

"Look kid. I've been around the block a time or two, and I've seen that look a thousand times. You don't have to tell me you've given up, I can read it in your face clearer than spring water on a sunny afternoon."

If I could feel anything, I might have been insulted by what he was trying to insinuate. Instead, I simply sat back and met his unwavering gaze.

"What? Cat got your tongue?" I sighed wearily, wondering how long I'd be stuck sitting here for, waiting for the tirade to be over.

"No sir," I mumbled quietly. My answer was met with more raspy laughter, and a hearty - unexpected - pat on the back.

"Well, that's something I suppose." He said, shaking his head in amusement. "Look, I'm not going to ask your life story, or what's causing you pain. All I'm going to tell you is this life of yours isn't meaningless. Whether you believe me when I say it or not, I urge you to wait to make that decision until after you hear my argument. Fair?"

I glanced around, but no one else seemed privy to our conversation. It was almost as if we were invisible. But then again, there isn't a whole lot to draw attention between the two of us.

I contemplated simply getting up and leaving, after all I had no reason to stay. It wasn't as if he could force me to listen, and yet I felt compelled to stay. So, rather than acting rationally and taking my leave, I simply nodded in agreement. This was welcomed with an even larger smile, and something told me it wasn't often someone agreed to listen.

"That you are willing to take the time to listen to the ramblings of an old man, speaks volume of your soul," he said softly. "Thank you." I simply nodded again and waited to hear his story.

"Years ago, perhaps a lifetime or two, I nearly froze to death on the side of a mountain. That much I suppose is irrelevant - a story for another day. However, what I learned from my near death experience is this: do not mourn those that have passed with the idea they suffer, for it is us who suffer. We suffer the loss of their company, their presence. The truth is, one day you too, will cross over. Just like all those who have gone to sleep, never having woken. And it is in that moment that you will realize, all the things that ever hurt you, that ever caused you to struggle, will simply evaporate, and you will rediscover the most pure, unconditional love you had forgotten when you awoke, never having slept."

He paused, giving me time to contemplate what he said. While his words hung heavy in the air between us, he carried on.

"To clarify, let’s compare human life to rain. Just as raindrop, you were formed from that which has no shape; nothing more than a mist that has no boundaries. As you form as a raindrop, you begin to fall from the sky, separate and individual to all the billions of other raindrops, buffeted by the wind of uncertainty as you race towards an unknown end. And like the raindrop, we are falling towards our own uncertain end, feeling like we are all separate - yet we are all made of the same stuff, with the same destiny."

"At some point the raindrop will collide with the earth, run down to collect in rivers, only to end up in the ocean. It is only then, that the raindrop will realize it was never truly separate; that even small and having fallen with fear from a great height, it had really been the ocean that whole time."

"So have no fear of this life friend; for all that is awful, hard, painful or fearful, will all one day make sense. Use whatever means you can to find peace, love one another, but never forget that you are everything that ever was and ever will be. You are simply the universe pretending to be human."

Unable to speak, I watched as he stood, thanked me for my time, and walked away, as casually as he had simply told me about the weather. For two more hours I sat and thought. Change blanketed the air with it's thick smog, and I could feel a shift within me. The more I thought about his "ramblings", the clearer my vision seemed to grow. I felt a genuine smile stretch across my face for the first time in too long. I took a deep breath of the fresh air, and looked down and the blank paper resting on my lap. Graphite whispered across ivory sheets, words marking it's path. For the first time in months, I began to write.