Our protagonist is a social, funny and easygoing character, at first sight. He (or she) sticks out in a positive way and gets a lot of respect from his fellows by being the center of attention as the good guy. He has a humble child-like smile with half-lit eyes that people can't resist. Some even call him an angel. And they have a right because he believes himself to be an angel, sometimes... When you ask for help, he'll do everything in his power to help. He is clearly on ''the good side'', sometimes. But sometimes, you catch a glimpse of sadness in his eyes. You notice him sharply disconnect from the world and get lost within his own separate dark dark world. The sudden pessimism gets so disturbing that you feel as if he has a serious disease that no-one can cure. If you try to understand/share his burden he'll either look down and say "everything's all right", or he'll trust you and pour his broken soul out with leaving you no way out for years and years to come.
Now why does he do that? And "why not?" some of you might say... After all it's only normal for someone to share the part of his iceberg that's under water only with people he feels close. The difference with this guy is that the two separate parts that make him are alarmingly contradicting. And non of them is more real, they exist side by side. And if you happen to be on one side, you are denied the other. Nothing against you, it's a precautionary measure. So if you happen meet him above the surface with all the smiling and "normal" behaviour, that's all you're gonna get with occasional out-of-the-air fade outs. Enjoy your standard friendship and stop reading. But if you somehow happen to meet him on the dark side, you must know that...
This guy is a hard-core pessimist about himself and about life. He'll keep reminding you how sad the world is. And he'll drink. And he'll write. And he'll sing. And he'll think highly of drinking, writing and singing. He will appreciate it very much if you drink, write and sing with him. He dedicates and appreciates, that's what he does. He'll be forever in debt if you cry when he does. But he'll want you strong as a rock. He'll want you to be a happy figure. But he won't let you see him smile again. He'll treat you as God and see himself as the suffering prophet, and will keep telling you stories that haunt him all through his life. He'll repeat repeat repeat the same dead-end parts of his holly book until you memorize and internalize. He'll quote and cite and refer to hopeless-case-songs and will revolve everything around one giant obstacle that he believes he cannot overcome. If it's your first time you will be touched by this sincerity, you'll applaud, and shed bravo's as the drama-queen performs. You'll abide by the nonsense rules of being an audience and honour his request to keep silent. You won't know that this is contagious. You won't be able to put your finger on the reason why looking down the edge doesn't feel right. You'll just feel the gravity gripping stronger on you. But if you can pull yourself out even for a while, you'll notice the monstrous black hole ahead of you. When you start running away he'll call out to you with his irresistible child-like smile that he saves for emergencies like this type. When the good and the dark sides call at the same time, you'll go back. You'll go back to fall apart, and then to start again. Fall apart and start again. Fall apart and start again so many times that neither falling apart nor starting again will mean much for any one of you anymore. Things will get ugly. He will prove to you how sad the world is. But you'll eventually leave never to come back again. Then after hours and days and months and decades, on a bright morning, in a different country, you'll meet the same person with a different name, a different age, and you'll wonder what it is that attracts you to this new person with the child-like face.
