Falling.

When the evidence of a fall becomes apparent, it is already too late to stop the dramatic plunge earthwards towards a new, lower resting place.

Once the foot slips on the ice, there is nothing more to be done except to intercept the ground and pick the bruises off yourself like ripe fruit. Once the avalanche takes hold, the only course of action is to wait to be burned to death in its whiteness, the tongue of the mountain reaching beneath the flesh to drink your blood.

When the depressive sees the first warning sign of a relapse, the horse bolted long ago. That first sign is loss of interest in that which maintains the make-believe structure of a significant and fulfilling life. I noticed it on Monday: wan footballers creating pretty patterns to no greater purpose, egged on by aggressive, tribalistic followers.

The futility of everything is drawn into sharp relief: the most important thing in the world is to get up before lunchtime and pull together the scraps of the day that remain, and yet the result, when accomplished, is met with disgust and disappointment. What is wanted is wanted until it is achieved, and then it is regarded with suspicion and drained of merit.

I don't know how far away the bottom is, or when I shall land there, frightened and broken. Every time, I promise that there will be no return to this pit, this distance, only to relapse eventually to my origins.

Could it be that the shock which pushes the depressive body off the edge of the cliff - again - is the residue of previous shocks which pushed the depressive body off the edge of the cliff? Like an idiotic, incomprehensible video sequence repeated forever, an invisible force causes a man to fall far enough to kill him, only for him to come back to life every single time, shaking off the muck and stasis of the grave.