Last night whilst my neighbours’ non-stop table tennis game entered its seventh hour and turned into drunken non-stop table tennis and I was trying without any success to sleep, my brain started wandering as brains tend to do. However, my brain being more than slightly weird started to construct sentences in German.  These sentences became a stream of conscious thought about depression which I noted down in my notebook that I keep next to my bed.

Please note, before you start getting anxious about me that I do not suffer from depression and this was just an exercise in fictional writing inspired by the experiences of my many dear friends who battle depression.

Ich bin müde. Mein Kopf tut weh. Mein Herz ist schwer. Der schwarze Hund jagt mich. Ich würde laufen aber meine Beine sind erstarrt. Ich lasse ihn mir nehmen. Die Dunkelheit umschließt mich. Ich gebe mich ihm hin. Es ist die Zeit ohne Sonnenschein.

English translation:

I am tired. My head hurts. My heart is heavy. The black dog hunts me. I would run, but my legs are frozen. I let him take me. The darkness covers me. I surrender to it. It is the time without sunshine.

I submitted this piece to Lang-8 which is a wonderful site where native speakers of the language you are learning correct your writing.  The German above is the corrected version.  The uncorrected version was:

Ich bin müde. Mein Kopf tut weh. Mein Herz ist schwer. Der schwarze Hund jagt mich. Ich würde laufen aber meine beine sind gefroren. Ich lasse ihn mir nehmen. Die Dunkelheit bedeckt mich. Ich gebe zu es hin. Es ist die Zeit ohne Sonnenschein.

Surprisingly, not that much needed to be fixed which is totally unlike most of my writing in German.  Perhaps I should write in German when I’m tired more often.