おもい - Mind, Feelings

It is usually when I am alone that I have time to think. When I am making the short walk between the train-station and my home, or in the quiet, lonely hours of the night when I drift in and out of sleep, already beginning to prepare mentally for the day that lies beyond the abyss that awaits me, and sometimes it is when I am with other people, but I am separated from them in a way that I do not understand, but do not find in the least bit perplexing. It is in these times that I have the time to think, and as such, it is in these times that I have the capacity to enter sanctuary.
I say ‘sanctuary’ because I do not have any other word for that place. It is not so much a sanctuary as an intermission, a place of limbo in which there is nothing but the memory of the moments preceding it, and apprehension for the moments that it will be succeeded by. It is a place of blatant, but accepted, contradictions, and yet it is the one place that is truly honest.
Despite my describing sanctuary as a place, a physical location, I feel it would be more correct to say that it is an impression, an illusion, perhaps, of a place that I wish would exist, as if wishing so could perhaps bring about the painfully impossible. I think these things for some time, and to my constant bewilderment, the blatantly impossible occurs, and I am left thinking just how I could have been so foolish as to have doubted for an instant the existence of my sanctuary.
I step within myself and imagine casting my gaze about, for the sake of this account, so that I will not return to the origins of this idea with naught but a piece of paper, pure white and unsullied by my necessitated ramblings, and despite nothing truly existing in that place, I can see both nothing and everything at once, as though peering around an infinitely familiar place with my eyes closed – nothing can be seen, but the knowledge of its existence makes the obscurity unfold before clarity. It is the same here, in that while I can see nothing as such, I am familiar with everything that could exist before my eyes, and so, everything does.
It is only after several moments of this token gesture that I realise that I am not alone within my sanctuary. I do not attempt to look around for my companion, for my heart was never truly in such a gesture from the beginning, as I believe it futile. However, I can feel a presence, much in the way that one feels a cloud passing over the sun even when they are in the shade to begin with.
I do not speak, for I have no breath, nor do I try to communicate in any way. I suspect that even if I were able to take physical action, I would not, for my eyes would be wide with fear and my heart pounding with anticipation of the chase.
This goes on for a while, my fruitless musings, and my companion’s silent witness, until I begin to note that my companion has begun motion, and I imagine my jaw tightening and my hands clenching into fists.
I imagine a hand being placed on my shoulder, and I feel suddenly at ease, as one might as an infant, with the strong, sure hand of a father reassuringly placed across one’s shoulders, for such a thing is possible when one is young and small.
I imagine reassuring words spoken confidently into my ear, in my own voice, despite my inability to speak. I note that amongst the reassuring words are suggestions supported by objective madness, and I imagine capturing a brief glimpse of my companion. Like the rest of my sanctuary, the face I picture is both no face and every face. I imagine being slightly frustrated at my inability to identify who it is I have brought here, but my fancies disperse upon a non-existent wind.
For the first time, I feel truly afraid, and I imagine myself leaving my sanctuary, if for no other reason than to be able to rest my feet on ground that someone else crafted. But my companion holds me to himself, in an embrace that chills me in a way far deeper than any environment I could imagine myself being in.
I imagine all sorts of things to keep me separated from the one I brought into my sanctuary, but none of it is real, and so none of it has any effect save for giving me peace of mind for the briefest of instants, before my relief is torn down along with my false protection.
It is almost impossible to describe why it is that I fear that entity within myself, for everything I imagine it saying it logical, and has grounds in reality. Despite this, what I have learned in reality itself tells me that I must not listen to my inner voice and that it leads to a darkened path down which I must never follow.
And it is only then that I realise that that companion within my sanctuary is my sanctuary itself, in a way, and that it exists only because I willed it to be so. I recoil from such thoughts, but they cling to me much in the way that my sanctuary does.
And despite my best efforts, I now realise that it is too late for me to ignore my sanctuary, or to leave it behind, for it speaks truth and objectivity, and to ignore it is to lead myself down that shaded path.
And it is after all this that I come to a sudden, jolting realisation that sends waves of nausea through me. Despite my fear and despite everything, my sanctuary and its presence are in themselves me, and I understand that everything that I imagined them saying and doing was nothing but that itself – my imaginings.
And after these realisations comes one, final, crushing blow, and that is the acceptance of my insanity.

We had to write an essay for school, there were a bunch of options, I went for "In the style of Alistair MacLeod, describe the environment of your inner state"