The ones who surround me don't really know me. Not even the ones who think they do because they too observe and analyse. But they can't see through my wall. Half the time, they can't even see my eyes behind these panes of glass. It is not their fault, it is merely who I am. When I want them to see something, I bring if forth from behind the wall and put it in plain sight.
They think they know who dwells in my thoughts late at night, when noone is watching. When I am all alone in my room. They think that because I can wear him like a mask, I must keep an image of him in me; like a small spark of his soul caught and hoarded like a firefly. They think that because he can wear me like a mask, I must have given him a small spark of myself, my soul, for him to dissect. Even he seems to think so. They are wrong. Deception and shadowplay are by their very natures unreliable. Why would anyone base their thougths and beliefs upon what they know to be a game of illusion?
It doesn't bother me, though. I am content to let them have their theories and beliefs. It matters not. I have my path set before me. I am a part of the elite, and to remain so I must work hard on everything I choose to spend my time on; everything that I bring inside behind the wall. I will excel, or do it not at all. Never waver, never stray. Always focus, always plan ahead. That is what I live for, that is who I am.
And in the late hours, when my time is truly my own, I will bring out the the image of a flame, bright and fierce. One who couldn't be extinguished even though the world bore down on it and tried to destroy it. I let him dwell there, for a precious while before my inner eye; glowing, intense and untouchable. He illuminates the darkness within, warms me with his presence, there, for that little while. But he is not someone I can ever reach. He is not of my world, does not know my world and will never learn of it.
So I close my eyes, watch the flame image dissolve until a shadow is all that is left, and then I go to sleep.
-Fin.