The Meaning of Sanctuary
folder
Original - Misc › -Slash - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
7
Views:
2,441
Reviews:
13
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Category:
Original - Misc › -Slash - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
7
Views:
2,441
Reviews:
13
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
The Meaning of Sanctuary
AN: This is the first time I am publishing my work in a public forum, though not necessarily the first time I have written an original piece of work. Please review, let me know what you think of it, and help me improve. Beta'd and re-edited with the help of Thelongsleep and skitzophrenic17.
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Sanctuaries are defined by necessity.
-Anonymous
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When was the last time you felt completely safe?
When was the last time that you knew – knew – that you could relax, could curl up and let go because no harm would come to you?
When was the last time you felt safe enough to let your guard down? Uncaring of the world and its possible torments, because you were confident in the knowledge that the people who love you most could protect you from them – or even if they couldn’t, then at least you were absolutely certain they would expend every effort to do so?
In every stage of your life, whether or not you know it, you usually have some source of comfort – some small sanctuary you could go to to lick your wounds, to recover when the horrors of the world, of living, of life have taken far too great a toll.
It could be in a special place – your room, a favored spot in the garden, on the roof of a building so tall you felt powerful and much greater than human. It could be with someone you love – a friend, a lover, your family… Someone whose embrace you could bury yourself in and whose love felt stronger than any tangible shield, so that it didn't matter that you were merely human. It could simply be in something you like to do – reading a book, playing a sport, indulging in an activity that so consumed your mind that any thoughts of your mere humanity could be forgotten. Anything that restored your faith in yourself, and your confidence in being able to endure the hardships of life – anything that helped shore up your weaknesses, and enabled you to prepare yourself for facing life again, ready to laugh again.
But there are some people who never manage to regain their safe place. There are some people for whom indulging in something they like to do is a weakness never to be revealed, and thus never practiced. People whose safe havens are ultimately destroyed, or made impossible to find. People who, for various reasons and due to several circumstances, regard their fellow man as a source of discomfort, and thus could never conceivably consider any human being and the emotions involved as something to take comfort in.
There are people who, though unwillingly, are forced to remain forever cautious, constantly assessing and reassessing the environment around them for threats; people for whom even those they trust must be reevaluated at every meeting and approached with trepidation. They are those who are made cynical and weary of life, not through any natural inclination of their own, but because they have never known anything different.
And yet, even for these people, a small and quiet hope remains – an abstract hope held close to the human heart that, while consciously forgotten, is clung to with the same persistence done to a fleeting dream of contentment. Not a paradise by any means, but dream that means finally achieving a moment in time where everything is safe, where there is no need for pretenses of strength, for even a semblance of strength, if only because there is something, someone, somewhere that can be that strength already.
There is no such thing as a hopeless existence. It is impossible that a world that contains sun and light and starshine, that can create life, be completely devoid of that hope even though that same world can destroy life.
But there are times when some people have only the most ephemeral memory of safety – of unnecessary shows of strength, whose experiences are such that they shun the very idea of safety, deny any possibility of discovering that security. These are people to be pitied for they have willingly given up hope.
And then there are those others who do not know how to act within safety – for, not remembering what it was like not to need to be strong, they can never identify when they’ve finally discovered a source of strength. And, even when they have discovered it, cannot believe that it is within reach, cannot trust in its reality because thus far in their lives safety has never featured in their reality.
Sources of strength are persistent, however, and it is rare that when a person stumbles across their own sanctuary that that sanctuary lets go. Safe havens tend to be annoyingly stubborn about claiming their own that way, and have no reservations about undertaking the necessary measures to convince their charges of that safety.
It may take a moment or a lifetime, but one way or another the sanctuary cleaves onto their wards and never releases them no matter how the ward may struggle, until said ward finally believes that safety is in fact a reality for them... Even if it does mean finding that safety in the most unusual places, under the most unusual circumstances.
Even if it does literally mean being dragged back, screaming, to be tied down until the person believes it’s true.
I am one such person.
This is my story.
---0~0~0---
---0~0~0---
Sanctuaries are defined by necessity.
-Anonymous
---0~0~0---
When was the last time you felt completely safe?
When was the last time that you knew – knew – that you could relax, could curl up and let go because no harm would come to you?
When was the last time you felt safe enough to let your guard down? Uncaring of the world and its possible torments, because you were confident in the knowledge that the people who love you most could protect you from them – or even if they couldn’t, then at least you were absolutely certain they would expend every effort to do so?
In every stage of your life, whether or not you know it, you usually have some source of comfort – some small sanctuary you could go to to lick your wounds, to recover when the horrors of the world, of living, of life have taken far too great a toll.
It could be in a special place – your room, a favored spot in the garden, on the roof of a building so tall you felt powerful and much greater than human. It could be with someone you love – a friend, a lover, your family… Someone whose embrace you could bury yourself in and whose love felt stronger than any tangible shield, so that it didn't matter that you were merely human. It could simply be in something you like to do – reading a book, playing a sport, indulging in an activity that so consumed your mind that any thoughts of your mere humanity could be forgotten. Anything that restored your faith in yourself, and your confidence in being able to endure the hardships of life – anything that helped shore up your weaknesses, and enabled you to prepare yourself for facing life again, ready to laugh again.
But there are some people who never manage to regain their safe place. There are some people for whom indulging in something they like to do is a weakness never to be revealed, and thus never practiced. People whose safe havens are ultimately destroyed, or made impossible to find. People who, for various reasons and due to several circumstances, regard their fellow man as a source of discomfort, and thus could never conceivably consider any human being and the emotions involved as something to take comfort in.
There are people who, though unwillingly, are forced to remain forever cautious, constantly assessing and reassessing the environment around them for threats; people for whom even those they trust must be reevaluated at every meeting and approached with trepidation. They are those who are made cynical and weary of life, not through any natural inclination of their own, but because they have never known anything different.
And yet, even for these people, a small and quiet hope remains – an abstract hope held close to the human heart that, while consciously forgotten, is clung to with the same persistence done to a fleeting dream of contentment. Not a paradise by any means, but dream that means finally achieving a moment in time where everything is safe, where there is no need for pretenses of strength, for even a semblance of strength, if only because there is something, someone, somewhere that can be that strength already.
There is no such thing as a hopeless existence. It is impossible that a world that contains sun and light and starshine, that can create life, be completely devoid of that hope even though that same world can destroy life.
But there are times when some people have only the most ephemeral memory of safety – of unnecessary shows of strength, whose experiences are such that they shun the very idea of safety, deny any possibility of discovering that security. These are people to be pitied for they have willingly given up hope.
And then there are those others who do not know how to act within safety – for, not remembering what it was like not to need to be strong, they can never identify when they’ve finally discovered a source of strength. And, even when they have discovered it, cannot believe that it is within reach, cannot trust in its reality because thus far in their lives safety has never featured in their reality.
Sources of strength are persistent, however, and it is rare that when a person stumbles across their own sanctuary that that sanctuary lets go. Safe havens tend to be annoyingly stubborn about claiming their own that way, and have no reservations about undertaking the necessary measures to convince their charges of that safety.
It may take a moment or a lifetime, but one way or another the sanctuary cleaves onto their wards and never releases them no matter how the ward may struggle, until said ward finally believes that safety is in fact a reality for them... Even if it does mean finding that safety in the most unusual places, under the most unusual circumstances.
Even if it does literally mean being dragged back, screaming, to be tied down until the person believes it’s true.
I am one such person.
This is my story.
---0~0~0---