Something I wrote a long time ago.

They're coming after me. My thoughts.

They stalk me, my silent predators, hissing and trying to prey on me, angry attempts to envelop me in whirlwinds of words and voices. Menace.

I try to drown them out -- distract myself. Focus on something else. Books, television, games, other people. The chatter overrides the screaming, demanding thoughts.

And best of all -- writing. My own words, combating theirs, allow me to live in a world of my own making, as I chronicle the misfortunes of my characters.

But always, always something demands my attention, pulls me out. My immersion bothers people -- they cannot understand my focus on keeping those malignant thoughts away. They are disturbed. And usually they fix this disturbance by disrupting me-- "waking me up to the real world," as they see it, as they choose to believe.

They see this, "waking" me, as a good thing. If I am sucked into my distraction too much, I may never wake up!

A foolish idea, this. The thoughts will not stand being ignored for long.

Of course, I shouldn't be guessing the thoughts of others. It's not fair to assume that everyone thinks this. And of course none of them have ill intentions.

Nonetheless, it does bother me if nothing else. And it does do a lot more than that. I have but minutes to feel the twinge of annoyance before something or someone sparks the waiting wolves and I am thrown into consternation. The harsh whirlwind in a terrifyingly dark forest, each word-leaf flung in my face, one after the other. Everything else in the world -- gone. Shut off. Deaf to the world's appeals and the world's needs and the world's cries.