There was a creature living in my head that liked the things I didn't like. If I wanted to smile, it made me frown. If there was a movie I wanted to see playing at a convenient time, the creature did everything in its power to come up with a reason that I shouldn't go – usually, it found one.
The creature was a master of disguise. To the outside world, it appeared to be a normal, continuous section of my brain – these things it was were things I was. And a lot of the time it fooled me, too. But sometimes I was able to tell the difference.
I would think something like, “I wish everyone on this street right now would fall down a giant pit and never get out.” And then I would think, “That's not something I would normally think. Something's wrong with my thinking.” Then I'd realise, “Oh, of course, the creature.”
I feel like a large percentage of my life was spent fully unaware of the creature. It was as if when it wasn't directly affecting my day-to-day life, it was invisible. At these times invisible to me, but at all times invisible to others. However, I'm quite sure it was always there, whether I could see it or not. I'm not sure whether the creature enjoyed its ability to hide from me.
My emotive state had resembled one of those cockerel weather-vanes, pointing this way and that, based on events of my life – relationships, work, the food I'd eaten, the music I'd heard, the books I'd read. But the creature would climb up on the roof and manually push the weather-vane in the direction of sadness, and keep it there. I don't know how the creature climbed inside this metaphor, just as I don't know how it climbed inside my head. But once it had done its work, I would lose all motivation to destroy it. It was a strange situation. When the creature was not around or messing with me, I was barely aware that it existed – so why would I destroy it then? But when the creature was around, its powers drained my energy so severely that I would lack the willpower to destroy it.
Eventually, I saw no way to continue other than to feed the creature when it got hungry, tip-toe through life so the creature slept as much as possible and my footsteps would not wake it, and ultimately hope it would get bored and leave me alone.