The Fetters of Conscience

The walls that kept him there were not built of mortar or stone, no.

They were built with words; small, devious things, enclosing him within his conscience, trapping him forever with their spiteful malice. Their hatred.

But even so, it could not possibly be the words that had single-handedly driven him to such a state of ill-minded pursuits. For who could have created these things, patterned after the intimate, unknown weaknesses of his heart with such meticulous care, well-formed and double-edged, if naught for himself?

Driven by an unseeable force, he harried on, working for a goal unachievable, unattainable, within the walls of his words.

What he worked for, he no longer knew, muddled as he was by his own morals.

Curiosity was squelched by Complacency.

Compassion was smothered by Obsession.

Philosophy by Wealth.

And for a brief moment, he began to wonder, deep within the recesses of his qualms, who had trapped him here, forever labouring for the sake of the words. Yet he could find no justifiable answer.

For he had enslaved himself, bound by the strains of his own dying heart.