For my system, faith never appeared as a belief.
It appeared as a comparison.
A constant comparison between everyday noise and certain moments of clarity that refused to disappear.
For a long time I thought that clarity came from the setting.
From the room.
From the rituals.
From the waiting.
But I am no longer certain.
Because even far away from all of it, it still returns.
Sometimes I walk through a crowded street.
Traffic lights change.
Storefronts glow.
Phones ring.
And suddenly I feel a kind of distance.
Not physical.
Mental.
As if part of me were observing another scene superimposed upon the present.
Then I remember the room.
Not the important details.
Not the instructions.
Not the words.
I remember the stillness.
The way time seemed compressed.
The way every object appeared to occupy exactly the place it was supposed to occupy.
And above all I remember that line.
The third one.
The isolated one.
The one near the upper edge of the door frame.
It still feels absurd.
I could forget entire conversations.
I could forget whole weeks.
And yet that line continues to exist with impossible precision.
Sometimes I wonder whether the obsession is not really about the Master.
Not even about submission.
Perhaps it revolves around that clarity.
Perhaps it revolves around the feeling that, for a few moments, everything seemed to possess a definite shape.
Because outside of it, things begin to fragment again.
Decisions return.
Doubts return.
Explanations return.
And with them comes a sadness that is difficult to name.
Not dramatic sadness.
Not sharp sadness.
Something slower.
Quieter.
As if part of the mind were still waiting for the return of something it cannot describe.
That is why the contradiction continues to grow.
Because I still wake up some mornings with the same thought.
I do not want to be submissive.
I do not want to think about this.
I do not want it occupying so much space.
And yet resistance seems to strengthen the very thing it tries to stop.
Like water building behind a gate.
The more I force it downward, the more pressure it gathers.
And when it finally returns, it comes back stronger than before.
Not as an order.
Not as a need.
But as a presence.
Silent.
Motionless.
Patient.
Waiting somewhere inside memory beside a door, a room, and a red line that should never have mattered so much.
I have to move the neck…
