When I was a kid, I used to walk around with my eyes closed. They were sealed with tape, not that expensive clear scotch tape, but the cheap frosted scotch tape. I didn't mean to walk around with my eyes closed; that's just the way things had been since I was a small child. I saw the world only through that frosted tape: obscurity reigned.

As I grew older, I was asked countless times why I liked to live in such a hazy world. My answer: why do you like to live in such a clear world? I prefer my hazy world because I know that once I take off these goggles that I will see exactly how disgusting you are and how disgusting this world is. Now, is it not better to live in ignorance?

Who would have guessed that in the middle of the night, terror amassed with the powerful stranglehold of fate, and in one felled swoop removed that frosted glass. Oh, the unbearable pain, not from removed skin and pulled lashes, but from the freedom of the eyes. The glare of truth and rightful understanding bore its branding iron onto the very flesh of my soul. To tell you the truth, I changed that night. Perception is key.

I hid from the light, preferring the opaque grey. Neither white nor black, neither truth nor lies. A life of half-truths...or should I say half-lies. Now with eyes wide open, there was only two paths to choose. How simple the task: pick white or black. A task so simple that it was difficult: pick life or death.

I chose life, and in that life, came my death.