Louie is a man of absolutes. There are few areas in his simple existence that have any sort of grey area. The only grey area that is noteworthy, in Louie’s life, is the grey canvas that is framed by a sturdy red frame.

Like his medium, Louie’s eyes are each carefully encased with red frames, that magnify his otherwise small, beady eyes. Louie has multiple pairs of these red glasses. These glasses, like that simple grey screen, are also particularly important to Louie.

Louie got his first pair of glasses and his first etch-a-sketch on the same day, when he was six years old. That Monday was a particularly terrible Monday. But we won’t talk about that. Some things are simply better forgotten.

More importantly, no one could have guessed that those two items would still be in his life, especially as a man of 23. As Louie’s eyesight has plummeted since then, he has gone through many of these glasses, and is now legally blind without them. They rest at his bedside stand atop a small piece of scotch tape. They are in that particular place, so when he reaches for them in the morning, his long, thin hands always hit the mark.

This morning, as he has for countless mornings, Louie’s alarm clock went off at 6:01 AM. Hitting the alarm clock first, then sliding his glasses over the slight bump in his nose, Louie thought that today was going to be different.