Glancing at his red plastic watch, Louie calculated that he had about 20 minutes before he had to be at the bowling alley- just enough time to buy a doughnut at Jorri Rae's diner before work. Somehow, things seemed to unravel when life was just slightly off schedule. 

Louie rounded the corner, and there was Jorri Rae's, where you could get the best stack of waffles around. Inside, he saw a few people that he recognized, though he hadn't been at Wilshire for long; A tall brunette that he recognized from the first floor hung her head over a stack of greasy food, and a few others moved about the diner, ordering large plates of what they hoped to be comfort food on this unsettling day. Perhaps, if he wasn't in such a hurry, he would say hello, but the day was slipping by. 

This is how Louie usually spends the few first hours of the morning - in a rush. If the morning was cut out of every day of his life, it wouldn't matter much to him. Clock in, clock out, and it's done with. This particular rainy day was no exception, aside from the new carnival that seemed to have sprung up overnight. 

On a whim, he bought a ticket for the ferris wheel.

Louie took a deep breath and looked around his room. The floor was barely visible, covered with boxes that were stacked to the ceiling. Pulling off his pinstriped pajamas in exchange for his bowling alley uniform, he made his way from his twin bed to the apartment door. He slid the small, silver key into the front pocket of his button-up shirt, along with 5 one dollar bills, topped with a winter coat.

Preferring the stairs to the elevator, Louie loped out into the harsh weather. Watching each and every step he took, he became engrossed in the angles the broken pavement made on the dirty streets outside his apartment building. Lost in thoughts of the perfect, mathematical patterns, he didn't hear the small plink of that very important, very small key falling out of his pocket as he passed the lonely, dripping wet lemonade cart. Louie's mind is often preoccupied with such thoughts.

On any other day, Louie would have spent his money on a cup of lemonade, but the weather proved otherwise. He wondered fleetingly why the boy wasn't there, and was a bit discouraged. Louie always had a joke up his sleeve, and no one else around here seemed to have a sense of humor. But, as usual, his mind wandered back to the distractions of his surroundings and the fear of being late for work. 

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.