On this night, at this time, I was extremely upset – at her, at myself, at life, at the addictions that felt like they were thrust upon me by some external deity with a grudge, at why nothing made sense like it was supposed to; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. A professional job means money, upwards mobility in all the ways that matter, and the personal life was supposed to follow in lockstep.

My armor was exquisite, and in my mind it had no equal. It fit perfectly, to the point that it was hard to tell where I ended and it began. It wasn’t just a protective shell, though – it was so much more than that. It was a filter for interacting with life, both in what I projected and what my senses perceived.

I’m a very rational human being, in fact it’s something I say with pride and a swelled chest, as if making a grandiose statement that will shock the world and humble those around me. I am a firm believer in the physical laws of the universe – inertia, momentum, gravity, particle / wave duality, mathematics, biology, quantum physics, all these things make sense to me and have performed spectacularly in explaining the world as I experience it.