Prologue 1

I cannot tell you with certainty what time it was, or what day it was, when I met him. This is due to the inglorious amounts of drink I was currently sending through my system when it happened. I was a lone bachelor with no wing-man to my aid, and I had managed to find a pair of goggles among the drink. These goggles made the edges seem to have a mind of their own, and the middle seemed a camera unable to find the proper focus. None the less, he existed within the confines of my limited senses.

His attire was business-like, but not proper. His jacket was modest, yet acceptable. His hair was unkempt, but admirable. He looked arrogant, yet melancholy. He was the unmistakably normal, smug, stubborn, fool that would be easily neglected. The only considerable problem was that he was sitting directly adjacent to me, and was giving me one of the most suffocatingly egotistical smiles that I have ever witnessed in the entirety of my existence. One look provided hate-on-contact. His smile spanned one side of his face, and seemed to make his eyebrows arch independently of each other. The glint in his eyes held something that I could only perceive as contempt mixed with a self-righteous sense of purpose. This was before I noticed two important details. The first was that he was also drunk, and this was unmistakable after catching a whiff of his putrid breath. The second was that there was actually nothing notably sinister in his posture. I would have swatted at him in a drunken temper-tantrum if not for the fact that he immediately started babbling as soon as he sat down. I could not tell whether he was talking to me, or through me by the way he was doing it. He appeared to have no expectations of his audience, which consisted of me and some laughing drunkard who seemed moderately amused at my poor social position. I was not listening. I simply let the baby talk, and babble, and play with its new voice without interfering. This is not to say that I was rude, but in fact I even took the effort to nod occasionally in response to some of his louder gestures.

I honestly regret, to this day, not listening intently to what the man had to say. I would find out later that he's a very poor drinker, which means that he would confess his darkest secrets to you if you asked him in a way that caught his interest enough. He's not fond of small-talk. If you make an attempt to talk to him and start with the weather, then he will pretend like he didn't hear you. I'm not sure I fault him for it; simply because I myself would take the same approach if I had the same pathetic social capacity. Someone of his variety needn't concern themselves with such trifles, or at least that would be his reasoning.

Regardless, I was still stuck talking to a drunken fool. I managed to keep this impression until the last few minutes of our conversation when he was sloppily writing on some napkin. The fool impressed me. I'm usually quite knowledgeable when it comes to numbers, and maybe the fact that I was drunk didn't help, but the mathematical stew he was brewing on that napkin left me speechless. I could only comprehend it in quick flashes of understanding: a set of numbers here, a few trigonometry functions there, some basic parameters laced in. It was bordering on the poetic. I then decided that I would need to collect a bit more data before making a complete assessment of the person sitting beside me. What he was writing could either mean everything or nothing. I had heard of famous painters drafting works of art at the bar in order to pay for drinks. This was one of those moments, but the man paid in cash, and sadly the napkin was used as a napkin is supposed to be used. By me.

The next few moments were all a blur. Needless to say, I consumed too much alcohol. It was a fierce battle waged within my digestive track. The mixed poisons won. This drove me directly to the restroom, and I had used the napkin to cover my mouth on my way there. My frantic opening of doors, and rushed movement, sent my napkin spiraling down the porcelain bowl. My reflexes were stunted by the, quickly leaving, serum I had just purchased. All of these events resulted in me losing the thing that would have quenched my curiosity. The strings of fate are cruel on occasion. This was my mindset as I disposed of the remaining amounts of transparent liquid that had almost caused my untimely demise. The walk of shame back to the bar was almost as intolerable. The buffoon who sat directly beside me found extra amusement in my pale face. If he would have been skinnier, white, and further in the drink, then I would have started a bar-fight. Sadly the man that was talking to me earlier was nowhere to be seen.