"The world is as we perceive it." At least, thats what dad always used to say, but then again dad never saw much himself. Cataracts, he had. From a young age I would wind up describing to him how we would both end up perceiving the world. The color of the cars on the freeway. The shape of the milk crates at the store. How the eyes in the walls stared at us, unblinking. How the world shifted and groaned when others looked away. The wires that held us all together, like puppets of flesh. Where my father could see nothing, I saw everything.

And then my father would always say, "You sure it's not you who needs your eyes checked boy?" and laugh. But I was not laughing.

The world was made of mishaped pieces all desperately trying to find a place they fit. I guess that led to plenty of pieces that didn't, and for one reason or another I could see those pieces. One moment the road was road, the next the pavement flowed like a blackened river down stream. My father was my father, then he was just fleshy shapes resembling what the man once was.

I still remember the day I saw a building collapse in on itself. Not because it happened, but because I knew it would. The pieces didn't fit together smoothly. They had decayed into misshapen bits like a game of Jenga long into its lifespan. Others could not see it, but it was so clear to me. Then, poof, the game was lost and the pieces sat piled up on the floor.

Life was different for me, always was. In buildings walls shifted until comfortable, the floors melted, ceilings flew around as birds on a wire. But even those things had become the normal to me.

When that building fell, however, I began to ask: If the world is as we perceive it, then how does it perceive us?