The Origin of Hazy

At around noon, a brilliant, cloudless sun beat down on the old port city, carving the world into sharp lines and casting hard, definite shadows on the streets. Inside a maternity hospital room, flooded with that same unfiltered light, a boy was born, his first cry cutting through the bright stillness.

This perfect, clear beginning offered no hint of the turbulent decades to come, holding no sign of the profound losses or the hard-won achievements that would eventually cast their own long shadows over his life.