It was only something I had read about.People who cut themselves out of sadness and misery,trying to bleed away the pain.The validation of this assumption came when I was in Casimir’s room one afternoon.He had just fallen asleep,and I looked around the large room with interest and question.He had left his blue striped hankerchief on the night table.Out of involuntary curiousity,I opened the bottom drawer.What I saw was something shiny,sharp, and cold.It was a pocket knife.I knew that Casimir wasn’t an outdoorsman,so he wasn’t using it for anything pratical.If anything,it was doing a lot more harm than good.Somehow,I knew. Just like how I had known that my father was homosexual.Casimir Chrysanthemum cut himself. I remembered what he told me the first night I met him: that he was a prince living in a gloomy ivory tower. That phrase seemed so ironic whenever it came to mind.After all,an ivory tower was something which sheltered one from the difficulties of real life—not make things worse.