[ WP ] Everytime someone has a 'blonde moment ' they get a little blonder . Black hair is now a symbol of brilliance , and you 've just invented hair dye .

You ever get death threats? Not from teenagers while you're playing a game online, but from actual adults, with guns, power, and ambition. Because those are the ones you need to worry about, and those are the ones that put me in a real nice house with really thick walls. They've tried to take me out 3 times, at least that I know of. One of the men assigned to me said there had been more attempts, but he did n't get specific. I stay up at night wondering when someone's going to make it through the gates, you can put 20 men or 200, and they're not going to outlast the mob. They're going to get me, and before that happens, I'm writing this letter. Reader, I do n't know who you are, if you approved of my work or your shirt still has my blood on it, but I'll tell you a bit of my story regardless. 
 
 We're a species that has always had a rocky relationship with intellectuals. Sometimes we fawned over them, and sometimes we burned them, but everyone always took them seriously. For the last few centuries, you'd struggle to find a single official in most states that looked like most of the people they had run to represent. The voters, the little people, wore their ignorance with shame, but they wore it. They resigned themselves to their lot in life, married their peers, and died anonymously. A few artists made it through, but you would n't see them on the covers of magazines. Everyone revered their betters. I thought there was a better way to live. And I was wrong. 
 
 There's always been an undercurrent here in America, made up of people who we tried to cut out of society like a cancer, but could n't quite kick. They did n't vote, but they paid attention. The more radical ones would form small, loosely organized groups, usually no more than a thousand strong, and make feeble attempts at guerrilla warfare. Mostly bombing a government building here and there, though one of them managed to take out a senator a few years back. They were passionate, but nobody took them seriously, because we all knew who really ran the show. 
 
 I found a way to make the weak, the waiters, the janitors, *everyone* indistinguishable from one another. It took years of my life I'll never get back, but I found it. And as soon as I went public with it, the powers that be made it clear in no uncertain terms, that they would decide who did and did n't get the cure. They told the reporters who cared to ask, and my university, that it was hazardous. They spread this lie as they cured their sons and daughters, and those of their friends. What I had envisioned as a great equalizer, had widened the gap between the classes even more. 
 
 In return for my troubles, I was graciously compensated. It's not money I'm proud to have made, but had I refused, I'd be in an unmarked grave, which sounded a lot less savory than my current abode. I think that's another thing I was wrong about. 
 
 The government became lax about who did and did n't get access to my invention. More than just family, now they had started emboldening useful idiots. People who spoke the language of the flawed, but looked perfectly respectable. History is riddled with examples of a cocksure power feeding a lesser force for the sake of short term gains, and getting bit in the end. This was one of those instances. 
 
 A fringe, struggling party saw in one of these puppets a ticket back to the top. They gave him every advantage, every opportunity, all the exposure he'd need, and he caught fire by appealing to the pride and worth of the disenfranchised. He had worked against the system for years in minor league anti-government groups, and had come to understand his kind better than the sheltered politicians in Washington. He lacked the logistical knowhow to run a campaign, but that was happily provided by his backers. 
 
 He was regarded as a novelty. None of the prior experiments with these types ever backfired, surely this situation would correct itself. But by the time people started taking him – and the increasingly resentful public – seriously, it was too late. He, and the people that fought alongside him told the forgotten undercurrent of this country what they wanted to hear. He won the election on a Saturday, and within three days, they controlled the entire system. The party leaders that backed him were summarily executed, replaced with hand-picked subordinates. Those that opposed him were disposed of next. And over the coming weeks, as the streets changed from black to red, his hair changed from black to white. He cast the cure aside, and rallied the masses, beginning a campaign to rid the country of the `` elites.'' 
 
 I am one of them. I know that my name, picture and address are in a folder somewhere, and they've probably found it by now. If you're one of them, I ask that you show mercy to those that look like me, whose greatest crime was out of their control. If you are not, then all the best. If you run, I do n't blame you. If you fight, I revere you.
