Saint of Hades

His language when spoken was of an accent that tried not to be Australian, it was, as if he’d spent too much time within European earphones and philosophy audio-text-books. This guy, Seymour, was not your ordinary claim to be the first bohemian don’t label me, are you assuming my gender type to press his ego to paper. Punchity went the keys, his Mother banging on his lizard brainwashing the echo of memories back in the form of flashbacks without all the partridge family values, but that of the good old Aussie town of Eagleby.

Above Seymour’s warm, 45 degree heated room, the fan fluttered as fly against a concord in its true affect to which, that did him in. It did him into urinate in empty Southern Comfort bottles before his next prescription of Xanax to leave the room and wander. If he could make it across the street, and just grab that pole. Then, he could swing around to keep his head from hitting the ground, bleeding for it, that fixture at the pharmacy, because, when the booze wore off, the hunger set in – with which – came like a hound of horde of lords of panic.

That panic. So low, whoops, boy, get up off your feet and wander further, see that pole? The one with the light on it, climb to your feet and walk ten feet. You’ll find you’ve got the strength.

The voice of God, or some relative brain fire dwindled into play, telling you the former and now giving our boy, soon to be man with a burger for breakfast, a wonder across to the Council car-park.

There, he pounders up to the next light pole, whoosh, swinging around inside curling nausea, outwardly his pale blonde boy pretty fag slanty eyes just keep pushing on. No, they don’t. Taking a sit for a while, a couple minutes, he thinks of the burger, or what on earth he could stomach. He can barely think enough, just something.

Instinct rises him and yes, he reaches Mc Donald’s.

There, after ordering a cheap chicken burger meal with a coke a fries, he finds he can barely eat half of the burger and only drink the Fanta.

Across from McDonalds, to the busy tracks, along the pride of this ghetto town so infused with its need for satire that it entertains itself without knowing the meaning of the word to begin with. Sounds just like his friend, Rod Welsh.Seymour wishes, he hadn’t pushed everyone away, as well, friends like Andy McGowan, a true poet of the least flaws, ashamed of the man he’d displayed in a Xanax haze toward those he missed. So frightened if they saw him sober, vulnerable now, they’d run, call him a wimp. The Father coming through strong in the subconscious there, for Seymour.

He lost his job a year ago, is on probation for stealing. All under the influence of Xanax. It made him a compulsive liar, a narcissist and so sensitive he didn’t even known his eyes were like a setting sun all day until well, never will he know. He compares himself to his friends. Infact, he became Rod Welsh. Ironically, also one his former buddies that used to bully his self-esteem down, a simply, “Hey guys” ended in “Faggot” or the raised eyebrow that reminded him of the one his sister gave him.

A high brow “Okaay, like, fuck off weirdo.” Cutting, especially when you’re trying to run to her for a hug because your Mother keeps screaming at you, ready to pull your hair from the pores, ready to push the PTSD so far back that she’ll have a stroke one day, then another, and forget, all this in her life led so far from having electro shock therapy in her early teens for simply displaying the effects of a sexually abused child Of course, in those days in Australia, Seymour thought of conversations between his Mother and him on the bus back from the pharmacy he’d been to for the Xanax.

He’s got it, of course, its in his bag, hes got more southern comfort, a couple packs of cigarettes and despite not having any food in his house, will head home hungry only to forget her. Zooey Amadio. “I’ll keep you in my heart forever.” The last thing she gave him. He lied and said she abused Cocaine long after they’d broken up. Of course, he was weak. He abused Xanax, smoked pot with her, stole from her, and then really, just turned into such a monster that hos self esteem dropped so low he saw the slanty eyes on a photo. Those Seymour Slanty eyes.

It took him 2 months in a mental ward to detox off the Xanax. He stayed clean. Then came Christmas, her Birthday, and that gift. He wasn’t in love. He simply projected his need to stay alive onto her. So when she left, in his deluded lonely self, he felt like a half of his own body was wandering in the numb of some pain. The other half was screaming its eye open with tears of regret and desires to fuck away the pain with a good old fashioned drink.

Cheer up bud, you’ll get there eventually. The usual manner from a father who’s famous memories to his sobbing toddler son were “Stop crying you Pussy”. Of course, his father beat his Mother while she was pregnant with him. Could be a lie, but certainly didn’t help growing up with a single Mother who cried in the laundry adjacent to the frightened adolescent Seymour. He just wanted to understand, and not to be told to go away.

Of course, all of this, is just a key hole at the negative in the grand scheme of his life. The problem is, Seymour exists only in that keyhole.

That’s why he took all his pills and lived happily ever after. After what? After the phone call when he arrived home off the bus.

Upstairs, puts on the computer, plays the X-files dvd he’s seen 18 times per week for a month and half. Drinks up. Pops a Xanax, lights a cigarette. Eventually, as Mulder holds Scully, he thinks of Zooey. His gut swallows his tears.

Reaches for the phone, calls to ask.

And we all know what happens here. Two bottles down and it went black.

He woke up and became this Author, screaming, why am I still alive?!

The End