ELIJAH COPELAND
— waiting for the world to become perfect.
All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable which makes you see something you weren’t noticing which makes you see something that isn’t even visible.
STATS ● BIOGRAPHY ● WANTED
Elijah Copeland, 34, Outpost, Wind energy engineer
Professor at Wiggins University, big brother, heterosexual
Cis male, he/him, Salt Flats native
&. — the story.
drunk driving tw, death tw
Life for Elijah had always been a little bit tragic. His memories of his mother are vague, his younger siblings remember her even less, and his father hadn’t been of the right mind since he was 12.
One day she disappeared. His parents had been in a fight, nothing more or less than any other fight before, only when she ran out that time she never returned. Years later she would turn up dead and his father drank away his grief from the day she left and then get behind the wheel.
To this day his old man is unable to respond verbally, or sometimes cannot even acknowledge you’re in the room. He spends his day in front of the tv and enjoys bologna sandwiches prepared in a very specific way.
When Elijah was 12 his younger siblings and his father became his responsibility. Life demanded that he grow up and recognize that it was all up to him. So he applied himself in school, minded his siblings, looked after his father, and worked odd jobs for cash.
Those years since the age of 12 were spent hating his mother for running out on the family and being so selfish. He also refused to speak of her since his father’s crippling accident.
Good grades, less than desirable attendance, high test scores, and strong athleticism got Elijah into university.
It wasn’t that he wanted to do something big, he needed it. Not only was he the example for his siblings, he also needed to be able to financially provide for his family. So there he went into engineering and eventually became influenced in activism through the university.
He was a warrior for racial and social justice but found himself in environmental activism the more he learned about global warming and the effects on the planet.
One thing led to another and Elijah was earning his bachelor’s in wind science and engineering.
It wasn’t as though his life was coming together. During his master’s program Elijah met a woman that would be equal parts heaven and hell in his life.
It started as a friendship that couldn’t withstand the passion and infatuation but in neither of them being ready for a relationship, at least not a mature adult one, their romance burned bright and hot and imploded. Many times. The fights kept getting bigger and bigger while the peace and loving times began to wear thin.
Elijah wasn’t able to see the similarities of his relationship to that of his own parents, at least not until it was too late. Not until after they’d said they never want to see each other again and he’d shut the door in her face when she came around.
Enough was enough. One of them had to be the person that made the tough call to get off the rollercoaster so that they had a chance at something better. At the time Elijah thought he was the one to do it. He would do the hard thing for both of them.
And then like his mother, she disappeared from Salt Flats, and like his father he felt the loss.
By then his siblings were grown and he was able to afford a nurse to provide care for his father with the income he was making as an engineer. Elijah had to find work that kept him close to home and that came in the form of working for a company buying up vacant land to put wind turbines on.
The only issue is that the land surrounds his beloved hometown. Leaving Elijah conflicted and torn as he believes in the cause and knows it’s a necessity for the future.
&. — wanted connections / plots.
tba.
