Good to know the ship that is the couple in my avatar, has sunk as well. Wonderful. Gonna change it when I can decide which of my ships are the least painful...
Yeah - see this happy couple here 👇👇👇
She's just fucking left him for an old girlfriend that literally appeared out of nowhere as she has always maintained he was her soul mate.
John had always been afraid. He never wanted to admit it, but he always felt terrified in a way.
He understands it well, when people tell him of their fears.
He understands it well, how to let them face their fears.
He is no monster. He is more like a widow, fat and fed, waiting in her web. He is their biggest fear.
june 1986
John Seed was born on a sunny day mid June, birds chirping and the air inside the small bedroom was sticky and hot.
The labour has been problematic and the first thing he sees of the world, full of opportunities and love, are the cold eyes of his mother, starring down on him.
His cries flood the room and shake the house, his brothers impatiently waiting outside the closed door.
“I say it's girl”, his oldest brother whispers, ear pressed on the door, “Joseph? Joe, c'mere!”
John's older brother hastily slides down the window sill, the young couple from down the street who's wedding was today and who he was watching, long forgotten when they entered the room.
december 1990
Winter in the Seed household is cold, deadly even. John has learned that early in his life. Sometimes, the heater is broken. Sometimes, Old Man Seed is too drunk or too lazy to buy new gas. Thus, they freeze. They don't have any money left for warmer clothing.
“Stop complaining”, his mother says when her four year old son, blue lips and pale skin, tugs the end of her skirt slightly. His fingers hurt from the cold. It creeps into his bones, numbs his body. He should be afraid, afraid of dying or pneumonia. He isn't. He is used to the cold.
Jacob stopped going to school last month. John is glad, that he has someone to play with.
The couple that got married four years ago dies in a car accident that night. With them, all colour leaves John's world, dives it into ice cold blue.
march 1996
The air in the gym is sticky. John thinks it stinks, of greasy teenagers and sweaty shoes. He stands there, bare chest in front of his teacher.
“It is nothing, Mister. I just fell down the stairs, how often do I have to tell you this?”
He knows it is a lie. And for a mere second, he can see it in his teacher's eyes. They believe him. Trust him.
Then it's gone.
“I am going to call your parents, John.” He knows it, now he is lost.
january 2002
John doesn't know where they are. He misses them. It hurts.
“Tell me of your sin, my son”, Mister Duncan says, stroking his hair. It is no gentle touch. It burns.
There's no escape. Nowhere to run.
But John doesn't have to. He can lie, lie until the pages turn blank and the trees loose their leaves.
Until he seems them again.
“I got drunk in third period history.”
“With whom, my child?”
“Stephen and Mary Ann.”
“Then we should atone you, shall we?”
He has forgotten his own name. He has forgotten Georgia. They burning sun when he and his brother used to play on the streets, running through the woods.
He forgot it all, he lost it all.
He'll never forget them.
All that is left now, is the perfect shell of John Duncan.
He never wanted to kill someone so badly in years.
september 2006
He is drunk, third period, family law. He and Robert, one of his class mates, are sitting together. They have late lunch.
It is already cold outside, because it is always cold in Connecticut. Every winter, the cold burns in his bones and he curses Old, dead Man Seed for never buying new gas when they needed it. He takes another sip of the expensive liquor, feels it burn and sting in his throat.
It hurts so good. Robert snorts a line, hands the white powder over to John.
“And so she said to me “Do you really think you can fuck that girl -”, he tries to listen to the pathetic stories they tell him. Maybe Jessica and her affairs will have some use. He makes a mental note.
april 2010
“Mister Seed? It's Miss Watkins, secretary at Yale University Law School, New Haven, Connecticut. Mister Duncan asked me to contact you.”
The young lady smiles up at John, who is standing on the other side of the counter. The Duncan shell smiles back.
He hears his brother's voice muffled through the phone's speakers. It sounds rough and weary, vigilant in a way. It hurts him. For a second, he feels empathy again – real empathy tingling in his stomach. It hasn't for years and it makes him dizzy, his vision fading for a mere second. Or maybe it's just the cocaine.
“Jacob?”, he says as he holds the phone to his ear, “It's me, John.”
He doesn't want to be alone any longer. He doesn't know where Joseph is, God have mercy on him. He just wants his brother to be here, to be there when he graduates from college.
june 2010
Jacob did not come.
John tries to swallow the lump in his throat and braces himself with pride against the pain.
Jacob said he had no money to fly across the country.
John's offer to pay his flight and a hotel room has been left without answer.
He looks at his professor when he hands him his diploma and the Duncan shell smiles.
Smiles at Sarah, 28, sitting fourth row. She doesn't smile back.
John bets she only smiles when she sits on the cock of that old guy.
The shell's smile grows brighter, and John laughs.
may 2013
When he looks into the mirror, he doesn't know who he is looking at.
He reminds himself of a chameleon. Shape shifting. Concealing himself.
He not only learned how to do it, he knows how to do it. It has become a sort of an instinct.
Natural selection, evolution.
Did it already became a a part of him?
John doesn't know who he is.
Tick.
He has money.
A lot of it. Too much.
He hates what he is, what he stands for.
John doesn't know how to cure that.
Tick.
His skin itches.
He needs it.
The sex, the rush of cocaine pumping through his veins.
John doesn't know if he's strong enough to resist it.
Tick.
All he can hear is the thumb of his heart against his ribs and a clock ticking at the back of his head, reminding him of the time that is running through his fingers like sand.
It is like he's lost.
John doesn't know how to be found anymore.
august 2013
It is the first time he sees them again after so many years.
Well, not alive. He very much just sees their tomb stones.
He spits on their graves, he can't behave, doesn't want to.
He thinks back, at his first time in Georgia where he grew up, and suddenly he thinks of the young couple that lived down the road. He loved watching them sitting in their garden, so happy and so in love.
They were his age when they died. They had nothing and still were so euphoric. All things have to end some day.
He has it all and he desires the whole world to end.
In a way, all the pain came the year they passed away. He doesn't believe in a connection, he really doesn't – he's not that foolish, but he still searches for one. Just a few seconds.
There has to be a way for it all to makes sense again.
In the end, he always comes to that one conclusion. There isn't.
When they left, all the beauty he had ever been able to witness was ripped away. More ripped apart in the crashed van, blood and broken limbs. From that day on, there was silence and clouded skies. He envies them.
He spits again.
november 2013
At least he is back home now. Sunny Rome. Beautiful Georgia.
Joseph looks horrible, John thinks, dark circles under his eyes, a maddening calmness in his eyes.
Jacob shakes most of the times, sometimes he even screams without reason. He polishes his military decorations twice a day, pathetic, John thinks.
It hurts him. Badly.
Joseph often writes on the walls, some nights he can't stop himself.
Jacob vomits once a day, most nights he can't help himself. No one does.
But he loves them. Dearly.
The only bit of love he'll ever allow himself to feel again.
july 2014
As Joseph pulls her back out of the water, John can see it.
The thin material of her white dress clinging to her body, wet and transparent.
Holly is her name.
And John wants.
He takes. He always took and he will always take.
It is so much easier than giving.
He tells himself that it's nothing. No love. Nothing.
Love destroyed him, that woman wouldn't.
october 2015
It rushes through John's veins, like the substances he has so long forgotten about.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
He carves the next letter into the cultists back, making his flesh spring open and bleed onto the floor.
“We should atone you from your sins, shall we?”
His own voice rings in his head. It scares him, but it feels good.
He keeps going.
january 2018
Joseph says they're ready. Something is coming, The Collapse is close.
John anticipates it, he is prepared.
He wants it to end. He wants everything to end.
He wants the world red and burning and bright in the light of pure atonement.
He wants to see them suffer, choking on their lies and their disgusting lives.
He wants to see the world crumble before his toes.
He hates it so much, everything that is on the outside. He hopes Eden is better to them.
march 2018
Every breath burns and stings, it feels like his lungs are torn apart by the simple process of breathing.
There it is again, the ticking sound of the clock. Slow. Steady.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He knows it is going to be pure, divine silence soon. He embraces it.
Thumb. Thumb. Thumb.
John is not afraid. John is not terrified. John has no fear of missing out, John is not clinging to his life. As he stares into their eyes, he can seem himself for the first time.
Ironic, he thinks, how eyes may be the mirrors to the soul. Who knew it would be mine I see, not theirs?
The thumbs stop, the clock stops ticking.
John Seed knows exactly who he is, as he takes his last breath.
