Preferred Name: E, because he likes it that only a few know what the E stands for. Perhaps Ears.
Role: Nº 4.
Apartment Number: Nº 151.
Age: Thirty-one, if he remembers correctly.
Sexual Orientation: As unbendable as uncooked spaghetti noodles.
Occupation: A would've-been economist in his little daydreams but in reality, an actuary.
Fears: Random noises in the middle of the night like the leaking faucet in the kitchen,
Cujo ("Yes, it's fictional, but it's a dog gone mental."), rabies, going way over his budget, cockroaches, the sensation of falling.
Dreams: Of being an economist on Wall Street or some big stock exchange, be able to sort things out in his life, have a few crazy kids with some woman.
Find a woman he can fall in love with.
Personality:Background: Seth had gone through some rough patches before he moved to Burkland Meyer. Conflicts of interest, sparks flying, boom. Everything seemed to have been lost the day that he'd broken up with his girlfriend Sue. Not that he was too affected by it; he actually found the break a surprisingly refreshing end to something that'd been constraining him for four years. She
had been the reason he stayed an actuary, after all. Packing his bags, and very sadistically burning in a steel drum whatever things she'd accidentally left behind after she took her things and moved back to her flat (including that precious ring that her bastard of a lover gave her while they were dating), he sold the flat they'd managed to bear with each other in and moved to a whole different place, one where he knew he wouldn't know anyone. Well, that's what he thought. Before this entire 'adulthood and the problems it brought every single day after 21' thing started, he was born and raised by two married people.
The entire couple thing had taken off at Brighton Pier. Both were artists with youth flowing in their veins. His mother's name was Renee McComb. She'd come in from a different country, in Ohio. Her parents weren't quite so aware that she was idly wandering about, not getting any work done. Desperate, she walked all the way to the beach, wanting to get a slice, or a crumb, of some reminder of home sweet home, of those vacations in California. Somewhere in another part of the pier was Thomas Jones, some young lad from Bangor, Gwynedd, who was frustrated by his lack of resolve about how his life was going to turn out. He was tormented by that mantra he'd been repeating in his head over and over again.
I lack any real talent, so why the hell am I here? I suppose he already knew the answer to that. Nobody would've stayed that long enough through that kind of phase. The two's chance meeting, well, sparked things. Before long, the two had done what they were sure they'd never do in their lifetimes — they got married, and they had children. They were united by a mutual fear — becoming
normal, becoming
boring.
Culture clash and a dab of artistic conflict was what made up the Jones home. Both his parents were quite unserious about their relationship as a husband and wife. They needed to act like they were still dating on-and-off, but in all honesty, it was quite confusing for their three children. One half of the living room was painted yellow, the other half looked as if Jackson Pollock had ransacked it. There was seasonal arguments about trivial things, and making up was another usual thing. The flare that both his parents shared would die out soon enough, much like his father did. He was diagnosed with leukemia too late. He thought it was his natural tendency to get sick. And well, after he'd gotten the diagnosis, that soft shell had hardened somewhat. He tried to make up by helping his kids through it, exposing them to the unhappy truth despite the risks it would entail. Slowly, and surely, he withered away until he was finally six feet under. His mother had intended to continue the same charade, so normalcy was a consistent thing, but found that she couldn't raise children after his death. Finding out that she'd been
that in love with Thomas was more than enough for her to bear. With her mother-in-law's blessing, she sold the house that the five of them had been living in, packed their things and moved to her side of the pond.
Renee moved next to her sister's place after some pestering on both their parts. While not wanting to leave her three children all alone, she was forced to take a job somewhere so she wouldn't be so much of a burden to her sister's family. In return, Seth took care of his aunt's youngest daughter Bandit. His home life was, on another scale, as equally unstable as his previous life, but eventually settled down enough for him to maintain his sanity. Pretty soon, he grew to like the place and began calling it home, understanding his mother's want to forget the life they had back in Brighton. Remembering and comparing it to what he had now gave him one too many pains — pains he wouldn't bother to keep with him.
School life had gone by pretty quickly. He had a particular gift with numbers, and all throughout his school days he took mostly advanced classes. He made fairly easy work out of it, much to his mother's horror. With this particular talent, however, his mother couldn't find solace in. And when Seth declared his intentions of becoming an economist or something of the sort in the business world, his mother was horrified. Though her youth was long gone, she still held on to the belief that she and her husband used to share. Seeing her son become "one of them" set her completely off the edge, and she didn't talk to her son for over a month until she finally recovered, seeing sense in that it was what Seth wanted. It was also Seth's reassurance that the free life that his mother and father had was still the life he loved and yearned for, but to support himself, he'd have to have a job; his dream of working on Wall Street or the LSE was a passionate one. His mother relented, and left her son to his own devices.
And so a bachelor's degree rolled in, found a job as an actuary and worked for an MBA simultaneously, got his graduate degree, and here he is. Bored with life.
Appearance: 5'9", fit enough, blue eyes, brown, constantly cropped hair.
Relationships:He has immediate family, but they live so far away. Or rather, he lives far away from them. His mother,
Renee, still lives next to his aunt. He has two younger siblings:
Janey, who has a teaching job at an art school, and
Pete, a pianist.
There's
Sue, who was his girlfriend of three years, but she's definitely obsolete.
Bandit is his cousin. Having near same interests, it would strike him as odd if he didn't make fast friends with her. He took care of her while she was still a girl, hand in hand with his mum and his aunt. He'd help cultivate her interest in the arts and keep it alive for as long as possible, trying to keep her from giving in to his uncle's and other cousin's interest. This idea of him would make him sound like a total ass for making her listen to him, but he wouldn't want her giving up her happiness for some crummy old job she wasn't satisfied with at all. Now that they're neighbors, well, they visit each other more often than not. Over at his for Chinese, some old kung-fu or vintage horror flicks, maybe some Battlefield, or try and get inspiration from that daisy he has in a pot he grows on the windowsill. Or hers, for jumping on the bed, telling stories, eating what's left of the leftovers, among other things.
