Our Hero
A young child sits at their desk on the first day of some year of grade school. They're staring down at the assigned introduction sheet in frustration – they cannot answer the question “Who is your hero? Why?”.
“Davey Havok”, says Lucy.
“Who?”, responds the child, startled. “Both you, and... whoever you just said.”
“Davey Havok. He's a straight-edge vegan punk singer...”
The child stares blankly at the adult stranger that nobody else seems to be acknowledging.
Lucy cuts herself off, “You know that song, Miss Murder, that you like to play on Guitar Hero: On Tour on your DS?”
The child continues to stare at Lucy, failing to hide their awe (and fear).
“He sings it.”, Lucy stammers, as she pulls out a BlackBerry Torch 9800 and proceeds to show the child a photo of Davey Havok from the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, “And he looks like this.”
The child barely glances at the photo before they exclaim, “I want to look like him!”
Lucy flashes a burdened smile in response.
“How do you spell his name?”
“D-A-V-E-Y space H-A-V-O-K.”
“And, other than being pretty and singing the only good song on Guitar Hero: On Tour, why is he... our hero?”
“He's anti-drugs... and vegan... and-”
They cut her off, “What does that mean? Vegan?”
“He does not eat meat or use animal products like leather.”
“Mhm.”
“And he's a really really good singer.”
The child writes their response to the question, “Davey Havok. He is a really good singer, and he is against drugs, and he does not use animal products. And he is very pretty and I want to look like him one day.”
Just as the child finishes writing, Lucy says “We take his surname one day.” But when the child looks back up to respond, the stranger is nowhere to be seen.