There was once a young boy named Jeremy. Jeremy wanted to grow up to be an astronaut, as most young children do. However, his father, a Persian Gulf Vet who had seen reality, crushed Jeremy's dreams early on. By the time Jeremy hit first grade, he had developed antisocial disorders and showed loner tendencies, only growing close to a few other kids, Tom, Greg, and Violet. Throughout the years, the posse had discovered that they enjoyed very much "experimenting." It started with minor things like burning ant hills and mutilating barbies in elementary school, but it graduated throughout middle and high school into hallucinogenic drugs and breaking and entering. Jeremy and his father came to blows eventually and quite literally. The fight caused Jeremy to leave the house with a bruised ego. Shortly thereafter, Jeremy's mother divorced Jeremy's father. Jeremy stayed with his friends for a time until, one day while high on heroin, Greg and Violet decided it'd be a great idea to go skinny dipping in the Hudson River. The only problem was that they lived in Iowa. They had been on the road for an hour before a tractor trailer smashed their car, killing them. Shortly thereafter, Tom took an overdose of sleeping pills. Jeremy then decided that he should probably get off that destructive track before he ended up like his friends. He reconciled (to a degree) with his father, went to a state college and achieved a bachelor's degree in nursing. As an RN, Jeremy once again had a falling out with his father, who called that job "ladywork." Jeremy, in retaliation, took his father's medals that he had won in the war and threw them into his incinerator. Jeremy's father sued Jeremy, intending to get the money for the medals, and the pain and suffering that losing them caused. Jeremy lost the case and was forced to pay $5000 to his father. Jeremy paid the money but never spoke to his father again, moving to Saskatchewan. Once in the great white north, Jeremy thought his life could move on. He moved to Regina, where he met a young Qatari immigrant, Hiyah, at an art show, where she was trying to sell some portraits of Billy Joel. Jeremy found it difficult to convince her very traditionalist family to allow him to court their daughter, and they only consented after Hiyah threatened suicide. Hiyah's family, hoping it was a phase, were sadly mistaken when Jeremy proposed and asked for her father's blessing. He refused vehemently and ordered Hiyah to never see Jeremy again. The two lovers, distraught, took a sudden vacation to Switzerland. While there, Jeremy proposed to Hiyah, and on returning to Saskatchewan, got their marriage license. Hiyah's father promptly disowned her and cut off financially. Jeremy did his best to prop the two up financially, but Hiyah had never had any formal schooling, and her artwork wasn't selling. While Jeremy was stable financially, he simply didn't have the money to support his lifestyle and Hiyah. The financial burden strained their relationship. Jeremy began working overtime hoping to be able to save up enough money to take Hiyah on another surprise romantic vacation. Hiyah, meanwhile, became frustrated and completely abandoned artwork, taking up a job as a custodian in a low-budget school in a bad part of Regina. Hiyah had left the house several times (usually for a few days at a time), but always came back. Things were beginning to luck up for the two after Hiyah got pregnant. Jeremy was ecstatic at being a father, and it seemed to brighten Hiyah's mood, too, even though both knew they would be even more burdened financially. That said, the two lovers' relationship improved up until the day the baby, a healthy boy named Alex Khaleel, was born and reality struck again. The two couldn't afford their lifestyle and were forced to downgrade to a cheap apartment in the center of the city. Hiyah was forced to stay home, further straining their budgets. Jeremy and Hiyah fought often, causing the baby to be unduly stressed. The baby's health waned, spending much time in the hospital. Finally, after four years of a sporadic relationship, Jeremy thought things would look awesome when he was given a promotion to head of the OR nursing department, which of course meant a generous bump-up in the paycheck. He was even allowed to leave early when he caught Hiyah having an affair with another Qatari man. In their bedroom. Keep in mind, as a poor family, they had a small 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment, so they had Alex's crib in their bedroom. Jeremy, justifiably angry, left Hiyah and took Alex-Khaleel with him without her consent. The case, of course, went to court. Though Hiyah was the one cheating and had no financial stability whatsoever, Hiyah's lover, a lawyer named Sabri, managed to use Jeremy's troubled youth as a question to his integrity, and the judge awarded custody to Hiyah. Hiyah then placed a restraining order on Jeremy for herself and the baby, claiming that while Jeremy left, he threatened her life. Shortly after the trial, Jeremy left Regina and headed to Saskatoon. There, he met another woman, a morbidly obese widow named Rhonda, who Jeremy drowned his torment in. That said, Rhonda was no Hiyah, and Jeremy, forlorn, left Canada altogether and headed south once more to California. He reached San Diego where he found a job in a hospital. Though the pay was good, he found himself lost. He jumped from affair to affair, but found himself unhappy. He eventually began stealing and selling pills, not for the money, but because he needed something to fill the void. Jeremy eventually fell back in to drugs and became sloppy with his thefts, leading to his discovery and termination. Now blacklisted from practically every future hospital job he might hope to have, he became a custodian at a deli shop. At the deli, Jeremy would often chase off the dogs at the back sniffing for scraps with pepper spray, not because he had to, but because his life was so unexciting. This got Jeremy in trouble with the local police and was charged with animal cruelty. He was found guilty and sentenced to six months in prison. While there, Jeremy was killed in a massive prison riot.
