Seymour Parrish

Seymour "Sy" Parrish is a middle-aged man who lives a lonely, monotonous, and monochromatic life. In his late 40s, Sy is a photo technician who works in a mini lab he calibrated inside a SavMart in Evans County. He had been working at SavMart since 1990. He had not done any prints wrong in 11 years, and to have worked point of sale mini labs for twenty years total. He takes great pride in his photo work, disgusted at lazy photo technicians who put out washed out or darkened prints, and was very careful to ensure that the color was as rich and as real as it could possibly be and took enough care to do people's photos as if they were his own, including those for the family he obsesses over. He secretly makes copies of the family pictures and puts them on the walls of his apartment, fantasizing about being a member of their family and sharing their love he thinks they feel. He leads a lonely life outside of the department store. His work is everything to him, as he has no one to go home to at the end of each day; he spends his time at home sitting alone and watching television, and his only companion is a hamster. His favorite customers are the family he loves so much and he has developed an obsession for them, idolizing their happiness and affluence and wanting to associate with them. Despite being a stalker and taking photos of the family without their consent, Sy wouldn't hurt anyone, the only time he would is when his idea of the perfect family (the family he obsesses over) is threatened. Sy was an overweight child who was unpopular at school and not good at sports. He claims that he was sickly and broke his collarbone from falling out of a tree once and was always coming down with mono or hepatitis as a child. Instead the real cause of his collarbone injury and his numerous illnesses like mono and hepatitis, which are often transmitted sexually, is his father. Sy's childhood was filled with sexual abuse, as his father forced him to perform in child pornography, something he would later call "sick" and "degrading", as well as "things that children shouldn't do".