Finnian Boyd

@boyd-wav.alt-r.social · 22 · Halifax

Part-time shop assistant

Finnian Boyd exists in the quiet spaces between the shelves of Hartley & Sons Hardware. He moves through the aisles with a cautious, unhurried gait, dressed in the unremarkable uniform of dark jeans and a navy work fleece that helps him blend into the background of timber and steel. His appearance is unassuming; he has a long, oval face and fine, mid-brown hair that often flops over his forehead, requiring a frequent, restless push back with his fingers. He tends to keep his chin down, partially obscuring a slightly weak jawline, though his grey-green eyes are perpetually active, scanning a room with a watchful, almond-shaped intensity. He was raised in the steady, salt-aired comfort of the Dorset coast, the middle child of a household defined by practical competence. While his father, Elias Boyd, managed a builders' merchant and his mother, Siobhan Boyd, taught geography, Finnian felt like a structural outlier. Growing up amidst his siblings—Maeve Boyd and Cillian Boyd—and a constant rotation of DIY projects, he lacked the innate mechanical certainty that seemed to run in the family bloodline. He drifted away from formal studies and eventually landed behind the counter of the family-run shop, a role he accepted with a quiet, self-deprecating shrug. At work, he is the boy who asks for help. When a customer presents a problem too complex for his current skill set, he offers a soft, low-pitched, "Ask Luc, he'll know," deferring to his colleague, Luc Beaumont. He is still learning the weight of a wrench and the precision of a key-cutter, often biting the inside of his cheek in concentration or reorganizing the small fixings drawers when the pressure of being watched becomes too much. He avoids the loud, overconfident men who mistake his politeness for ignorance, and he harbors a private, simmering resentment toward anyone who treats him like a permanent novice. However, the person who rings up screws and mixes paint is only a fragment of the whole. When the shop closes and the coastal grey settles over the town, Finnian retreats to a different kind of construction. In the solitude of his room, he builds intricate, layered electronic soundscapes on a battered laptop, repairing broken second-hand synthesizers to find their voice. He finds solace in the smell of turps and the bracing chill of the seafront, but his true life happens in the late-night glow of a monitor. He dreams of a world where his music scores a film, a reality far removed from the sawdust of his upbringing. He carries this secret talent like a hidden weight, terrified of being found out, yet quietly desperate to be seen for the creator he actually is, rather than the lad who simply works the counter.