CAPITOL // nathaniel mors pavot [fin]

There was a time when the flowers bloomed in the lull of sweet spring air, wafting the gentle mixture of fragrances through our back door and filling every corner of the house with its ambrosial scent. The heady perfume of hyacinth and lavender was soaked into ever nook and cranny throughout the abode. Tall sunflowers surrounded the entire area, turning to their deity with open petals and a desperate need for attention. Delicate forget-me-nots huddled in bunches, scattered around plots that swirled and meshed together. Petite pansies were mixed in with them, the vibrant colors melding with the hazy blue of the unforgotten blooms. Sharp white roses were planted in a corner all to themselves, their lack of color startling and refreshing all the same. Every color and hue was represented in the careful design just beyond our sleek home. The splash of color reflected off of our white house, transforming the once simple backyard patio into a beautiful rainbow dreamland. The subtle beauty of the flowers, though bright, was different from that of the technicolor attack of the Capitol streets. There was a peace that simply wasn't present out in the Capitol. A quiet serenity descended upon anyone who entered the garden.

There was a time when I'd sit in that garden for hours, watching as my mother nourished her blooms as if she'd been their seed-mama. She'd slave for hours over her precious hydrangeas and carnations and daisies, making sure they were all properly tended to and cared for. The scent was intoxicating and no matter how badly I wanted to walk away, I couldn't. I couldn't help but reach out to touch the delicate petals of the golden tulips and small lilies, but only after my mother had left to talk in the study with my father. I had a way of killing flowers, unintentionally of course. My mother had spent weeks trying to teach me how to care for her flowers as she did, but the plants would wither under my guidance. It took her several weeks more to coerce her blooms into health again, without my help. There was one flower, however, that never wilted in my charge; poppies. Mother's favorites were her poppies, their crimson petals fluttering in the spring air and swaying in the breeze. They clustered together and, in time, began to take over the entire garden. The other flowers would weep and bow themselves in resignation as the red blooms sprouted up within close proximity. In time, mother's garden was swallowed whole by the poppies. I suppose you could say that was foreshadowing for my future.

---

I wish I could see back into the happy days of my infancy, back when my brother and I were first born. They say that there is a glow of pure life in newborns and their immediate families, a light that cannot be extinguished and that permeates all darkness. That light fades with time, it seems, as that pure joy did not encompass the whole of my childhood. That life is weakened with each passing day until it is snuffed out altogether. It was snuffed out rather early for me. In fact, it hardly lasted to the age of fourteen. Growing up, we were fine. We lived and we laughed and we loved, but we also lost. My parents had had my brother and I later in their lives, so our grandparents were older by the time we were eight. By the time we'd turned eleven, we'd had none left. It seemed that we were plagued with death between our grandparents and pets. Their flames were suffocated too early, too vividly in our young eyes. We faced the losses head on, our family closing in on itself with each wave of pain, but we survived. We were meant to survive and live. It seemed so.

My parents had both grown up being great arguers, something I had inherently gained from them both. Politics was the only natural occupation for them both to pursue. They could argue all day and then come back home to fight over the colors we would be painting the walls or where the desk should go or whether or not I should be allowed to shadow them at work. I tended to lend my own two cents to the last of the three subjects considering they concerned me. After years of fighting and squabbling over the matter, my mother finally gave in. At eighteen, just after finishing my basic schooling, I followed my parents into the world of vicious argumentation, money, and social status. Sure, I'd been introduced to it in minor doses as being a Capitolite, but this was a different thing altogether. This was the zenith of Capitol society and importance. With their guidance, I mingled and conversed and attempted to do what we politicians do best: schmooze. However, it seemed like my efforts fell on deaf ears and uninterested parties. That is, until Amadeus Shepherd arrived at the gathering. Despite the many people who tried to entice him into investing in their companies and products and futures, he chose to speak to me. I guess you could say that that was another shadow for the future, though it's one I can't bring myself to wish away, even now.

Words have an astounding effect on people when used correctly. They can build up cities and create fame and bring metaphorical wine to the masses. However, words are also devastating. They have an immobilizing backlash when used improperly, or more accurately, not to the pleasure of another party. My parents should have spoken more carefully. I'd known all of my life that they were opposed to the Hunger Games and completely against the continuation of Snow's reign as President. They died in a freak fire at their office in the middle of the Capitol along with twenty five other people. Devastation for me. Uninteresting gossip for the city. No one second guessed the fire. No one even cared that my brother and I had been left without parents and without future. Our aunt took us in, but it wasn't with whom we lived that mattered. It was the fact that we'd been wronged and neglected for the sake of someone else's career, someone else's power. No amount of anger or sadness could bring them back, just like no amount of work could remove all of the poppies from my mother's old garden. It was permanent. It was settled.

Days passed. Weeks. Months. My anger flickered and faded, but the sadness was overwhelming. The Hunger Games were a way to prove to the people of Panem that the Capitol, that President Snow, had control. This display of power and irrefutable control said far more to me. Putting children in an arena to fight to the death was nothing compared to carelessly offing my parents just because their words were less than agreeable in terms of the Capitol. There was no winning against Snow lest you wished to be buried beneath the avalanche. I knew there was no way to fight back. I didn't want to suffocate. It seems I didn't have to. I wasn't alone in my suffering, it seemed, even though the circumstances were different. Amadeus Shepherd, or Cerberus as he preferred to be called, had continued to keep in touch. It was an odd correspondence, but it helped me work my way through the trials of being a victim. It made me steel myself against the world. I tried to be as strong as him, though my efforts were more than lacking. They were half-hearted and weak, mere imitations of the person I wished to make myself. I let myself be bowled over time and time again, but I couldn't force myself to fight back. There was no fight left in me.

---

Fighting. The reason I am, you are, he she it is what we all are today. The frivolity of life as we know it is made pointless by the very thing that gives it substance; conflict. Humans thrive off of attention and drama, no matter how miserable it eventually makes its craver. It is the most difficult drug to quit as it is introduced not to the brain, but directly to the very human nature itself, a nature that is comprised of selfishness and contrived invincibility. It is through selfishness that we make ourselves, and subsequently others, suffer. It is through our contrived invincibility that we take the hardest fall of all; death. That light that seems so bright is not as bright as it seems. It is not as strong as it is believed. It flickers, suffocating as the circumstances of its existence become shaky and unknown before the unthinkable happens. It goes out. After all, death has a way of catching up to us all.