~THE HATTER

A jaw dropper
Looks good when he walks, he's the subject of their talk

"Have you guessed the riddle yet?"

A hat goes a long way to those who take the time to care. Tall hat, short hats, top hats, bottom hats, red hat, blue hat, one hat, two hat. All take precision in placing and care in taking. Shining, and stitching when seams grow loose and most of all: magic, a sense of absurdity, a sense of individuality. A hat to stick out of the herd, the herd that sucked you in and you follow until one day, there’s just you and your hat. A boy and his sheep, Little Bo Peep can’t find her sheep because they’re all in the yard of a boy with his hats. A boy whose graceful hands grip shineless shearers sliding the surface of sheep seamlessly. There’s nothing quite as dull as the blades of shearers, but they must be held ever so carefully, handled with nimble hands, nimble hands which Darius happened to possess. Mother would call them “piano hands.” Long and slender fingers that ever so delicately moved about their work, as if each little finger had a mind of its own, played gently across the hairy backs of sheep. Fingernails bit down to the nibs make each press of the shearer sting in a way that ever so pleased the boy, oh the joy of feeling.

Oh how his hands made him smile. A big smile. Toothy grins were ever so silly and ever so playful and ever so good for afternoon tea. A big toothy grin with yellow peeking out the tops, never one for teeth brushing, too much effort, the yellowing told a story, a story of the food and drink that found their way down chapped lips in to the empty stomach of the poor shepherd who loved his hats and his sheep. Tea stains your teeth, but the yellow was ever so great, as great a colour as white was, yellow was better. Yellow was better than white, and better than the dull blue that filled the sockets of the poor shepherd, duller than the blades that played endlessly in his hands during work hours. Eyes like a house with no owner, vacant with no furniture. Not that furniture in one’s eyes would be a particularly good thing; just splashes of colour would make the space on his face ever so vibrant, perhaps a nice yellow, like the lining of his teeth. Yes, that’d be ever so good.

When reaping time comes around, Darius is amazed by pudgy cheeks of the Capitol escort. Pudginess is not something of privilege to him, hollow cheek bones were no fun to poke, but fun to play songs on. ‘Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?’ Tapped on cheek bones sounds ever so pleasant, ever so joyful, almost as good as they sound a xylophone-esque rib bones almost protruding from the body of the shepherd boy. Weight dragged you down the groundhog holes, or the burrowing owl holes, down the rabbit holes. No one wanted to fall down those. The lack of rotundness possessed by the shepherd boy was sad, geometric shapes were ever so fun, ever so clever, ever so silly. Weight always seemed to be a rather ridiculous little problem, if one was too light that was a problem, and Darius was too light so he was a problem. At 5 feet, and 8 toes high, 110 stones was apparently a ridiculous amount of a person to be if you’re stepping along rabbit holes (not that he’s ever fallen in.)

Thin brown lines cover his head endlessly, strand on stand. It’s as if a whole other world lived on the boy, a world that often fell out piece by piece. It was easy to protect though, simply put a hat on and all little worlds are safe from the dangers of the real world. Who’s to say the real world is better than a world of your own? Where up is down and down is up and the walls are floors. Hairs can be kept so safe in their little world’s if you just wear a hat.

Hats line the shearing shed, hats line the bedroom walls that he resides, hats line his very heart and soul. Darius the lost shepherd with his fantastic hats.

Daydreamer, sitting on the seat
Soaking up the sun, he's a real lover.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”

He is a real lover. Of making up the past
And feeling up his girl. Like he's never felt her figure before.

"You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!”

Mother and father, shepherdess and horse handler, Eamonn and Emory, two peas and a pod and would always be together forever. Ever so happy, ever so graceful. Eamonn, the smooth-talking horse handler from the slum of District 10 couldn’t help but catch the green eyed beauty, the daughter of the Cosimo’s, the most well-off shepherd’s in all of the District. It was love at first ride. Meadow upon meadow, trampling along the dull green grass. Young love under the stars, and under those same stars a year and a half later, a young boy by the name of Darius fell upside-down into this topsy turvy world. You could say that from the moment he entered life that the boy was as mad as a hatter.

Darius had never taken to horses, like his father. Being a mother’s boy through and through, time was often spent scouring through sheering sheds and sleeping in soft piles of wood at his leisure. Life was simple as a child, wasn’t it always? The Cosimo’s sheep paddocks were still well-known and still doing well when Darius was a young child. With what seemed like thousands upon thousands of acres of paddocks and meadows, there wasn’t a boring moment. Though, whenever Darius went to visit his father’s stables, something always seemed to go wrong. Horses almost appeared to have a general hatred towards the mad boy, whether that be a good sense of when crazy arrives, or just the way he looked, Darius could never tell. However, visiting the stables was always a chore, a form of torture.

Darius was rather normal throughout childhood, an outburst here or there. Riddles often burst out of the boys lips in a joking way, a cute little boy trick that all the adults loved. It wasn’t until high school that any distinct difference stood out. As couple upon couple fell in love, into each other’s arms, Darius couldn’t help but not feel anything. Sure, he’d get the odd person liking him, but the feeling was never mutual. It wasn’t solely the fact of distaste towards the crusher, but the lack of ability to quite feel for them. One day, when Darius returned to the paddocks, he found a mauled sheep that had been eaten alive by a wolf or fox of some sort. He didn’t feel anything. No remorse, no sadness, only a slight vibration in the bottom of his throat that slowly built up in to an overbearing laugh. A victory, death.

Having never avidly watched the Hunger Games, Darius’ obsession with the ability to look upon death as nothing became an experiment. How far could he go? What gore could he watch? What would finally push him over the edge? Death upon death, severing, infections. Nothing bothered him. Empathy wasn’t there, love wasn’t there, Darius wasn’t there. The discovery of drugs was probably one of the most significant parts of the young shepherd’s life. Ecstasy, morphling, anything that could possibly be shot into his arm or snorted up his nose was. Pleasure, love, empathy, any sort of feeling that was missing and more was discovered through amazing trips through impossible universes.

Darius was hired as a shepherd, spending most of his days shearing sheep when not going through the awful education that District 10 provided. Though, he spent most of his hours in a high, so high above the earth that nothing could drag him now. Drug habits unknown to his parents, Darius continuously abuses substances that everyone has now just begun to see him as crazy. Nothing could have been to save the shepherd boy who sleeps under the stack of wool.

Daydreamer
with eyes that make you melt, he lends his coat for shelter
plus he's there for you when he shouldn't be
but he stays all the same, waits for you
then sees you through

I love me some hedonists! And o-dair here is indeed xD Really this is beautiful, Seven. A work of art ^^