365 days.— [prop/vasco | blitz]

v a s c o

So say, say what you want
Dose up on fiction, disfigure the truth
While I walk, life beating on
Aching for others, with love that stops short

I clicked my tongue and tugged the donkey forward. The plow scraped clean against the cracks of the earth pitching up dust behind us. Yani ambled along the other side, each of us quiet save for our boots crunching against the dirt. I held a moment to brush at the burro’s neck. He tilted his head into my hand, nostrils flaring with a huff. We marched under the heat of a yellow sun, bathed in the warmth and sleepy under its spell.

Yani had shown up at my office at the start of the games to ask for something to do. She’d stood with her hands behind her back, little smile tucking up under her cheeks, ready to explain that there simply wasn’t anything else to do. Not while the games blared across the district with images of boys and girls set about killing one another. Of the sad faces of men and women that she passed, stretched out across another year of desolation. For her, the games brought a nostalgia that could never rest in her stomach. It twisted down her throat and into her heart; she could only be reminded of a sister and cousins she’d never know looking at those screens.

But – that had been the reason I’d imagined, at least.

Because I’d selfishly thought that a girl her age would be trapped in grief, no matter what affection Emma or I had showered her with. She was destined to grow underneath the same gnarled trees and soil the rest of us had. I could only hope to defend against the worst of it, and that she’d one day turn around to a dawn that looked far different than what I’d ever seen.

She’d asked if she could help me file away my papers and take notes in whatever meetings a mayor would have. Boring work I’d have had Magdalena do, if I could ever find Magdalena (she seemed to disappear when any work needed to be done). So, I’d stood from my chair and offered her the chance to while away hours in the office, contending with the soft voiced meetings and capitol paperwork that crossed my desk.

At the start of my meeting with the district council, she’d made sure I had a fresh cup of tea and a brownie in front of me. And when I’d been in a meeting with a pair of peacekeepers to negotiate their level of force, she’d found time to knock at the door and pull me away when things had come to a standstill. In fact, as the week had worn on, Yani crept around corners with the same smile, sometimes a little wink (ya voy, she’d sing-song).

And we crept out of the doldrums, together. What started as a week in grays and black splashed into color, the two of us tackling the menial and mundane as though each time we faced no greater odds. We chattered away at lunch about all the nonsense work it meant to be mayor, and then too, the hard decisions that crossed my desk. And each time she drank up the stories, chittering her questions.

"Aren’t you tired," I’d asked her as the games had started, "you could be out with your friends or anywhere else." We’d at breakfast in the pale light of morning, me with my coffee and her with a slice of buttered toast.

'I thought about how I felt after the reaping,' she’d said, voice steady, 'and how when I looked at you on the stage, and it’d made me feel. That even when they’d pulled out a name I felt safe. And I wanted to hold onto that feeling, too.'

"Huh." I’d said, but I don’t know. "You don't have to worry about me, you know?" My voice had gone quiet, not matter how loud my heart had beat.

'Oh I know,' she’d taken a bite of her toast, 'But I thought about how every games you spent so much time taking care of everyone else. And I just thought – well – maybe we could spend it together. I thought I’d feel better and maybe you would, too.'

I’d called ahead to the office to say I’d be in the fields that day, tilling out with Yani.

She’d taken the burro when I’d gone inside to fetch some sweet tea for us. Yani had some over at a neighbor’s and contended we drink it, which meant making batches and batches. I’d been filling up a few canteens when a knock had come at the door.

'Vasco, it’s Prop! Are ya here?'

I let out a whistle and start down the hall, hardwood creaking as I opened the door.

His face says more in the first few moments than his voice had but, I didn’t have to think long about how he must’ve been. Six and then Abel, his family troubled, his heart had to have been, too.

“Buenas, Prop.” I stood back from the door and offered him space to come in, “It’s good to see you. I was just getting something in the kitchen. Care to have some sweet tea with me and Yani? She’s out back right now, but she’ll come in soon.”

I motioned toward the kitchen and took a step before turning back over my shoulder.

“Are you hungry? I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve seen you – I, well I meant to come to you. I don’t have a good reason not to have, except I’ve been spending so much time with Yani. I think I lost track of part of what I should’ve been attending to.” As I spoke I wondered if I should’ve felt more shame. But then I’d felt less tired, been less distracted these games. “It’s good to see you.”

v a s c o

So say, say what you want
Dose up on fiction, disfigure the truth
While I walk, life beating on
Aching for others, with love that stops short

I listened to him speak from the edge of the kitchen. I filled up a couple of glasses with tea and dropped in a few spare ice cubes from the ice box. From the window I could see Yani still milling about with the donkey. I took a sip of the sweet tea and clicked my tongue against my teeth. Plenty of people in eleven had offered me the stuff over the years, but it was Yani who’d got me to make it in my own house.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” which felt like the sort of answer any man could’ve given, not the mayor of district eleven. Not the one that’d always promised to have their backs. And where I should’ve found guilt there was only calm. As though age had dulled what could’ve been shame, I was happy not to have been touched by grief just as soon as it’d happened. It’d taken me a long time to learn that staying healthy meant I didn’t have to know everything all the time.

I moved back toward the living room, my old boots scuffing against the hardwood. I offered the glass of sweet tea to him. A little drop of condensation came down the glass and trickled over my index finger.

“I didn’t process it, mijo.” My voice carried out just above the whir of the ceiling fan. “No, I – I didn’t take any of it so good.” I held my glass in my hands and thought about how I would’ve added some tequila if I’d known this was what I’d be talking about that afternoon. “I barely slept that week while she was alive. I watched her every second I could, even when she’d gone to sleep. Because I thought, well maybe if I watched her, it’d keep her safe. Or that I wouldn’t forget who she was.”

But all the prayers hadn’t brought her home; no one had shown her grace when she needed it most.

“Who she was in there, what she did… how could I judge her for it? I didn’t even have the strength to watch what they’d turned her into.” I rubbed a hand across my face and shook my head. “I blamed myself. For what she had to endure. And for not doing something, anything.” It’d been a long while since I’d buried myself in those memories. I’d always thought if I lingered too long in them, I’d drown.

“It didn’t stop me from coming apart every time I saw her fight for her life.”