Look Into Those Eyes // Marina

She spoke with a voice that disrupted the sky
She said walk on over here to the bitter shade
I will wrap you in my arms and youll know that you're saved

The Reaping for the Quell was still a full two days out, and Fabian could no longer shake the nightmares. He’d never been one of those people who’d needed a lot of sleep – not even in his Career days, when most of the other teen dudes in his year were getting upwards of fourteen hours a night. He’d slept for five, maybe six, and could out pace them all in the open water. He could still best his peers at swimming, but now he had sunk to their level when it came to sleep. He was tired – fatigued – beyond reason, and despite the exhaustion that slowed his reactions, made his mind muddied, he fought against the call of sleep.

Because they met him there – hundreds of children, at first faceless, and over time with the same set of faces, those of his children. They came on the scrawny bodies of those from higher districts, the bulky frames of the Careers from One, even the sun-kissed flesh of Four made an appearance now and again. They were never the right bodies, not really his children in some way or another. They were bastardizations, these monsters that haunted him in the night.

He invariably woke, hot and alone in the twisted sheets. His wife had given up sleeping in the same bed, and he couldn’t say that he blamed her, although he missed the familiar contours of her body. It was almost morning, that dark part of night when the moon had already fled the sunrise hadn’t quite greyed the skies. He swung his feet over the side of the four-poster, put his bare toes to the cool floorboards, his head into his hands.

He pushed against his cheeks, against the wrinkles that had begun to fold into themselves, exacerbating the problem. He’d never be re-elected if he looked like he was seventy before he was even half a century. The trouble wasn’t really that – although he’d spend a year’s salary to take away the effects of aging – it went deeper. He didn’t want to be unelectable, but then again, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to campaign again. Where would that take him? Did the path of Mayor lead to more nightmares, few days with his growing children, a cold bed without his wife?

Did it lead him to the place where nightmares became reality, where his children stood in front of him on the stage, their names dropped from the lips of a Capitolite?

That was a place he could not go.

He’d been a fool to think that being elected Mayor would exempt his children. Obviously that was not the outward case, but he’d thought that perhaps there would be an unspoken understanding. That myth had been demystified the previous Quell, when he’d had the opportunity to speak with President Snow. Alone. That was yet another place he desired to avoid. Why that man suddenly gave him the heebie geebies was a mystery, considering he’d been quite a fan of the President up until that very moment. And it wasn’t that he said anything so very threatening, either. Fabian went over and over the conversation, trying to decide when exactly he known that he and his family were in a more precarious position than virtually anyone else in Four.

Coffee?

No, thank you, Mayor Perch. I believe I’ll wait to sample some of your delicacies.

Of course, thank you. Is there anything else I can get you?
You can sit down, and have the food brought to us here.

Certainly.

I hadn’t realized you had so many children. Is this a photograph of your entire family?

Minus the youngest. He was just born about a year ago.

Charming. I think we can dispense with the pleasantries. Your shipments have been mostly on schedule and you’ve provided a higher volume of food than any of the previous Mayors.

Thank you, Mr. President, we’ve implemented some new techniques and – well, they seem to be making things more efficient.

I wasn’t finished. While the industry here is doing an above average job, I have some suggestions.

Sir?

Your district is lacking in other areas. The output of scallops, for example, has been abysmal. Furthermore you have not produced a Victor in a decade.

I hardly think – I mean I don’t have any control over –

The Reaping, of course. Perhaps your citizens aren’t being properly motivated.

I assure you they are. We provide everything a Career would need.

And how do you incentivize those who are not Careers to change their minds?

I – well, there’s the glory and wealth of winning to consider.
That’s not enough. Clearly.

I’m sure I can think of something.

That would be for the best of everyone, Mayor Perch. I look forward to congratulating a Victor from Four in the next Games. Now, about those delicacies…

I’ll see about getting some scallops for you, Mr. President.

There had been no mention of his children at all, except for the small talk at the beginning. However, Fabian was sure the older ones had been lurking near the library door. And when President Snow had stood to leave, he stared right at the wood, almost as though he were looking through it and marking them. Only his eldest had been eligible a year ago. Now he had two over the age of twelve, and it was so much more than twice the burden. He was quite sure that Snow had meant – how would he, the Mayor, provide a Victor. And what better incentive did he need than the Reaping itself? Because if Four won, perhaps he would never again have to speak to Snow, to have his snake eyed gaze tally up the family portrait.

The dawn had finally arrived, grey slinking in between the curtains as Fabian forced himself to stand up. He’d intended to head straight to the bathroom, to style his greying hair and tug at his wrinkles, but instead he ended up at the fireplace mantle.
One by one he turned the portraits down, hid them between wooden frame and stone.

As he walked to the kitchens in the rosy dawn, he decided he would take his family out into the water that afternoon, work be damned, and teach the little ones how to swim. His teenagers were already so good, so strong – but he doubted they would ever be strong enough.

And the waves, unlike wood and stone, could not hide them.