My Brightest Star [Sarella|Challenge]

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kneedles

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My Brightest Star [Sarella|Challenge] May 13, 2012 14:47:46 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on May 13, 2012 14:47:46 GMT -5

[Seventeen| District 9's grumpy midwife| Carmen Solomons]

In the dark, every street looks the same; every face cast in shadow identical, every twisting shape and rustling movement indistinguishable from the last. I pause to light a cigarette, listen to the click and hiss of gas as the yellow flame flickers weak and jaundiced in the night-time smog. Wrapping my lips around the tip, I let out a brief sigh as the rush of nicotine hits me, long overdue, smoke curling from the tip like snakes. The sky is dead, but district nine never sleeps and far off I hear the footfalls of workers trudging to their late night-shifts, the rumbling sounds of machinery ever present in the distance.

The baby born not much earlier tonight will grow used to the darkness, the hot tickling of ill unnatural air in the back of its throat and, for that, I can hardly forgive myself. But a job is a job I suppose, rearranging the jangling carpet bag on my arm filled with a stethoscope and other metallic unfriendly looking tools. Clenching the cigarette between my teeth, my fingers sneak inside and wrap around a friendly bottle of pills. Just the ticket for a gloomy night in district 9.

Sarella
Capitol Resident

[M:-860]

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last seen Mar 11, 2024 9:34:11 GMT -5

My Brightest Star [Sarella|Challenge] May 14, 2012 11:55:07 GMT -5

Post by Sarella on May 14, 2012 11:55:07 GMT -5

Gwen Hanen

The dark seems to enclose me like a tomb for a few minutes, then my eyes adjust to the darkness and can see almost clearly onto the street. Not the best sight, but still able to make out the faint shaes and figures dashing around in the dark. Some taking their time, others rushing home. I look over my shoulder at my house, then start walking forward. It's still faintly cold at night, but much warmer than winter. I've heard it gets much colder in some other Districts, but District 9 is cold enough for my body. I can do without snow.

My mind wanders on to looking at the places around me. Very few stores are still open, and they are almost near closing time. Now to do what I was sent out to do in the first place, find Evan. Well, her name is Evangeline, but I prefer the shortened version. She must've wandered off somewhere earlier, because she didn't come home. My parents of course, are worried, but I'm only slightly fazed. She's probably just hanging out around stray cats or something. Nonetheless, I have to bring her home. After a bit of not finding her anywhere, I walk close to someone and ask, breaking a strange silence in the air, "Have you seen my sister? She looks almost exactly like me."

Note: This is harder than I remember. xD Kept getting scared I'd go over 299....

kneedles

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My Brightest Star [Sarella|Challenge] May 14, 2012 13:18:30 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on May 14, 2012 13:18:30 GMT -5

My fingers are on the screw cap of the little brown bottle of fentanil- one of the medicines we use in difficult, long labours (like a midwife from district 9 could afford or ever even use morphling ) and I can hear the comforting slide of the spokes before a voice from besides me snaps me out of my reverie. At first I’m wildly worrying that it might be my grandmother, as though she is omniscient and ever present, waiting around the corners of alleyways ready to catch me in the act of something illicit. But as my heart settles in my chest, I realise that I’m panicking for no reason and that it’s only another girl, asking me something about her sister.

Tipping my head, I’m not really in the mood to be helpful, but I draw in a long gasp of tar and nicotine from my cigarette and pretend to rack my brains. She said that the girl looked like her so I feign studying her face, but not even my eyes are trying hard enough, lassitude running through every vein and synapse of me. Her dark hair blurs into the darkness, her face and eyes are fuzzy- blue? Green? Grey? I’m not sure. A scramble of features, nose, mouth, ears, just the same as anyone else. Always that same basic model, stretching on from births and deaths. The cap slides off the bottle easily.

I’m sure that, yes, tonight I have seen somebody’s sister, somebody’s mother, somebody’s uncle but really in the dim light I haven’t stopped to distinguish any one of them. And yet we always seem to view ourselves as terribly unique creatures, as though the title ‘sister’, ‘lover’, ‘friend’ sets us apart from the other countless relations and relationships. It’s all the same to the machine, though, isn’t it? So I simply shake my head, play at looking sad like any good supporting actress and try and remember what my lines would be in a situation like this one. Ah, yes- “No, I’m sorry, I don’t think I saw anything come by this way.”

As a consolation though, I waft a bag of tobacco under her nose, “Ciggarette?” I offer, which can be my good deed for the day, before putting one of my pills into my mouth.