the echoes answer :: (death!reaction to reaping)

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I never understood museums. Perhaps it’s because I can put faces to artefacts, but I always thought that the last physical memories of the dead should be celebrated. Music and bright colours seem befitting; your forefathers are the reason that you are all here, after all. Instead, they lock emotions translated into effigies of words and art in dimly lit rooms, allow them to gather dust, never letting them be touched. That is, perhaps, what I find the most terrifying. I know what it is like to never be touched. Sierra, you and I have that in common.

I never understood why sick people are treated like museums. There is never any life in a hospital, despite the fact that its main purpose is to house the living. Though you all say music heals you, they are musicless. Though you say art expresses you, they are emotionless. Though you say that words are the best medicine, you get caught between ulnas and Caproxie, 20mg and never can squeeze out anything with meaning. Sick people are tiptoed around, as if sounds might shatter them, and handled with gloves as if healthy fingers are too strong. Humans always work so hard to keep death away, but the reality is that I am just a side effect of life. You too are a side effect. You all are.

I have to admit, Sierra, that I haven’t watched out for you since I walked away with your sister. To begin, I was angry that she didn’t want to stay with me, that she honestly believed that she had better things to do. But when I realised that she didn’t belong with me, that she wasn’t ugly enough to be sentenced to a life as torturous as mine, well, then I began to forget about you. It’s a busy life, you see, being a ferryman. There are always ships to captain, always passengers to take far away.

And so it is a shock when I tiptoe into your room on reaping morning. For you, it has been a year. For me, it has been both millennia and a minute. It is a cursed blessing when time moves with odd intervals. But the time has weathered you, too. Your body looks like the wind has wuthered over your stone-carved, stick-crafted bones for centuries, not a collection of days. Your skin is pallid and yellowing, your eyes dull. I am naïve, of course. I didn’t think that there was anyone who loved Meela more than I did. I am not the first person to forget about you.

I watch you again from in the reaping crowds. To be honest, your lack of reaction is far more interesting to me than the boy who is reaped from your district. I almost find myself anticipating the moment I get to cradle you in my arms, but I stop that thought as soon as I find it. It’s not what your sister would have wanted, not for either of us. The girls name is called, and then...

Oh.

Sierra, I have been around for a long time. I have known many, many people, and often, I think I understand how they work. Someone will then come along and change my perspective on your kind entirely. The last one who did this to me was your sister. I have never known these incidences to be related before, not until today. I am sorry. Please know this. I wish that I didn’t have to take your sister (this is a well-natured lie; for that act was far too enjoyable to regret.) I wish that I didn’t have to acquaint myself with you, now. And I wish, for both of our sakes, that I could reunited you two at the end of this ordeal. To the best of my knowledge, I cannot.

Once, I had to take a little girl onwards. This happens a lot, of course, but I don’t think you ever fully adjust to it. She was in a war-zone, the sort of place (like your body) that a little girl should never have to grow up. And she was waiting for me, too, which is a rare occurrence in someone of her age. When I reached her, she smiled at me slowly, and tugged on my sleeve (I try to dress appropriately for each occasion that I attend. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable) and with the saddest voice, she asked me to take her mother too. Not for her own comfort, but for that of her mum. It was such a sweet gesture, and so nice to meet someone whom I didn’t terrify (the media has a lot to answer for) that I remember her, out of them all.

I think that, had I been with Meela for longer, she would have asked me to take you, too.

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