JEAN DENIM KIRSCHTEIN }} PK [fin]

My mother was rather old when I was born and frequently referred to me as some kind of miracle. I guess she and Dad never expected to have a kid – or maybe they did, and it wasn’t until their seasoned years that she was able to conceive a child. So, growing up I guess you could say I was spoiled: they gave me what I wanted and I’m not afraid to admit that it did go to my head. I was a sour and rotten kid, running around and shoving all my treasures into other peoples’ faces, taunting them with what I had and they didn’t. My parents had made a fortune creating and selling Avoxes so they did have the money to throw away unto me, their one and only child.

While, yes, life was great and I became such a massive mama’s boy, she fell ill to some unknown disease when I was about ten. Dad had already passed away from his old age and I was the only one left to take care of her and help out with the family business of Avoxes. It was hard for me to be held by the restrains of responsibility, but Mom lured me in with rewards and treats and very quickly I found myself picking up utensils to cut out tongues and brand Avoxes in order to keep track of them.

One time there was a kid that came into the center that was about my age. She was held in heavy handcuffs, red hair tousled all around her. Now, me being me and hardly above a toddler’s comprehension, I wanted to play with her. I tugged on my mother’s sleeve and pointed, begging permission to go play, but my mother only smiled and patted my head, saying that she didn’t want me to befriend someone who would be shipped off to some household in a matter of only a few days. (It’s funny how she never spoke about Avoxes as if they were just mere property – she knew they were human and she made sure to refer to them as living beings, even if she did believe that they were lower than her.) I was sad, of course, but I obeyed my mother.

I was there to help cut out the redhead’s tongue and immediately I regretted it. She screamed and I panicked, startling my mother. (I was pretty much born in the avoxing center, so why should it suddenly terrify me to slice a tongue out?) I tried regaining my composure and ended up being able to stay throughout the entire session, although to make up for my moment of insecurity I gave her an extra dose of morphine to numb the pain, praying silently that she’d forgive me.

But why? Why had I panicked? Because she was my age and I thought that could be me?

When she was thrown into her cell I stayed behind, waiting for my mother to leave before I snatched up the Avox’s new documents. Her name was Nala and she was from Eleven, a sister to only seven brothers and a daughter to dead parents. Unfortunately for her the paper also explained why she was arrested: she and her brothers were smuggling food from the fields “to hoard” (probably some Peacekeeper bullshit, they’re always the one to smudge up the truth). Nala didn’t look like the kind to want others to starve and so I sat outside her cell, watching as she cried.

She didn’t appear to want to look at me and so I sat quietly until she calmed down. I took a small chunk of stray concrete and tossed it in between the bars, capturing her attention. She turned her bloodshot hazel eyes to me and I offered a smile but she scowled, hunching over and facing her back to me. I was offended, of course, and took appropriate measures. “Hey! I just wanna be your friend, okay?”

I don’t quite remember how it happened but it ended up she eventually crawled over to me and we tossed the rock back and forth between the bars, I was talking and she was shyly grinning occasionally, keeping her eyes downcast as if she already thought she was subordinate to me. (Me, the one who cut out her tongue.) Every time I said her name she cringed noticeably; I did apologize, though, and I asked what was wrong, but she dropped the rock and crawled back to the corner of her cell. My mother had come in by then and said that it was time to go but I was adamant when I told her that I wasn’t leaving without Nala because she was my friend. I could visibly see the dread in her eyes, all the reluctance, but she yielded and said yes, mumbling something about how we did need a new Avox and that it was better to get a younger one.

It took a while for Nala to settle in; often there were nights that I heard her quietly crying in her room so I’d knock until she answered, grinning at her like I always did. Sometimes she’d scowl at me, other times she’d just stand aside and I’d enter. Cheering her up was always a guessing game and I tried everything I could think of to get that cheeky little smile to light her face. Usually it worked and we were able to play some kind of game to take her mind off whatever it was what ailed her (probably thoughts of home, so I tried to make the house as homey for her as possible). It was always rewarding to see her smile again as it she was becoming more and more comfortable in her new house, and hopefully she realized that we weren’t about to treat her like the other Capitolites treated their Avoxes.

Two years later, despite all the money we had, Mom never wanted to be put into a nursing home. I was left – with the help of her favorite Avox, Bell, and Nala – to administer her medications (they only eased her pain) and keep her fed and hydrated. She pitched a fit each and every time so two of us had to hold her down while the third stabbed a syringe into her frail little arm to inject the medicine. Mom died in her sleep one night while I sat beside her, holding her hand. I wept – Ripred, did I weep – until I passed out beside her.

I was only about twelve at the time and already I felt as though I was losing control of the world around me.

There was no way in Panem that a twelve year old could take care of an avoxing center but I tried, repeating phrases I had heard my parents saying and giving out orders that I was very unsure about. Nala and I had grown close over the two years and it was she who convinced me (through writing) to let my uncle take over; I was to still attend school, and I did just that. I kept my grades up and stayed under the watchful eye of Bell, looking up to her more and more as a motherly figure. In the evenings, after I completed my homework (only because of Bell’s nagging), I’d sit with Nala and we would play cards or some game where I could swear when I lost and she could laugh at me.

I still helped out at the avoxing center, but overtime I was more and more reluctant to participate, unwilling to even watch as they amputated tongues. The screams of those terrified or in agony began to scar me, and after my shift I found myself running home, engulfing Nala and Bell in a hug. I don’t think they needed to hear any words to know what was scaring me, and on those nights I’d even cook dinner and dessert for them.

Maybe it’s because I was practically raised by Avoxes that made me so accepting of them. Not only that, but I fell in love with one.

I was very fond of Nala even before I started chasing a career with the Peacekeepers (honestly I only had a vague idea of why I even wanted to join the corps), but it was around the academic part of my training that I realized how much I loved her. I think she realized it, too, because I’d follow her around like some puppy begging for a treat, trying to swoon her in any way that I could. Even in those hideous uniforms all Avoxes had to wear, she incredibly beautiful with the pale skin peppered with freckles everywhere and red hair either in a ponytail or framing her face. Her body had these beautiful curves and wasn’t like the stick-thin people that the Capitol always seemed to be in a frenzy over; she had dimension and was very womanly, even at our ripe old age of sixteen, and it turned out that she was everything I wanted at any given moment.

Nala kissed me first. I kissed her back with the intensity of all my pent-up passion. We had to hide our relationship from everyone but Bell, who smiled sadly at us, elderly eyes watching affectionately. Every night I asked Nala to come stay with me in my room and she refused for months until finally agreeing. She was nervous at first as she crawled under the covers (maybe because she was used to other Capitolites spitting at her or doing something absolutely vile to harm her , and even though I showed nothing but kindness to her, I too was a Capitolite and therefore was generalized), slowly inching closer and closer to me. I was very patient (or tried to be) and waited until she was comfortable enough before I wrapped my arms around her, and we slept that way each night, one person tucked safely in the embrace of the other, and sometime down the road we broke the Capitol’s golden rule.

I think I was equally as panicked as Nala was when she first started to show. Now I realize that I really had no right to be considering that my punishment would’ve been so much lighter than hers, but it was when I knew that Nala and the unborn baby would be put to death that I started really freaking out. At first we tried to hide it by just letting her wear a larger shirt, but her belly swelled much faster than we had anticipated and became much larger than I thought it would be. Bell appeared very worried about it and we were forced to keep Nala hidden in the house so that no one would find out, and we helped her out whenever we could. I stayed by her and even set up the guest bedroom on the first floor for her to stay in instead of climbing all those flights of stairs. Day by day she grew wearier but still held a smile on her face, rubbing her belly and humming to the child. At night she’d encourage me to do the same (she had written out earlier that day, when I asked why she hummed so much, that it was a way to communicate with the baby) and so I did, scooting down the bed until I was near the kid and I’d hum every song I knew, even going so far as to sing. Some nights the lyrics would put Nala to sleep (because they were boring or I was that just good of a singer, I’ll never know) and I’d lightly rub my finger against her belly, whispering things to the baby – sometimes secrets, sometimes things I had to memorize for academy exams, anything really.

One night, in the midst of studying for an exam to be accepted into the Peacekeeper Academy, I heard Nala scream. I burst out of my room and tore down the stairs, finding a puddle of what looked like water on the floor and Nala clutching at her belly. Bell was already in action and quickly pointed to Nala and then in the direction of the room and I quickly acted, helping her along and setting her on her bed. She instantly reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing unimaginably tight. I bit back my own pain-filled yelps by talking to her, saying how everything would be alright and how she was going to be such a good mother; she looked up at me with such hopeful and agonized eyes that it wrecked my heart. Bell came rushing in and quickly put a cloth in Nala’s mouth to muffle the screams, and I kept talking to her, encouraging and saying how much I loved her. Her cries ripped me apart on the inside and I wanted nothing more than to somehow take the pain away; tears actually began to come to my eyes and I kept talking until I heard the shrill cries of a wee child. I looked over to see the wrinkly and oddly-colored baby but Nala’s grip on my hand suddenly tightened and I heard her breathing quicken again, a few more muffled groans and grunts sounding, quickly followed by Bell’s astonished look. She set the baby down and bent over, picking up another one that was much smaller.

That explained a lot.

I quickly took the cloth out of Nala’s mouth and smiled at her, wiping the sweat from her brow. I kissed her hand in mine and then her forehead, nuzzling against her while the two newborns cried. After a few minutes Bell handed one of the twins to Nala and the other to me, both swaddled in blankets and calming down.

We named the twin girls Eclipse, after Nala’s mother, and Meeka, after mine. Meeka was definitely smaller than her sister but she was no less loved. As my mother had done to me I gave them everything I could and made sure they were always comfortable whenever I was not at school. Nala, after being cooped up in the house for so long, stayed out in the garden for hours and I’d give her a break from watching the twins so she could get some sun and fresh air. At night we tucked the twins into their crib and then crawled into bed together, cuddling all through the night.

It was honestly a very good life and routine. I was still studying to become a Peacekeeper, but things at home were as perfect as could be.

The only problem, however, was that Peacekeepers were not allowed to have a family of their own. We were lucky, in my opinion; no one would ever suspect that the twins were Nala’s and mine since Avoxes usually acted as nannies anyway, so we were only halfway out of the woods. The main question then would be who they belonged to, and that was what stumped us. I remember holding Meeka on my lap and nursing her while Nala and Eclipse slept. No one in my family had red hair but my uncle’s came close: it was dark brown with reddish highlights, so that could work. He was elderly and rather out of his mind, so after debating it with Bell and Nala later that week, we decided that it would be best to bring my uncle to our house. (If my parents had me when they were his age, why couldn’t my uncle have done the same? Just say that their mother died during childbirth.)

He was quite a handful while we were still learning what medications and stuff he needed to take; I think he had hallucinations too because he kept calling Bell by my mother’s name, and when she wouldn’t respond he’d get panicked. Eventually he settled in, however, and he took to the twins like a natural. I was hesitant about leaving everyone with him but he looked like he wouldn’t have even been physically able to hurt a fly, so I was able to rest easy.

On the night before I left for Peacekeeper training, I crawled into bed beside Nala and hugged her tightly. She hugged me back and we were silent for what felt like hours until I heard her breathing signal that she was asleep. I ran my fingers through her red hair and kissed her forehead.

I’d visit whenever I could. Not only that but I’d be the best damn Peacekeeper I could ever be. No one would end up like Nala did and arrested for only trying to help.

I was going to spin the tables.