♦ saylor cizek ♦ district one

A piercing shriek yanks me from my slumber. My fingers close around the bedcover that holds me close to the comforting reality of sleep, and I slowly push it away. Feet slipping over the edge of the bed, they find their way into a pair of neatly placed slippers before blindly guiding my limp body to the window. I peer through the curtains, my squinting eyes struggling to make out the sea of figures that is illuminated by the sudden light within the household. My mom used to worry herself sick warning me not to go anywhere near that place – that place where chaos dwells in every corner, screams erupt in the dead silence, lights flicker on at the strangest of hours, and tall, sturdy teenagers sometimes bring a shovel to the backyard and start digging a hole or two.

It didn’t take me very long to figure out what those holes were for. Even now, my mother’s afraid of me crossing the street. There are quite a few more crazies in our neighborhood too, to the point where it sometimes seems like our family is the last of the sane. My mother’s had me and my sisters on the Career track since we were three, but there’s a definite difference between me and those murderers across the road. They’ll be out of steam when they hit the arena. I, on the other hand, plan to be victorious.

I move away from the window, my interest dwindling. Another scream, another death, another buried body never spoken of: I’ve gotten used to that procedure by now.

[/i] I suppose I should be slightly relieved – one less psycho to worry about taking my spot on that stage – but I instead find myself irritated: irritated that they all think they’ve got one up on everybody else, huh? As if they can run around and hide behind their viciousness and so blindly get away with it? It’s a good thing Emery Moreno died. Throwing punches left and right, attacking madly – that’s not how you win. Frustration fills me as I snatch a pen from my desk and sit down, pulling my notepad from the drawer. My eyes flicker across the existing lists as I turn through each one. “Things I Want To Be,” “Things to Do,” “Weapons to Master,” “Skills to Accomplish” and so many more littered each page with lines and cross-outs and added annotations to accompany the organized disaster. I flip to the last list in the notepad: “My Daily Schedule.”

5:00-5:45 AM – Wake-up, breakfast
5:45-7:00 AM – Gym
7:00-2:00 AM – School
2:00-3:00 PM – Free Time/Homework
3:00-6:00 PM – Gym
6:00-7:00 PM – Dinner
7:00-9:00 PM – Gym
9:00-10:00 PM – Homework
10:00 PM – Bed

In only a few hours, I’ll be at the gym, shooting arrows at targets, spears through dummies, just like yesterday and the day before and the day before that. I like having my life planned out. My friend, Anna, told me I play by the rules too much – the people who play by the rules are bound to lose – but she’s wrong, she’s wrong wrong wrong wrong. I like the rules. I like figuring out how to manipulate my limitations rather than being given a vast palette of colors and trying to figure out which one to use.

I know who I am, I know who I want to be, and no one can take that away from me. I flip back a page in my notepad, staring at the plans I've drawn out for my life. I don't understand why some people think they can merely capture their life through spontaneous moments. Don't they know it will slip away from them unless they draw it out so that it can never be lost, destroyed, and defeated?[/i] I stare at each plan, hoping that the mere act of seeing my life before my eyes might calm the threatening anxiety within me.

Plan A
1. Train through childhood
2. Either get reaped or volunteer for the games
3. Win the games
4. Marry a rich Capitol man who either

a. runs a talk show
b. has a building named after him
c. engineers muttations

5. Move to the Capitol
6. Have three kids, to be raised as Capitol children without going into the reaping ba

The list had been cut off there when I thought through the legal implications of moving from the districts to the Capitol and children not being put into the reaping and -- somehow, the realistic sense inside my mind knew that plan would either be a hell load of stress or wouldn't end up working out anyways. My eyes flicker down towards Plan B, which instead involves marrying a rich District One man and is seemingly less stressful, but also less rewarding. Then there's Plan C, which accounts for the possibility that I may not get reaped or have the divine chance to volunteer.

Plan C
1. Train through childhood
2. Turn nineteen, don't get reaped
3. Become a licensed trainer at the gym
4. Inherit the family fortune
5. Marry a rich District One man
6. Buy a blue house with a pool
7. Have three kids, each ideally two years apart
8. Write a book
9.

The lists are endless, with a couple of gaps here and there, but still enough to fill Plans A-Z. My mother says she's proud of me; she says I can have whatever future I want as long as I keep working hard for it, but I have my doubts all too often. I always have to clear the weeds out of my path before I can start walking, before I can let go of somebody's hand. I'm careful about crossing the street, and not just the street that extends to the dark and dreary Moreno house. I'm small for my age, my mother says: small and fragile and more easily defenseless, but she says I'm also strong -- stronger than the kids across the street, the other Careers who are so internally broken, so lacking in their humanity. I've vowed to work harder than them and harder than anyone else for that matter, letting my stature be neither a barrier to my success nor an excuse not to achieve it.

My mother says I'm smart too; she says that even if I don't get reaped, I still have so many options and paths to choose from. She doesn't let me throw away my studies like many of the other Careers do so freely and easily. My younger sisters, Rowan and Jessamine, and I -- we have a level of intellect that many other Careers don't. I have everything I need right in front of me: all of the ingredients for success and happiness (although they are essentially the same thing, of course[/i] so why am I so troubled? I flip through my plans and lists and finally settle upon rereading the one I'd written quite a while ago that seems most applicable and helpful to my current situation.

Reasons to Sleep
1. You will have a hard time waking up at 5 am tomorrow if you don't.
2. Sleep will take away whatever it is that is troubling you.
3. There's a good dream on it's way.

I put the notepad and the entirety of its ambitions back in the drawer where it belongs before stepping back into bed and letting sleep wash away the remainder of my dreaded anxiety.

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