Nolan Paquette-Casovnik // D6 // [FIN]

I've always had a profound interest in fingerprints. Why? Because they are one of the only things that are unique about the human race. Each of us has a different fingerprint, our skin swirling in different ways across our finger tips, giving each us the ability to declare, "I'm unique." It's one of our needs in life - to be unique. But for someone with a crazy mother like mine, I've had to find other ways of being unique. You see, when I was a very small child, she sliced deep into my fingertips as her schizophrenic delusions of being caught ran deep enough to cause her to harm her own child. Every other child was born with an identity. Mine was stolen from me - so who am I? Luckily for me (and the rest of the world) we are allowed a chance - one lifetime - to create our own identity, no matter what fate engraves in the swirls in our fingertips.

I decided to pick a personality unique to the neighborhood I lived in. With an insane mother and a deserter for a father, I was expected to end up on the streets as a drug addict, a criminal, a drunk - a low life teen who skipped school and ended up dead in some dumpster with no one to arrange his funeral. Instead I picked a different path. I've never missed a day of school in my life. Never smoked a joint, never taken a shot, never been to a club, never hurt anyone, never broken the rules ... I only broke a stereotype. Every person I have ever met tells me I need to loosen up and accept reality for what it is ("This place is a hell hole. So wipe that smile off your face and wear the smirk and dead eyes that everyone else has got.") but what they are asking of me is impossible. I made myself from scratch, and I've worked too hard to give it all up because the world says I need to look at it just like everyone else does.

I am not a robot. I'll smile if I want to.

---

"Mommy, what does sempiternal mean?" I ask, my tongue moving slowly over the new word, the letters slipping clumsily from my lips. She sits with her forehead pressed to the big glass window, her fingertips dancing over the glass and leaving small smudges everywhere. I think she will yell at me later for putting smudges across the window with my sticky fingers, but at that moment, she looks so blissful I decide the punishment will be worth it. I turn back to my book, deciding that she hasn't heard me, but a moment later she whispers - "It means eternal." - and her breath creates a cloud of fog on the window. "So like, forever?" And she nods slowly, her head still pressed to the window. "Yes. Like forever or everlasting. It's really a beautiful word." And with that she breathes more fog onto the window and spells the word out in some flourishing scripture. A beautiful word indeed.

She turns to smile at me then, her eyes shining a bright blue-green, just like mine. I smile back, straightening out my tie nervously. But this is one of her good days - one of those days where she is herself, my mother - and she does not scold me for the unbrushed mop on my head or my unstraight tie or my unpolished shoes. She touches my cheek and her fingers are still cold from touching the window. And I close my eyes then, reveling in the moment, knowing full well it could all be gone tomorrow. And then a stinging pain lashes across my face and I drop my book to the floor as I fall to the floor.

"Get out! Get out!" And there are nurses surrounding me instantly, holding my mother back as she tried to spit in my face. I was the monster again. The one that was searching for her. Some days she would hide me from the evil man that was searching for her, some days she would hide from me and fear that I was going to hurt her, and some days I was a monster, an abomination, that in her mind must be eliminated. It doesn't matter which identity she chooses, I end up crying at the end of the day no matter what. Tears rush down my face as I am escorted from the room, holding my face even though the place where her hand collided with my face no longer hurts. I wait until I am completely out of the room to rip off my tie, kick off my shoes, and run.

---

"No!" cried the little girl who had been listening, so engrossed in the story that she hadn't even noticed that she had spilled her cup of orange juice all over the floor. Then again, I hadn't noticed until just now either. There is something about reading to children that makes me smile, and just as engrossed as they are by the words I speak. (I've even been complimented on my Big Bad Wolf voice by the adults at the orphanages.) I'd started reading to all the neighborhood orphan children on my fourteenth birthday, when my mother had gotten me a book of old fairy tales and have read once a week for over 3 years now. It had become a part of my routine to frequent the orphanages and to make friends with each and every unfortunate soul that happened to wander in.

"Caroline! It's time for supper!" And the look on her face told me just how crestfallen she was not to know what happened in the end. But she turned to me with sparkling eyes as I closed the book and in one of the softest and sweetest voices asked, "Will you until I am done with supper and finish for me? Please?" I smile, because I have never understood how anyone could say "no" to someone innocent enough to ask for the end of a fairytale.

"Of course." And she squealed before running down the stairs to where I was certain she would be eating so fast she would be scolded for acting so childish. But what are children supposed to act like if not childish? It was childish of any adult to expect anything different from anyone so young. But in this world, everyone expects the children to grow up so fast, to forget that they have a childhood to live and grow into killers or workers or something of the sort. For me it has always been a ridiculous notion to rob children of their innocence and their happiness and joy at the world around them. And just because I was robbed, does not mean I need to project that onto the youth around me. I've believed that for a very long time - since I realized that my life was not nearly as bad as that of the children whose names was called, or the loved ones of the twenty-three who perish in the most horrific and inhumane ways.

There is no real resemblance to me and my half-sister, Naveen Casovnik. We only share a name. And a father. My dark hair matches her's, and the shades of green that flicker in my eyes do as well, but as far as I am concerned we look nothing alike. If my mother hadn't confirmed it, I would not have believed her. But since this knowledge was brought to my attention, I have discovered that the Casovnik name and lineage is quite diverse. The simplest way to say it is that my father gets around. I know Naveen did not know of our relation before her demise, and I know that her half-brothers on her mothers side are of no relation to me, but I have looked at them as if they were brothers ever since Reaping day of the 62nd. Though I try to look at everyone as a brother or a sister anymore, even though I have never truly had that experience.

But that's just part of who I am; I love as though there is nothing to lose if I give too much to any one person. And I am not afraid. If I lose it all, I can build myself back into someone new. I have always been confident in that fact. As the stories always say, "Love conquers all."