paradise in a picture frame {sebastian/athene}

My arms reach to the sky and touch it, hues of orange decorate it, splashed across the canvas that is normally so blue during the day, and pitch black at night, with a shining silver moon smiling down upon everyone. I just wish it was like that, wish the world was perfect, with those wonderful colors. But they aren't and are always at the very edge of my grip, sometimes I imagine I don't actually live in district three, the unwanted little girl in the back of a foster home crying all the time. I miss my friend Toyota, but she is gone, she has been gone for a while and I don't think she even remembers me, we used to be friends but now she lives with Mr. Soul, and I with Mrs. De something or other. I always forget her name because of how weird it sounds, like mine. I walk in the district square terrified, my steps small and tiny as I stare around the area like a small mouse seeing if there is a mouse trap nearby. Cammile has forced me out of the house so I can 'socialize with other's my age.' But unfortunately, as I said, the world isn't perfect as the other kids my age tease me for preferring to be with a good book in the back of a dark room, my small blue veins stand out slightly against my pale, frail figure.

It is morning right now, and I just into a corner of the square, and sit. I watch people walk past me as the day moves on. It is weird how they all move around like everything is normal, like how the people in white uniforms march around us and the huge screen is up showing the most recent deaths in the awful hunger games. Our own tribute, Kiena Ward, killing her ally by mistake, thinking she was one of those weird machines that Ceasar Flickerman calls "Dopplegangers." I look up at one point, towards the end of the day, it is almost time to go back, and I see someone holding a tool in his hand, a paintbrush, and what he is painting is beautiful just like in my dreams.

My feet move before I can think and I walk over to it, amazed, as I didn't think anything this beautiful could be in this awful place. "it's beautiful." I say quietly to the boy painting it, my eyes shining in puzzlement at what this beauty that is a painting could be.


My head swirls with all the colors that are in it and I wonder what it could be. Is it the sky in my dreams? A meadow from out of this world? It is just amazing and I can't even tell what it is. "What is it?" I whisper softly after my first whisper, like little ghosts that fly away in the wind. I look up at the tall boy with the instrument, making a beautiful chorus of colors.

My eyes are still transfixed on the beautiful picture that had yet to be framed like the pictures that looked so fake back at the foster home. Cammile had enough money to frame them all, but I don't like it much. This looks a lot nicer, with no frame saying 'Hey I'm mega rich!' I have to tear my eyes away from the picture to listen to the boy talk the words that roll off his tongue seem foreign to me as I have only heard them a few times before in my life. "The sea under a sunset," he replies to my first question. I think about how many times I have heard those words as they are rare words in the smoke covered district three.

I have only seen a small bit of a sunset once, and I have always wished to see another bit through the smoggy district three sky, but I have never seen the sea before, and I have always thought of it as a little fairy tale to make us jealous of district four. It seemed so fake to me, pearly white sand that warms your feet? A joke. A wet surface you play in for enjoyment and not for drinking to stay alive because it is filled with salt. As if. If it was real though, I would try to share it among the world, and not be selfish like how I imagine the fake people of district four in my head. If they are actually real, and they have the ocean, why don't they give us some of it so that we can share in their joy? I wrench my mind out of my thoughts and realize what I'm doing. I try to stop myself, but my timid voice sounds out from my mouth, "How do you know what they look like?" My eyes are wide in wonderment, has he ever been outside the district before to see this wonderful sight?

Then I listen to his next words, and I am confused. "I was just . . . taking this to the market. With any luck, it will be sold by this week," My eyes show my confusion and I ask a question I think I already know the answer too. "But, but why would you sell something as beautiful this?" My small voice is shy, as if he will suddenly start yelling at me. This is normal though, I am scared of everyone, but for some reason, I am not as afraid of this artist as I am of other people, and I don't even know why.

I pull my eyes back to look again at the strange, yet wonderful picture, and I wonder again how something could be so beautiful. I say barely audible now, repeating my past phrase of wonderment, "Why would you want to sell something this beautiful." For a moment, I just want to reach out and touch the beautiful picture, and I wish I could be there, along the mythical beach, to feel the legendary white pearly sand beneath me, warming my feet as I watch the sun set over the horizon of the ocean. Why would anyone want to give something up that could make someone feel this way about something. I just don't understand how it is possible.