Temple Jones//District Ten//Fin

Life is hard, don't let anyone ever tell you any different. Life is barbed wire twisted around calves and hooves knocking your head into the dirt. It's spitting teeth out into the grass, it's ignoring the pain in your stomach when dinner time slides by without a crumb. People want to think life is easy, that hard work will always equal just rewards. That family sticks together and that friends will always be there. No one ever tells you how hard it is to keep friends. No one ever explains how to handle a volatile family. Take comfort in those around you. What if no one wants to comfort you? No one ever thinks of that. They say "keep your loved ones close" and never think for a moment that some people don't want their loved ones close. No one ever imagines that it could be your loved ones that have turned the love in you sour.

A wind blows across the field, bending the grass down to it like peasants before a demanding ruler. The cows pay the wind no mind, but its chill rips through my jacket like a knife. Sitting on the ground leaning against a wooden fence, watching the cows wander from one grass patch to another, time passes by very slowly. Like the entire world has been dipped in honey and we all have to wait for every single drop to roll off. The thought of honey pulls my mind to my gut where it rumbles loudly as if I have forgotten that I have not eaten today. If only it knew, as I do, that for the next month it'll be a single meal a day. However, stomachs don't care when your sister's birthday is or when the next tessera package is rolling in with a few more supplies. They don't care that a quarter of the herd is sick and that your family is preparing for the worst. Stomachs only care about feeding them in that instant. Not that you have another three hours out watching the healthy stock, or that the single meal you will eat today will be broth and hard bread. My mind might be honed in the ways of cheap living, but my stomach still moans like a Capitolite fat on pastries.

It's not always like this. So gray and foggy. Well, I guess District Ten has always been gray like this. The same rusting wire fences, the same faces with the same deep wrinkles. I meant that I'm not always like this.

Sometimes, I'm like the calves in the spring. Like the sharp winds that pinch at your skin and wake you up on slow mornings. Like a cup of coffee before dawn. It feels nice to be working and to be sincerely smiling, but winds die down and calves tire themselves out. I never seem to sleep during these short bursts of energy. I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling above me. I hear the snores and murmurs of my family in the rest of the house, and my sister kicks me in her sleep but I am awake. My mind is exhausted and I want nothing more to close my eyes for just an hour, but my stomach is full with the same sick feeling that comes with the Peacekeepers inspect our stock. My heart pounds in my chest and there isn't enough air in the whole plains to fill my lungs. To make me feel like I'm not dying. I list things to get me to sleep. I list my family. I list the names my sister has given to our cattle. I list cows that have long ago been shipped off to some Capitolite's dinner party. Sometimes, I list victors or tributes. It's mostly at night that I have to pull out my lists. During the day there is always some task to tend to, something I can throw all of attention and focus into. These bright days are either very good or terrible. The brightest can either light the way or blind you, and more often then not it blinds. Sunlight feels good, but going into the District buildings feels like a stampede in my skull. School days are the worst. The bright white light overhead with the teacher droning on and on about the signs of sick cattle that we all already know. Every single kid in there lives with animals, they know they're moods and their tendencies, we don't need someone lecturing about things we learned from experience. Yet, we sit there anyway. If you skip they send Peacekeepers to your house and seeing the stark white uniforms sends my gut into a frenzy. I can't quite place my fear for them, but I know they're too bright. The boots, the armor: they're too pure, too clean for men and women who often cruel and dirty. Every time I hear boots hit the gravel behind me my heart leaps into my throat. Half the time it's just another rancher walking by, but occasionally it's one of them. It's not that I'm breaking any rules, it's just that their presence makes me uncomfortable. They're not District Ten citizens. They're from different areas of Panem but are in charge of us. It makes my stomach twist into knots that I've only seen tributes from District Four unwind.

There are days where I'm like the landscape in January- brown dead grass that crunches when you step on it. Gray clouds hanging stationary in the sky like wet clothes on the line. Constantly muddy streets but no rain. The stone justice building looming over the stockyards. There are days where I feel like just my surroundings- numb. Dirt has no feelings and neither do I. My bread tastes like nothing and even though I sleep I'm not rested. I walk through my chores like a machine. The gray days like this are the longest. They go on and on and never seem to end. They go on for months and I don't even feel impatient about it because what can I do? I'm just a hillside. Just a boulder on a mountain. Just a blade of grass being nibbled at by the cattle. I'm nothing but another mass casting a shadow and taking up space. At first these days seem like a break. A rest from my mind constantly buzzing. Like a well earned nap in the middle of the day. But it goes on for too long. I never fell rested, only more exhausted. My family does not seem to notice but I do. I notice but I can't fix it. I'm just a fence post. A strap of leather. I'm the abandoned wagon wheel that has sat by the entrance to the town square rotting for as long as I've been alive. People smile at me. I smile back if I can. I become a background piece to my own life.


And then some days I'm fine. It's odd how balance works like that; teetering one way and then the other, but sometimes it lands in the sweet spot. Sometimes you wake up and don't have to force yourself out of bed or have to sit on your hands to keep them from shaking. Some days are okay. They're few in number and I never appreciate them as much as I wish. See, you don't realize how good you're feeling until you've already felt it.

Then some days they all mix together. There's low hanging clouds that blow chilling wind down my spine and threaten to choke the life from my body. I can't move, but I feel like I also can't stop moving. It's better to just do what Mama tells me to and not focus so much on what's going on inside of my head. I've tried explaining it to others before but they... they just don't understand. My Mama will nod her head and say "everyone has bad days, Temple" but she doesn't get it.

That's the thing. No on will ever know anyone else's mind. My Ma and I look so much alike- same dark olive skin, same straight thick black hair. Same small black eyes and small ears. When I was little she used to say she didn't even need a mirror because she had me. I wonder if she can see the differences now. How I used to stand an inch or so above her and now my shoulders sag to below her own height. Does she see the dark bags under my eyes? Has she noticed I haven't washed or brushed my hair in a week? Does anybody ever notice? Most of the time I think no one does. Here in District Ten people move like cattle. They have their eyes on the field to graze and the only thing on their minds are how to get there. People will do anything for food. I see girls standing just outside the district square, they cover their lips in grease to make them red and pinch their cheeks until they draw blood. When I was young I thought they were so beautiful. Pretty girls just like the ones on TV, the ones in the Capitol with their big headpieces and bright colors. They knew how to walk on shoes made of sticks and look so stunning. Now I see them for what they are. Whores. Girls my own age, most older, but some even younger. They stand in scraps of the brightest fabric they could get their hands on in District Ten and cower in their thick coats until customers walk by. They is a kind of grace in the way they move, shrugging their sweaters down to show off their emaciated collarbones.

I know that's where I'll end up if I'm not careful. If I don't focus on the mindless chores Mama gives. If I don't try to match a picture to the pain painted in my mind. If I don't put all my effort into balancing over the pit on a stick the size of a Capitolite's shoe then I'll fall straight to that alleyway. Straight to the constant numb feeling I see on their faces. Glassy eyed and unaware. They can see it in me too. They're eyes hold onto mine and recognize themselves in them.

I wonder if they pity me too.


A few years ago I cut myself on a piece of barbed wire. It was an accident, my hand was slammed into the sharp points and blood poured from my palm. It hurt like nothing else had before. Mama wrapped it up but at night I would unfold the gauze and look at the wound. Two bloody spots slowly scabbing over. Like a giant snake you'd see in the Games had tried to take a bite out of me. They would crust over with blood so dark it was black. At night I would pick them off until the blood flowed again. During the day my palm would itch waiting for me to hide under my covers and attack the healing process. I wish I could pick at them now. Today they're little knots of pink scar tissue. When I close my hand I can feel them against my fingers. I can't peel them open anymore, it's been too long. I guess that means I'm healing. Only some nights I wish more than anything that I could sneak out in the pasture and slam my hand into the wire again just like that accident so many seasons ago. Then I could feel the pain and be completely aware of every inch of myself like I was in that moment. But I don't. I lay in bed staring at my ceiling wondering what I'll be like tomorrow. If it'll be a good day or if it will be doused in a numb grayness. Most of the time I don't even know if it had been a good day til its over.

Sitting on the ground leaning onto a fence post, brown eyes follow the cattle walk mindlessly in their confines. They shake their big heads, their stark black eyes staring at nothing. One of Pa's dogs barks playfully at one but none of the cows are interested in playing. The dog's ears fall and it walks away from the herd rejected. The little guy comes and lays next to me, his long white and black fur touching my hand. He lets out a big sigh, resting his head on his paws. Reaching out I lightly scratch behind his ears, his fluffy tail twitches in the grass and I crack a smile.

Taking a breath, I stand up. My muscles ache after being still for so long and my bones seem to rattle in my body. However painfully or clumsily, I do get to my feet. I take a long look at the flat land all around me, stretching my arms up to the sky. My stomach rumbles again but I'be become good at ignoring it. Whistling to the dog, I slip between the slants in the fence waiting as the dog followed me through. I have to keep moving. If I stay still it'll turn into a foggy day no matter how clear the air is. I have to keep moving in any way I can, that's the only way to turn the bloody wounds to rough scars. It's the only way to make pain past tense. It's the only way I know.

So I move.