Corinne Hiraeth - District 9
Jan 8, 2016 4:52:51 GMT -5
Post by Ailera on Jan 8, 2016 4:52:51 GMT -5
C o r i n n e
H i r a e t h
d i s t r i c t . n i n e
Organizing my thoughts. Organizing my thoughts. I am organizing my thoughts. Give me some time, please. I need to think about this. I'm thinking. No, I'm not thinking. Somebody else is thinking, and it's confusing me. I am organizing my thoughts. Organizing. Organization. Can I do it? I don't think I can. Should I keep trying? I probably should. It's too hard. I'm giving up now. Good-bye. I tried. See you later. Bye.
Okay, fine. I don't want to give up yet. This is important, and I care about important things, so I should keep going. My brother Warren does the same thing. I like my brother Warren, he is short like me. Not as short as me. I'm 4'10". He's 5'3". Warren is only eleven months older than me, and he has a different papa. Actually, my papa is different from all my other brothers. Victor is my mother's husband, but not my papa, because I don't know mine. Victor and my mum had three boys, Taro, who is eighteen now, Ruben, who is sixteen, and Warren who is fifteen, then Mama cheated and became pregnant with me. Victor isn't happy with her, and he isn't happy with me, either. I'm not happy with our cat Blue, because he bites me.
Mama is always telling me to wash. I don't think about it, so I don't do it. Sometimes I start to do it but then I get distracted. I get distracted easily. People in my head keep making me lose focus. Warren keeps trying to brush my hair, but I don't want him to do it. I want to do it myself. But I can't do it myself. I get distracted, so Warren just fights me until I let him. My hair is brown, not like the rest of my family. My mother's hair is red, and so is Warren's. My father's is black like Taro and Ruben's. They all have pretty, light brown eyes that I used to be jealous of. Mine are just a dull, dark green that ripples out like mud instead of the starburst way of most others. My eyes sink too deep into my skull, and my eyelids are heavy and tired. Tired? I always seem to have dark circles on my eyes, even if I get enough sleep.
I have a sloping nose, and the tip turns up slightly. My lips are dull pink, chapped, but somehow not ugly. I don't smile often. A matter of fact, I don't frown often, either. I keep a rather monotonous expression, unless my brain people start talking loudly enough when I'm trying to do something. Then I just grimace. Taro does that, too. Taro hears the brain people, too. Taro is the only one of my siblings besides myself that doesn't have a lot of freckles. We both have rather clear skin, except mine has pale white blemishes and, most likely, some dirt.
I'm small for fourteen. Four feet and ten inches, and 78 pounds. Mama doesn't like how skinny I am, because we have enough food that I can be like my brothers. Very rarely do I feel like eating, though, so I just skip a lot of meals so I don't feel funny. Sometimes food scares me, because I am terribly afraid I'll take a bite and a bunch of bugs will come crawling out. Other times I have no appetite, and now I'm bony. I like my bones, even if they freak out my mother. You know what else freaks out my mother? No, you don't, because you don't know my mother, and you're just starting to know me. I'm not going to tell you. Mostly because I forgot what I was going to say.
I wear a yellowish dress that my mother made, only switching it out for a light blue dress of the same style every few days. Usually when Warren puts his foot down and makes me. If Warren didn't watch me like he does I would probably die. I should thank him sometime. I should also thank Blue for not biting me yesterday.
I would like to dedicate this section to our cat Blue, because he didn't bite me yesterday.
I know a lot of people. The issue is, other people don't know the people that I know. Warren doesn't believe me, and Victor gets angry when I bring them up. My mother says the people are all in my head, but I don't believe. If I wasn't allowed to count the people only I can come in contact with, I would have no friends. This doesn't upset me. I have plenty of company in my head. All the time. Talking, humming, yelling, growling, whatever they want. Sometimes they come out of my head and I can see them, but usually only the scary ones are strong enough to get out like that, and then all I want to do it hide.
I'm very good at hiding from my family. Victor is glad when I'm gone. Mama gets worried but she never goes looking for me. Taro doesn't notice, and Ruben is always off doing something. Only Warren looks for me, and the only time he ever finds me is when I'm done hiding and decide to let him find me. Hiding is fun, and Victor plays along sometimes, like how he lets me sleep under the sink. That's the only good thing about Victor.
A big issue of mine is understanding people's emotions. Sometimes I can sense that a certain thing is expected of me, but I just don't understand why. My mother will be very happy sometimes, and tell me about the extra money she made, or what have you, but only late will I realize that she wanted me to be happy as well. Even then, I won't feel happy. I start to try, but then I forget. I forget to do my homework a lot, too. Ruben says I'm stupid but it's not my fault the people in my head don't want me to focus. Technically I could at least try to do my work, but it feels pointless if all I'm going to do is get frustrated over those irritating people.
I'm not completely oblivious to other people. Understandably, most of the people in my neighborhood think I'm nuts. Some of the neighbors have picked on me in the past, however, Warren managed to stop it. To an extent. Personally, I think they're all just taking a break so they can do something really bad later. I'm unsure. I hope the bad thing they do is kill our cat, Blue, so I don't have to put up with him anymore.
Is that a bad hope?
My name is Corinne Hiraeth, and I was born on December 14 in District 9 to Colette Briggs-Hiraeth. The man who should have been my father, Victor, would come to realize as the months went on that I looked nothing like him and almost completely dissimilar to my mother. Questions were asked, answers were given, and once the truth came out Victor hated my mother and I. She was an adulterer, and I, her illegitimate child. His hatred for us came out when he began punishing my mother as he saw fit. He turned her into a little mouse, afraid of him, and afraid of me.
When I was very young I was extremely active. Warren, Ruben and I ran around outside playing whatever game we had invented that morning. Ruben showed me no mercy, and would tickle me just as much as he would Warren. In return, Warren would play the noble prince that rescued me from the Monster of Tickles. It was all good fun, until sometime when I was six years old. Ruben found some playmates at school that he enjoyed more than Warren and myself. Grand plays of imagination ended, and me and my loyal brother passed time sitting in trees telling funny stories or traipsing around the neighborhood looking for nicely shaped twigs.
I think the people in my head showed up around the time I was eight. Taro was twelve, and the people started talking to him at about that time, too, so I think they just found us and liked our heads so they stayed. I tried very hard to push Warren away, but he wouldn't let me, so I just settled for not letting him help me when I could stop him from doing so. Victor didn't like me talking about the people all the time. Sometimes they could terrify me. Victor didn't like that either.
It was mid-August when the people were getting particularly angry at me, and I was on the couch yelling back. Why should I put up with it? Warren says Victor kept telling me to shut up, but I don't remember that part. All I remember is getting knocked off the couch. Then Victor was kicking me, and hitting me with his belt. He did it to Mama all the time, but he'd never done it to me. He told me I got it from my father, but that didn't make sense. How did Taro hear them, too? Victor only stopped when my mom made him. I ran away, and hid under a store platform until the next morning, when the people in my head finally calmed down. Warren was crying when I found him.
That wasn't the last time Victor hurt me, there would be many more, of varying intensities. I don't like when he gets so angry at me, because then the people in my head get angry, too. I suppose Victor and those people don't like each other very much.
I don't remember much of my first Reaping, all I remember is that afterwards Warren insisted we take one of our neighbor's kittens. He let me name him. The cat was white, so I named him Blue. The first time I ever pet Blue he bit me.
I decided to hate him.
