a song to make us forget the burning; zoë

District Ten is not as beautiful as I had believed it would be.

From stories and folklore, I had believed it was nothing but rolling plains, blue sky, and fields of yellow and green as far as the eye could see.

Here, I am met with the sight of a field that’s gone one day too long without rain; a sky that tries to weep, but cannot manage to do so. In a way, it fills me with sorrow, but for the first time since the journey’s start, I find a landscape that mirrors the workings of my inner soul. I have tried so badly to hold tight to outstretched hands; tried so hard to give my body to all those who have asked for it, but instead I find myself holed up inside my own skin. I have left marks there in the meantime, but only to give the illusion that I am trying to find a way out of this body.

If torn down to the honest truth, I have no intention of ever leaving the space outside my ribs.

This morning I had been given the choice of my breakfast, and with a lack of fire to fuel the flames I picked at pieces of fresh fruit until Adessia told me it was time to prepare for the morning’s presentation. I shrugged off my own debacle and left my plate at the table, shuffling my feet as I followed her from the room.

Adessia had put into motion a system of briefing of sorts, as there were such a larger number of tributes that names and faces attributed to districts were almost impossible to remember. She starts off her spiel and I continue to stay trained in my daze, letting them slip a dress over my body and touch up the places that gave an impression of anything less than a feeling of ecstasy to be here. They have just handed me a pair of heels to slip on to my feet when her voice suddenly catches my ear, “And Lazarus and Scarlett Stroms were the pair of siblings who round out the four tributes from this district. You knew them, did you not?”

My breath catches in my throat and suddenly I am gasping for breath. I am standing on sacred ground once more and have not paid a moment’s notice to the woman I so loved. Her voice came back to me in the midst of the finale—

“Look at me.”

I had called out for her many a night, both in consciousness and in the nightmares that still followed me, even to her hometown. There was no path that led to any point except this moment; this one when I would have to look her family in the eye and apologize that I had let my lover go.

Adessia taps me on the shoulder, tells me it’s three minutes and counting until I need to make for the door and I trudge after her, my mind one spinning portrait of two siblings and two strangers— three others I am required to pay attention to as well. I stop in my tracks and tug on Adessia’s sleeve, “What am I supposed to do about Scarlett?”

Her expression fades from quizzical to unbothered to quizzical again, finally settling on an answer as she says, “What you have done in every other speech in every other district.”

My heart stops, sinks, and rests at the bottom of my chest. It is like this I take place center stage in front of the whole of Ten, a plethora of strangers and three families only known past acquaintance. I had not known two of them— Riven and Ophelia, as I have been informed that their names were, but I scatter out general apologies and condolences and hope that they are caught.

And then it is one last breath, “Scarlett and Lazarus were good friends of mine. Lazarus and I were separated early on, but I was devastated that I was not with him when he passed.” An attempt to keep breathing, to not lose the small sense of reality left, “And Scarlett, well, I cared very much about her,” I am beginning to cry now, tears rolling freely down my cheeks as I stare her mother dead in the eye, “I am sorry that I could not keep her safe longer.”

I know that I have taken free aim with my words, but now is not the time for consequences and this seems to be general knowledge as I work my way back through the building. I am forging a path that leads to nowhere in particular and suddenly I find myself barging into a room already occupied— soft face with lines hard enough to slit my throat.

I’m forming apologies before the door’s even fully open, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know there was anyone in here— I just needed to get away.” Her face strikes recognition but no name and so I take a general route of assumption as I continue, still standing in the doorway, “Is it always this difficult?”

How many more times I will be forced to hold my failures high above my head is unknown to me, but I hope they number few and occur even less.