Malakai Knightley // D6 // FIN [CB]

When I was a kid, I had always wanted to be a magician.

Card tricks and pulling things out of a hat--I yearned to be the one who made an audience "ooh" and "ahh" with astonishment.

Mom and Dad thought it foolish--they believed that as residents of District 6, knowledge is power, and I was better off nourishing my brain with the essence than with make-believe.

But I never felt that it was. I saw it as so much more than that, something more than just an illusion.

I saw it as entertainment, a way to make the eyes of young children glitter like the spectacle of the night. I saw it as a way to get hearts beating with excitement, enjoyment. Laughter and smiles abound, I saw magic as the method to lighting up a room without the usage of bulbs or any such sources of power.

You can never go wrong with a love like that.

But, nonetheless, they strongly urged otherwise, and I was eventually forced into the box that they had envisioned and molded for me. Now that isn't to say that I'm not intelligent. I'd like to think that I am anyway, but the turning of pages in a textbook and scribing upon lined paper and worksheets were far too tedious for me to go on in life that way.

I wanted to be a magician, one way or another, no matter how much they disagreed over following the path of the occupation.

How unfortunate that this is my life, however, and not theirs.

Fast forward years later, and I return to my dorm room. It's decorated with bouquets and potted plants among other various floral furnishings, but the heart of it all is found at the center of the wall across from me.

A lab table, with equipment and rectangles of white scattered across the dark, glossy surface.

Nature arrangements and the art of alchemy.

There were no tricks here, but I still learned how to brighten faces of different places without them.

I did become a magician, after all.

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