i'll love some littler things. / damaris, after.
May 19, 2019 22:52:52 GMT -5
Post by goat on May 19, 2019 22:52:52 GMT -5
damaris hope
The afterlife was different than she’d been expecting.
To be fair, Damaris hadn’t expected it to be much of anything. Despite her suicidal tendencies and morbid fascinations, she’d never stopped to think about what would come after. She supposed it was better that she didn’t have any expectations, so she wasn’t able to be let down by it. It wasn’t some magical land on floating clouds, or a fiery abyss. It just felt like a different version of what life had been. She was still a person. She still slept, and ate, and breathed. The only difference was that she was dead. She likened it to some sort of purgatory— no reward or punishment for anything she’d done while alive. She was just existing, again.
The afterlife was a bit like Panem had been. There were streets and buildings and forests and people, but there were no borders. Everyone was free to go where they wished. Damaris hadn’t traveled far past her house yet, but she liked that she could if she wanted to. The only place she went to was the little town a few minutes away, where she could buy food and fabric, peruse the bakery, observe all the other people who had passed on too. Some were old, some were startlingly young. She didn’t speak to anybody, but sometimes they tried to speak to her, before realizing she was an awfully bad conversationalist. Being a tribute gave her an unfortunate level of fame. She’d come across tributes from previous games, all the way back to the first one, frozen in their teenage states. There was an unspoken understanding among all of them, that what had happened to them should not have happened. It was strangely comforting. Still, she avoided other tributes from the 81st when she saw them. There was too much pain between all of them. It wasn’t something she was ready to face yet.
She had decided to settled near the sunflower field where she first arrived. It felt safe, familiar. Far from everybody else. She had a house, small and wooden, with a thick quilt on the bed and a kettle that always boiled water for tea at the perfect temperature. In the mornings, she’d make herself a cup and sit on the edge of her porch. She liked to have time for quiet contemplation among the dew-dropped flowers. In the afternoons, she took up new hobbies, things she’d thought about doing but never did. She embroidered, or painted. She learned how to cook, and no matter how poorly she thought she was doing, her food never burned. In the evenings, she curled up on her bed and devoured as many books as she could. There were so many books up there, so many she’d never heard of before, some even from before the rebellion.
Sometimes she looked down upon her family before she slept, but not often. It hurt. She couldn’t bear seeing her parents so distraught. The Hopes were so used to death, to despair, and yet it still destroyed them every time. Her body hadn’t been returned to them yet. Soon, she figured. There was a part of her that was afraid they’d be disgusted by her, her body pale and bloated in death, eye gouged from its socket and part of her skull caved in. Her eye was still gone where she was, but she’d awoken to find small pink flowers blooming where it had once been. She’d knelt in the field of sunflowers, eerily similar to the one she’d died in, and sobbed, scratched at her face, yanked the flowers out and watched them scatter in the dirt.
They grew back the next morning.
She saw her cousins, but only once. Their reunion was stilted. Awkward. She wasn’t sure what to say to them. She was young when they died, and now she was older than Paige and Lily, and she would never be older than Gentian and Eva. It was complicated. It was easier just to not talk to them.
She liked when Saturn visited. They talked, or they didn’t, and it didn’t matter whether or not they did. His presence made her feel better. After everything, he was still her best friend. When he’d died, she felt like it like a wound through her stomach. She didn’t know how to handle it so she crawled under her bed and curled up like a bug, screaming at the top of her lungs. She screamed until she puked and her voice went hoarse. She’d woken up a few hours later and knew she had to see him, but she didn’t want to see him because she lied, she’d lied to him, she told him he was going to be okay and he wasn’t. How terrible a friend she was, breaking every promise that came out of her mouth. Eventually she realized that this wasn’t about her. This was about her friend. She went out and found him and held him and kissed his forehead and said, “You did so good. I am so proud of you.”
There was still the feeling, that terrible feeling that she’d grown so used to, that she didn’t want to be— alive? She wasn’t alive. She was dead. She didn’t want to not be dead, she wanted to be deader. There was no simple or pretty way to put it. She had days like she did back when she was alive in Eight where she wouldn’t move from her bed, where she would sob until she dehydrated herself and starve until her stomach ached.
There was still pain in the afterlife. It wasn’t easier to deal with here.
One morning, she’d forced herself out of bed and into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and asked herself, “How can you want to die if you’re already dead?” and then she laughed, laughed at the absurdity of it, and then she went to the bakery and bought ten pastries and ate all of them on her porch and licked the sugar off her fingers and felt alive, moreso in death than ever before.
— what’s up gang uhhhh i wrote this like a month ago and finally got around to editing and posting it. hope u enjoyed it. if u didn’t…….. i respect that. it's very self-indulgent but idk. just can’t get my girl out of my head quite yet !
To be fair, Damaris hadn’t expected it to be much of anything. Despite her suicidal tendencies and morbid fascinations, she’d never stopped to think about what would come after. She supposed it was better that she didn’t have any expectations, so she wasn’t able to be let down by it. It wasn’t some magical land on floating clouds, or a fiery abyss. It just felt like a different version of what life had been. She was still a person. She still slept, and ate, and breathed. The only difference was that she was dead. She likened it to some sort of purgatory— no reward or punishment for anything she’d done while alive. She was just existing, again.
The afterlife was a bit like Panem had been. There were streets and buildings and forests and people, but there were no borders. Everyone was free to go where they wished. Damaris hadn’t traveled far past her house yet, but she liked that she could if she wanted to. The only place she went to was the little town a few minutes away, where she could buy food and fabric, peruse the bakery, observe all the other people who had passed on too. Some were old, some were startlingly young. She didn’t speak to anybody, but sometimes they tried to speak to her, before realizing she was an awfully bad conversationalist. Being a tribute gave her an unfortunate level of fame. She’d come across tributes from previous games, all the way back to the first one, frozen in their teenage states. There was an unspoken understanding among all of them, that what had happened to them should not have happened. It was strangely comforting. Still, she avoided other tributes from the 81st when she saw them. There was too much pain between all of them. It wasn’t something she was ready to face yet.
She had decided to settled near the sunflower field where she first arrived. It felt safe, familiar. Far from everybody else. She had a house, small and wooden, with a thick quilt on the bed and a kettle that always boiled water for tea at the perfect temperature. In the mornings, she’d make herself a cup and sit on the edge of her porch. She liked to have time for quiet contemplation among the dew-dropped flowers. In the afternoons, she took up new hobbies, things she’d thought about doing but never did. She embroidered, or painted. She learned how to cook, and no matter how poorly she thought she was doing, her food never burned. In the evenings, she curled up on her bed and devoured as many books as she could. There were so many books up there, so many she’d never heard of before, some even from before the rebellion.
Sometimes she looked down upon her family before she slept, but not often. It hurt. She couldn’t bear seeing her parents so distraught. The Hopes were so used to death, to despair, and yet it still destroyed them every time. Her body hadn’t been returned to them yet. Soon, she figured. There was a part of her that was afraid they’d be disgusted by her, her body pale and bloated in death, eye gouged from its socket and part of her skull caved in. Her eye was still gone where she was, but she’d awoken to find small pink flowers blooming where it had once been. She’d knelt in the field of sunflowers, eerily similar to the one she’d died in, and sobbed, scratched at her face, yanked the flowers out and watched them scatter in the dirt.
They grew back the next morning.
She saw her cousins, but only once. Their reunion was stilted. Awkward. She wasn’t sure what to say to them. She was young when they died, and now she was older than Paige and Lily, and she would never be older than Gentian and Eva. It was complicated. It was easier just to not talk to them.
She liked when Saturn visited. They talked, or they didn’t, and it didn’t matter whether or not they did. His presence made her feel better. After everything, he was still her best friend. When he’d died, she felt like it like a wound through her stomach. She didn’t know how to handle it so she crawled under her bed and curled up like a bug, screaming at the top of her lungs. She screamed until she puked and her voice went hoarse. She’d woken up a few hours later and knew she had to see him, but she didn’t want to see him because she lied, she’d lied to him, she told him he was going to be okay and he wasn’t. How terrible a friend she was, breaking every promise that came out of her mouth. Eventually she realized that this wasn’t about her. This was about her friend. She went out and found him and held him and kissed his forehead and said, “You did so good. I am so proud of you.”
There was still the feeling, that terrible feeling that she’d grown so used to, that she didn’t want to be— alive? She wasn’t alive. She was dead. She didn’t want to not be dead, she wanted to be deader. There was no simple or pretty way to put it. She had days like she did back when she was alive in Eight where she wouldn’t move from her bed, where she would sob until she dehydrated herself and starve until her stomach ached.
There was still pain in the afterlife. It wasn’t easier to deal with here.
One morning, she’d forced herself out of bed and into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror and asked herself, “How can you want to die if you’re already dead?” and then she laughed, laughed at the absurdity of it, and then she went to the bakery and bought ten pastries and ate all of them on her porch and licked the sugar off her fingers and felt alive, moreso in death than ever before.
— what’s up gang uhhhh i wrote this like a month ago and finally got around to editing and posting it. hope u enjoyed it. if u didn’t…….. i respect that. it's very self-indulgent but idk. just can’t get my girl out of my head quite yet !
