vera vision / 96th watching thread.

v e r a .

"gimme just a little bit (more)
a little bit of excess"

THE TRIBUTE INTERVIEWS

Marceline. Marceline. My little sister — we looked the most alike. Mom kept stroking my face, tutting and whispering her name.

“There she is!” Pleater was eight. His voice cracked as he pointed at his Auntie Marcy — a nickname only the kids were allowed to use — on the screen. A neighbour loaned us their newer, less faulty television to borrow for the duration of the games. Or as they said, “Until, well, you know.”

But yeah, there she was. Caesar Flickerman called her a fashion fairy, and to my surprise, that description was pretty accurate. Fashion fairy Marceline, in my mind, was some dirty, inch tall little pixie thing with fangs and dirt under her teensy tiny nails. A shitty sidekick to the bumbling villain in a fairytale. I was so, so wrong. The whole room (Mom, Dad, me, our sisters, half of their kids — the ones who were nearly old enough to be reaped) gasped or yelled or shouted once the camera zoomed in. She was a princess. Her black dress made her look more mature than she was. She looked grown up. Our eldest sister, Tina, scooted forward on the lumpy old sofa, squinting to get a better look. Pretty, lovely, nice, good. We had all always been those things and more, but this was something else. This was beauty, realised on our screens in a familiar shape, allowing us to understand it at last.

I was barely able to pay attention to what she was saying. I just watched her lips move, filling in the words by myself.

“Get your stuff off my bed.”

“Hello? Did you fall down the toilet?”

“If you lose that scarf I’ll kill you. Who are you trying to impress this time anyway?”

We were always mouthing off at each other. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard her say something nice to me. I couldn’t remember the last thing she’d said to me at all. Part of me was jealous of her. Of the glamorous, fake Marceline on the screen sure, to an extent, but of the old Marceline, who worked so diligently, who didn’t give a damn about the rest of us. Except the kids. She cared so, so much for the kids. She could’ve had it all one day, or as much as anyone in Eight could. She would’ve risen to the top of the dressmaking food chain in no time at all. Marceline understood ambition’s limits in Eight. Judging by the way she’d turned out for the interview, she had a decent handle on things in the Training Centre too. Showed how much I knew.

Caesar asked about her home life, her love life, all the usual bullshit. I laughed, shocked myself when it sprung out of my mouth like a hiccup instead. I pressed my lips together, sat back, ignored the spring pressing into my ass. Ignored the tears pricking at my eyes. What life had Marceline outside of us? Outside of work? She held her hand up on screen, showing off Mom’s ring. I wished I could reach in, grab her finger, pull it back until she yelled.

“I miss you guys. Mom, I’m taking good care of your ring, don’t worry.”

Everybody was in various stages of distress — in their own special ways. The kids didn’t really get it. Our older sisters were cooing at them, distracting both the kids and themselves. I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat there, the taste of sick in my mouth, eyes so hot in my head I thought that they’d melt. Mom was worrying at her bare ring finger. Dad was shushing her, trying to ease her back into lobotomization brain.

They didn’t get it yet, none of them did. We’d never be able to go back to the way we were before.

“Do your best,” said Marceline on television. She smiled more for us in the interview hotseat than she had in years — I had to wonder if she had regrets. There was so much about her I’d never know. So many questions, way, way outside the scope of Stupid Caesar Shitterman. When she got up to go, so did I. I needed a smoke.