portions & rations [Dana x Safina]

portions & rations - I

I stare down into my plate, shiny in its cleanliness. I wonder if it has ever been used before us here, or if we would be the first to dine on the porcelain (or perhaps it was ceramic?). A fresh set for each set of Games, retired at their end as souvenirs or plain old waste. That's one thing I noticed here in the land of excess. With all that excess comes waste. I eye the table overloaded with different plates of decadent food, all for us tributes to sample in the short lives we have left. To my eyes it looks like more than any of us would be able to eat in a week. So many used to want, stomachs sure to not have the space for so much. Even I, with the money my parents earned keeping our family without too much worry about when our next meal may come, know that a plate would be all I could muster without feeling sick. What would they do with the food we don't touch?

"Let them fish it from the garbage."

I hear the echo of words Emon had once said at a completely different dinner table. A feast our parents had thrown to impress some Capitol big-wigs they were building some secret project for. They had spared no expense, buying more food than we had ever seen them buy before. We had been ecstatic at the meal, eating and eating and eating until we couldn't bear it any longer. And still there had been so much left waiting for a hungry mouth to take its first bite. It was as mother and father bid their Capitol guests goodbye at the door that I had watched Emon start tossing it all into the bin of rotting entrails and eggshells at the back of the house. I couldn't understand the waste. "Capitol residents don't eat leftovers, Saf." My idiot brother with his Capitol obsession. I had asked why we couldn't give it out then, if we weren't going to eat it. There was no shortage of hungry mouths in Three. That's when he said those callous words.

I never saw him the same way again.

The memory turns my stomach a bit. I will not be part of the decadence, in my own form of silent protest of the wastefulness of the Capitol. Still, I know I need all the energy I can get before these Games. I carefully take only the foods that grab me the nutrients I need. A roll of bread, a bowl of juicy raspberries, a hearty soup full of chicken, potatoes, peas, and a broth that smells incredible. Bigger portions than the minimum to get me the energy I need, but only just.

I walk down the hall and see some plates filled to the brim with food. I don't blame them for their indulgence. I see other plates with barely a bread roll. Mouths that don't know what to do with the abundance. I cannot bring myself to sit with them, faced with the shame of a life away from true hunger. Finally my eyes find a plate not unlike mine: more than enough, but without the excess that a malnourished body craves. Someone else who has had the luxury of knowing their next meal is coming. I look up and see the girl from District 9 eating from it. She glances up at me with eyes that have been burned a few times too many. I pause, debating whether to turn and find somewhere else to sit. But that would mean drowning in my shame, and I think the risk of a cold shoulder is worth an escape from that. Besides, I should never judge a book by its cover. Hard exteriors get built to protect the softness within. "Mind if I join you? Going to eat in the crowd there won't do much for my appetite."