They Call Me Mr. Pitiful | Open |

For Oxford Raiment, there had been a small voice in the back of his head enticing him to give up. It wasn't any sort of legitimate hallucination, and he knew that, but there was an undeniable force that pulled him toward the curb upon which he now sat, elbows on his knees, no desire to take another step further. This defeat was justified, as Ford had just finished a rather long shift loading crates of clothing onto a train headed for the Capitol, which automatically meant not only that there would be a larger number of shipments than there would be for any given district, but also that these boxes would be heavier, as the luxurious and ornamental outfits were doubtlessly adorned with bits of metal, gems, heavy furs, or any number of trimmings that would weigh down the load as a whole.

The work didn't bother him very much anymore. Sure, his arms ached, and yes, his legs refused to carry him the rest of the way home without a sufficient recuperation period, but that wasn't anything new, and that never added very much to the general feelings of defeat that often assaulted him. His work gave Ford a great deal of stamina; physically, he could have kept working for a great deal longer, had it been required of him. No, it was a psychological defeat that often ailed the eighteen-year-old, a fact which he was well aware of. Haphazardly, Ford ran two fingers over the familiar hard leather of his eyepatch. He knew it was the minor tragedy that robbed him of his eye that had stolen his motivation as well. He used to be such an ambitious kid, but that was gone now. Aesthetics had ranked most important on his unwritten list, although it was natural beauty more than an interest in human beauty that appealed to him. His own scarred face didn't bother him very much; it was the scar on his perception of the world that most severely impacted his life.

The dandelion growing out of the crack in the sidewalk beside him was a perfect example of this. Gently, Ford excised it from the pavement where it grew, holding it delicately between his forefinger and thumb, scrutinizing the thing with his one eye. Desperately, he tried to see it as anything besides the weed that it was. Ford knew that when he was younger, it would've transmuted into a hundred different things, each more dazzling than the last. But this Ford couldn't even give an example of what the intact Ford might have seen. This Ford couldn't even see the weed as a flower.

Bitterly, he began to pluck the tufts one by one from the stalk, leaving the plant bald and a hundred times less desirable looking than it had been before. With a scowl, he thought of how even the ugly stem would've spawned a dozen ideas when he was younger. He cast it aside in contempt, folding his arms and returning them to knees, not caring how unfriendly he must appear to those around him. It intrigued him to know what the world thought of the angry, defeated, one-eyed man on the curb; but then, they probably didn't care much either. After all, with so much suffering in the district and with so much suffering in Panem as a whole, how could anyone care one way or another about some stranger's tragedy. Everyone had been through tough times.

Suddenly and strangely very curious about the nature of people despite the tough living situation of the districts, Ford got a wild idea. "Hello," he said, not un-cheerfully, greeting whoever was walking past behind him without turning around at all. Maybe he'd get a response; maybe everyone was too busy or too engrossed in their own problems to care one way or the other. Either way, Ford knew that the two syllables had cost him nothing, and the experiment had the potential to be quite interesting, if there was someone around who was willing to talk to him.