CONSTANTINE KRIJGSMAN, DISTRICT TWELVE

“IT'S GETTING LATE, AND I”
Cannot seem to find my way home tonight

AGE . Eighteen.
GENDER . Male, though some call me a girl, but I think that's just joking.
DISTRICT . District Twelve.
OCCUPATION . Artist.
SEXUALITY . Heterosexual.
TALKING . Autumn Sky
DOING . Light Green
DEEP THOUGHT . Twenty Years Old
HEARING . Rugger
OTHER . (Bathhouse Red)


APPEARANCE .

“FEELS LIKE I AM FALLING DOWN A RABBIT HOLE”
Falling for forever, wonderfully wandering alone

I sit on the edge of my small bed, the one that I've had the pleasure of knowing my whole life. I've been here the longest, so I get the best room in the large house, a tower room, where only three sides of the wall are actually wall, and the rest is either carefully placed pieces of stained glass, or just plain panes welded together. I like the colours. They don't match my pale skin very well though. But I think that it would be a rather difficult feat to do so, seeing as my skin is so pale I could be dead. There is always a trace of a shadow under my eyes no matter how much sleep I get. It also doesn't matter how much sun I get, I either burn to a crisp or I remain pale, so we've all decided it's better for me to just remain in the shade. (Unsurprisingly, it doesn't stop me from smiling at the sun until freckles dance across my cheeks.)

I stick out in the twelfth district more than I already do, due to the wild animal that lives on the top of my head. An odd shock of orange hair grows from my head to match my odd complexion with the freckles and the pale skin thing going on. It's an odd mass of wiry, straight hair that usually chooses to stick up and out whereever it wants to. My hair's more of a rebel than I am. It reaches past my ears when Matron Carman brushes it down for the reaping days. I do have some manly sideburns, but they aren't even very long. Although my hair appears to be so very bright, at it's core it's more of a copper colour like it's a flower without enough light. I look like a hedgehog in the mornings, and often well into the afternoon as well when my hair refuses to flatten.

A sharp jawbone and high cheekbones stretch the skin over my angular face. I'm free of blemishes, (only because my body is too weak to grow them.) I've been told that everything about my face is sharp, right down to my slightly pointed nose, and even my pointed hair line. My lips are pale, yet not as pale as my face. They're a softer pink I guess. And then there are my eyes. I stand slowly, pushing myself off me bed, and move to the mirror to properly see them. Like usual, there are shadows under them, as if I've stayed up all night, or if I'm having an allergic reaction. It hardly matters that it's neither when it is so unusual to see me without them. If you must know however, it's the fact that my body works too slowly to keep up with my scedule and results in this visible repercussion.

The colour of my eyes are a soft brown. Not dark and chocolatey like some people's, or delicious like Cedric's, but just brown eyes. I've been told before that I'm doe-eyed, so innocent and peaceful looking that people feel safe when they look into them. Which is ridiculous, I couldn't protect a flea, the state I'm in. Besides, I spend too much time squinting over my sketchbook to have beautiful eyes. That's alright though, I've also got these long feather dusters for eyelashes, that only add to my appearance of being pretty and not handsome. They work to keep the things that would hurt my eyes out however, so I have no complaint with them. (I'm not one to complain though unless it's about myself.)

The object of my complaining is my body it's self. I was born weak, with some problem where if I want to run I get tired after a minute of jogging. Then I can't stop coughing until I've had a seat or a drink of water. If I catch a cold I'm in bed for weeks, and then there are some mornings where I'm just too tired to even pull myself out of bed. I have barely any muscle mass, except for the stuff that keeps me so lean looking. I could bench maybe ten pounds, it's that ridiculous. (The spirit is willing but the flesh is just too damned weak.) I've never been able to do what the other kids in the large house, or at school have been able to do. And it's all because of my stupidly weak body. I could have muscles, a tanned and tone body. I could run without fear of dying, but I don't. I just....I don't.

I stand at the height of 5'8'', not anything to whistle at, and weight a measly one hundred and eighteen pounds. Underweight, no surprise there, especially in this district. It's not for lack of trying either. I just can't help that there are days where I can't even look at food, let alone eat it. Maybe I have a hollow leg or something too, because there are also days where I eat the house out of house and home and I don't gain a pound. Although if I could, I'd probably live off of tea. The only thing strong about my is my long and slender fingers. They are always, if not usually stained with charcoal or ink from sliding my hand across the page when I draw. The stains stand out so well against my soft and pale skin. They haven't seen a lot of hardship yet.

I'm most often inclined to wear a jumper, sweater or whatever you want to call it. I like the soft wool against my bare skin, and the fact that it's a baggy item of clothing usually. It doesn't cling to me, and show off to the world my terribly lacking physic. Sometimes the sleeves are too long as well and they cover my hands, and all the ink spots on them, as well as the blood spots made from coughing too hard. It's either those paired with tight jeans, or v-necks and corduroy slacks. Even suspenders and bow ties make it into my wardrobe sometimes. Though if they do, they always become untied by the end of the day. I don't like tight things around my neck.

PERSONALITY .

“IF I SHOULD DIE TONIGHT”
May I first just say I’m sorry, for I, never felt like anybody

You could call me an extroverted recluse.

I have this ability to slip into people's lives as if I were born to be there. I don't know if it's because I'm so harmless looking, or if I'm just a charismatic guy. (Haha.) But I have this problem where I like to be around people. Even if I'm just sitting in a room full of living, vibrant people, I don't mind being tucked into the corner to watch things happen. I can't walk down any street or alleyway in the seam without getting a, "Hey Constant!" or a, "How's the old lady then?" I haven't just been raised by Matron Carman, but the whole community. It's nice, knowing that people think of you, that even if I don't stand out the most, people know me. I have full confidence in the fact that if one of those people were to see me collapsed on the road, they would rescue me, and that's what really matters isn't it.

Having all those people who know me is nice, but sometimes it's suffocating. It might be interesting to go to a place where no one knows me. No one would look at me with pity, or treat me differently because they wouldn't know to. I would be counted as a normal teenager, if not a bit small. (Instead of wishing for something I can't have, it's easier t simply go.) I like to go to the edge of the district, where the fences are. People don't like to go very close to them, but I like to sit near the trees and draw. It's peaceful there, and sometimes I can catch glimpses of things moving around the woods. Once I thought I saw myself out there, leaving. (But it's pointless because I'd die out there all by myself.)

Not that I'm not going to die anyway. I mean, everybody dies, that's life. But my chances of dying are much higher than their's, mainly because of the fact that I'm a little weakling. Something's killing me, probably karma. (In my past life I must have been a real assbutt.) I've come to terms with the fact that I'm not going to live long. It's why I buy tesserae every year, better me than some guy with no chance. Never mind the fact that Twelve hasn't done badly in the past five years or so. If I made it into the arena, I could save a life just by dying, and it would be the only useful thing I ever did with my life. So maybe I have come to terms with the fact that I'll never do what the other kids my age do, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

As a result, I have a fixation with it, this state of life. I love to draw bodies in motion and each piece I do either has to do with something lurking behind the trees, or a body in a state of motion. I always at least have a pen of some type on me, and if not that a charcoal. One never knows when beauty will cross their path, afterall. I see it everywhere, in every step I take, it's all so beautiful the world out there, sometimes it makes me sad and I can't take it. The weight of all that beauty is crushing and I cannot seem to find my way out from under it. Sometimes the weight of the world crushes so entirely that I have to lay in the dark and try and listen for my heartbeat. But I think that someone scooped out everything but my lungs. I can't hear it. Then I realize I am alone.

Well this is sort of heavy.

There are things I take pleasure in too. Small pleasures, like jammy dodgers, and kites. I like the warmth of the sun on the top of my head, and looking for constellations in the sky at night. I want to suck the marrow out of life, and sometimes I get into slightly criminal acts with some friends. I live for teh danger of it. How far can I push myself? How far can I go before I just can't? I'm a risk taker that should not be taking risks. It hasn't stopped me yet on midnight runs around the District. Maybe I am a little goody two shows, but I seem to be drawn to the bad like a moth to flame. The more I can feel my heart beating the more I go, because then I know that I am alive. Or maybe just a china doll that comes to life sometimes.

Call me mad, but despite all of this I have a flair for danger. Something about the night air manages to tempt me from my bed and call me out the window. I like to wander best at night, climb things, climb everything. There's so much to do when the seam sleeps. There are places in the seam too that come alive during the night, one just has to know where to look. (Believe me when I say I know where to put my eyes.) There's so much life in the seam, so breathtaking. I've had my fair share of it too. Just as I have been raised so carefully by the people of the day, the people of the night treat me just as well. Raised and taught by Matron Carman during the day, I finish my schooling at night with the dancers and those that dream of things that a bread maker couldn't imagine.

I like to sit in the wings of their show and draw the figures dancing through the moonlight, sweat glistening off bodies and clothes that reveal far too much to be honest. I've floated through there, and I've seen and done things that no one would suspect of a good boy like me. My fingers have held the long stem of a hookah, and my lips have sat upon the lip of a drink. (Guess I'm not so innocent as I seem.) But mostly I prefer to sit on the edge of the limelight and live off the light that the stars give when they grace me. My fingers are long enough to have graced the edge of this or that piano every now and then. I'm no master but I love the way the keys react to my touch, it makes me realize that I am substantial.

Sometimes I feel like I might just sink away into the darkness and lose myself there.

HISTORY .

“I AM A MAN OF MANY HATS ALTHOUGH I”
Never mastered anything

I'm not going to waste your time telling you much about my history. I never knew my father. He was in the detention center when I was born and died of an overdose when I was one apparently. Sometimes people ask me what I would have said to him if he had lived and he was standing in front of me right now. I never know. It would be like having a stranger walk up to you and say hello. What would you say back to them? The only memory of my mom that I have is grainy and half developed. Sometimes i wake up at night, thinking that I can hear her, or see her bright red hair in the shadows, but it's always just a half dream. I don't even know if she's dead or alive. I don't know if I want her to be dead or alive.

My earliest memory is me standing on a street corner. I think I was three, and there was an ice cream in my hand, a real treat. I remember that someone took my sticky hand and we started walking, but when I looked up into the bright blue sky, the face wasn't my mother's. I remember the way my fingers shook as they held the ice cream. I think I might have been crying as well. But to this day, I can't eat ice cream. It makes me feel sick and nervous, like I've done something wrong, or that maybe I'm just not good enough to enjoy this ice cream cone. Whenever anyone hands me a cone nowadays, my hands shake uncontrollably. I guess I only realized later that the hand that held mine that day belonged to Matron Carman. Also known as the lady I learned to call mother.

Matron Carman runs an orphanage, and seeing me all alone on the street, I guess she felt sorry for me and picked me up. Whatever it was, that ice cream cone marked the beginning of my stay in the Seam's orphanage. Three year old's are a tough sell, four and five even harder. Eight and above is just shy of impossible, like suddenly finding out you have an incredibly rich family member, or an old bald guy that wants to adopt a sad little ginger kid. (Point in case, nobody wanted me.) I'd tell myself it was because we were in literally the poorest place in all of Panem. But i knew, as other little boys and girls got picked up around me, that it was because of the fact that I looked like a ghost, and would require too much care. So I watched as my friends got taken away from me, and i grew up lonely.

I always had Matron Carman. Something about that woman's heart must be off because it is too big to fit in that sturdy little body. She loved me the moment she set eyes on me, according to her. It's hard realizing you aren't wanted, but it's equally difficult to realize just how much you are. Matron Carman loved me like a son. Summers were spent in the kitchen, eating sweet plums and canning, winters were spent with all the children at her feet as she read to us. Everyday we were sent off to school like normal kids because she wanted us to know our letters, and every evening was spent in the gardens, planting and pruning. she had to keep us all fed somehow, and if you were able, you were sent out to work. (Oh, to be able.)

I've always been such a burden, it would be nice to be able to give back. Even though I'm the runt of the litter however, I've never been treated as anything less than a normal pup. All the brothers and sisters I've gained and lost to families over the years always come back for Matron's tea, and never fail to pop by my room to say hello. Matron and I are almost as basic a fixture as this old house. (I haven't gone without motherly love.) I think that makes all the difference, I could have turned out different as a street rat, or simply died years ago. Although I still do question why my mother gave me up. (Maybe because I was so weak that I was only a burden to her.)

Next year I turn nineteen. The age where a young citizen throws out their childhood and enters the mines. Nobody says it, but they all know that (I'll surely die down there.) It's like a big secret that isn't really a secret at all. I know I should be afraid, be trying to scramble away and hide, but I can only find an innate calm wash over me at the prospect. I know that I have never been a strong man, or been able to do what the other kids do, but maybe I can be strong in some way. In my time of dying, I want to greet Death as an old friend, not as an enemy. I refuse to be cowed by the prospect of what comes after death. Perchance to dream, perchance to sleep. Aye; There's the rub, for in this sleep of death what dreams may come?

ANYTHING ELSE ?

C’mon, c’mon, with everything falling down around me
I’d like to believe in all the possibilities

OUT OF CHARACTER .

FACE CLAIM .

TIJN ELBERS • CONSTANTINE KRIJGSMAN

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CODEWORD . odair