Bette Sublino [District 1]

Bette Sublino [Bet - Sub-lean-oh]

Fifteen

District One

Unique

The tan skinned girl waltzes into the classroom, late as usual. She's reprimanded, just as always, but it's difficult for her to pay attention - her dark dark brown eyes seem to be looking somewhere behind the teacher, and before long, the man gives up, simply directing her to her seat, where barely anybody bothers to glance at her; this is a regular occurrence, after all, and although many find Bette Sublino unique and strange, it is still fairly early in the morning, and most are suck in their daydreams of more sleep and the need to do something other than sit in a stuff classroom for the entire day.

They don't bother to look at the girl whose mismatched socks and gaudy sweater clash in a fantastically tacky coordination, for they don't really care. Perhaps some talk about her dirty clothes and acne-ridden face, and maybe the extremely vain girl might talk about her long, flat, stringy-straight black hair, but since the Sublinos are known for being relatively poor, it's expected. The family has more pressing things to worry about than their appearances, such as running the small antiques shoppe which is ridden with peeling wallpaper and rotten floorboards. So Bette lives up to their expectations - dirty, dingy, the 102-pound girl who barely reaches five-foot-three is as unsurprising and unoriginal as a cheesy horror flick. She is quite simply, the embodiment of the poor side of the district, the living example to the upper class, so they can appreciate what they have.


Of course, these people don't realize that if they get to know Bette Sublino, they will realize that this girl is much more extraordinary than they imagine. The inability to pay attention stems from something much different than what the narrow-minded residents would imagine. Like her father, Bette Sublino suffers from synesthesia. Appearing in flashes of color as sound booms through her ears, the abnormality has been passed down for generations, and has nestled itself in Bette, her father and her younger brother. The effects of Bette's synesthesia sparkles and dances in front of her, changing color from the syllables that are uttered in front of her. She finds it distracting, for how is she to pay attention in class when there is a blue explosion out of the corner of her eye? Or maybe a dark olive is sneaking across the bottom of her vision, weaving in and out into a vine of some sorts that catches her fascination much more easily than lessons on how to polish a diamond efficiently, or the parts of an automobile.

The world that she is drawn into is much more interesting than the painful rhetoric of a teacher who doesn't know what he is doing, so oftentimes she is lost in her thoughts, not being able to answer a question or respond to someone talking to her because she simply did not hear their words - she saw them, rather, and although her eyes have registered speech, her ears surely have not. It makes Bette feel embarrassed once she registers the impatient face before her, waiting for her to answer, so oftentimes she simply sinks down into her seat, not really talking until school is let out, and she is free to wander the streets of District 1, until she reaches her household, where nothing is strange and everything is unique and has its own story. And this is where she truly shines, for here she can be as weird as she desires, talking about how "onomatopoeia" is a subtle shade of pink rather than a harsher orange. With her family she can be loud, boisterous, amiable, simply because she knows that they love her and don't care how weird she is, because synesthesia is something cherished among the family. They feel that it's their culture that's being passed down, and connections from elders to youth are created by the sharing of the condition.

Around her family, she is a determined individual with a drive to become the best at whatever she wants to do (she's adept at knitting and is striving to become a decent creative writer). It contrasts drastically from when she's in front of others, with their judgmental stares and behind-the-back whispers, where she goes into a shell, refusing to come out until she steps back into the archways of the most "beautiful place in the world". But the strain of her dilemma weighs heavily on Bette, and oftentimes she can be found wandering the streets at night, footsteps barely audible on the path as she wonders why she's been granted with this curse/blessing, and what she can do to overcome it in front of others, to be the girl that she is in front of all of those that are important to her, as well as other trivial things such as novel ideas. But she doesn't try to accomplish any of these ideas. All she does is dream, yet she doesn't realize that if she put in more effort, she could prosper not only at her social skills, but at simpler things too, like grades and confidence. But alas, as of now, this has yet to be brought into fruition.


Her parents have always wanted the best for her, and although they have tried to teach her to try hard at everything, Bette has failed this often, staying away from many "trivial" things such as Career-training or learning how to work at other places of employment (the girl believes after all, that she will inherit the shop after her parents have gone into retirement). Even becoming better at social skills and making the grade was always difficult for Bette - synesthesia was a major part of that. Hiram, her father, would always tell her that she was just different, unique, and that shouldn't affect her conversational skills or study habits. But Bette never found it to be easy, and perhaps due to laziness or disappointment, gave up early at this, letting her grades falter and her social skills remain as low as dirt.

By the age of ten, she had already resigned herself to being able to communicate solely at home, where she could become distracted by wandering pale green hazes and magenta sparkles because her father and younger brother had the same affliction, as well as her grandfather. The four of them always had each other in that sense, causing the familial bond to become stronger than diamonds. But even they wished that Bette would be able to overcome her embarrassment and humiliation; after all, they had been forced to do the same thing (her grandfather and father were avid careers, and even her little brother had many friends who would eagerly listen when he spoke about being able to see gold sparkles and whatnot). It was an obstacle that the affected Sublimos had to face, but Bette was struggling in it, floundering when others flourished.

Thus, the walks began, with Bette needing to clear her head and figure out what was going on. At first, they were ridden with sobs and the isolation of a secret hiding spot that she would never reveal to anyone, but soon they became more of a habit, less filled with haphazard emotions than musings of what she could put into her novel or plans for getting over her shyness (all of which would fail, either from sheer silliness or the fear of having to actually perform these actions). But these were all dashed, for deep down, perhaps Bette believed that these wanderings were simply ways to get all of the random thoughts out of her head, or that the ideas conjured up were far too impossible to actually accomplish easily/efficiently/realistically. Maybe she even believed that she wasn't good enough to be able to perform and thrive and be at her best because of these thoughts.

But most likely, she just didn't want to try.
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