Inking out tomorrow [onyx]

SUZANNE LORENSE

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Sometimes, I wonder how Michil Lorense, from the greatest lumber-management family of all time in District Seven, and Yosafina Tread, young mother with sharp wit, resilient determination and fierce control, could have a child like Stark.

I look up at him, blurry eyes making harsh contact with his hazel-oak ones even so early in the morning. His pearly grin gleams with saliva, having sucked his teeth nervously while he waited for me to wake up, and he almost winces as my lack of such a joyous expression displays my opinions on his surprise.

[/size] “You want him to paint me,” I state in disbelief, still not quite sure if he’s serious. Stark shifts his weight from one muscled leg to the other, the optimistic glint in his naïve gaze fading as quickly as any hope that I might submit to his request quietly. “You want me to wait, while he paints me, to pay off a debt?”[/b] Stark was never expected to continue in the Lorense family business. Financially incapable, the duty of providing the Capitol with a regular supply of fine woods was planned to fall on Angel’s shoulders from the moment Stark was old enough to mumble “I’ll trade you six loaves for marbles.”[/b] Yes, literally. Marbles.[/size][/color]

And here he comes with another one of his grand schemes.[/size] “I thought it would be nice, Susie,” he whines, ten of his twenty two years evaporating like water from green logs in a fire, “The Beckets are in a little financial difficulty and I’m helping them out. I thought you might like it.” Like it?! I almost hiss with disdain as I creep, with hostility as is my nature, from my bedsheets. “Out my room, Stark,” I command huskily, pushing my messy golden curls from my face, knowing they’ll only fall back that way when I let go. Who would paint this? I’m not pretty, with my round face, manly build and almost sickly complexion. My signature ‘Lorense’ locks are always filled with twigs and leaves, which match the cuts all over my legs from years playing up trees and with knives. My eyes look out of place in all this forest, with its wooden people and wooden industry.[/color]

Stark is taller and stronger than me, but he allows me to cart him, straining, to the door. The floorboards are covered in a fine layer of sharp grains of wood and sand, kicked in on the heavy boots of my father and siblings, but which always seem to cause my bare feet discomfort. Perhaps I was chosen for this boy’s painting because I just don’t fit in anywhere else. With three older siblings, one would assume I would be so influenced that there would be nothing else for me except Lorense Lumber. They want to push me out of the picture. No, grow up, Suzanne. Conspiracies like this used to be my favourite subject for solitary ponderings. But it’s the least I can do, pose for a portrait. After all, what would I do instead? Probably sit in exactly the same glade, cutting my fingers by mistake, threatening children who wander my way. And how is that any way to help my family?[/size]

“I’ll do it, Stark.” I hear him exhale loudly on the opposite side of the rickety door. He begins to shuffle away, and I watch the shadows receding, his footsteps fading.[/blockquote][/blockquote][/justify][/size][/color]

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Still lacing up my worn fabric boots, made for climbing rather than logging, I skip from our old house into the watery morning sunshine. The smell of earth is heavy in my nostrils, inflating my lungs with the fresh youth of dirt after rain. The air is moist and cool on my skin, a total contrast to the beating sun that is emerging in the sky by the second. The woods loom like some hideous shape before me, past the last cabin, starting with the trunks that remain untouched but which shield the majority of the lumberjack’s work further in to the forest. The place I know Stark will have sent this painter to is the first of many of my hidden places. I have made it my purpose to find beautiful pockets of seclusion among the damaged trees; places the axes couldn’t reach, that were deemed too hard to clear or just so abundant in life that the clumsy workers didn’t dare disturb them. Hitching my bag of knives, stumps and the comb that my mother insisted I take higher up on my shoulder, I accept the sudden coolness of branching shadows on my skin with gratitude. Today I may not be alone, but the woods always gives me a feeling of… security…

To reach my glade, I must go a route which most teenagers would find difficult to navigate and remain unscathed and, indeed, undetected. The first time I came here, I was left with torn legs, blood running down them like roadmaps. I feel it would be a mercy to the poor child who has to manoeuvre himself through the brambles to ease his path, and reach for my knife to start the task. The branches and vines give reluctantly and elastically, spitting foamy water out as they break. I am around halfway through carving a crude tunnel, just under adult-sized, when the rustling nearby alerts me of the arrival of my guest.

Be nice, Suzanne. You mustn’t scare away the company before he has even set up. I try a nonchalant half-laugh, and sweep the remaining leaves aside to let him through. Never mind the beads of blood blooming so quickly on my arms, Stark would want me to put others before myself. This is going to prove to be an interesting experience.

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