A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke}

laphae8ash

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} May 12, 2012 23:59:50 GMT -5

Post by laphae8ash on May 12, 2012 23:59:50 GMT -5

Stale beer. He smelled just like the others. I hate that smell. Stumbling out of the dank alleyway adjusting the hem of my skirt and tucking the 50$ in the side of my bra, making sure it was secure as I kept my eyes on the ground. Searching it the cracks, the crevasses, the pebbles and mud...looking for something I'd never find. Roxie was fading away for the night and I was falling back into myself. Into Ary, the mother, the caretaker, the broken shell of a small little doll.

My skin crawled with the thoughts of the man's hands sliding down them, my knees raw from the concrete. The tears began welling up in my eyes. I hate the moments after. Where I realize just how miserable and low I am. Little I am worth. The only people who care about me are the Yearlings. That's what we call our little family. As I walk along the darkened streets my fingers tremble as I reach down into the top of my boot pulling out a small vile and taking out the two small pills inside.

None of them know. Not Jan. Not Gus. No one. Sometimes though I just need a way to cope, to push away the darkness that overtakes me. To help me finish the things I need to do to keep our family together...this is one of those times. Quickly I pop the pills into my mouth and swallow, waiting for the rush of the buzz to take over. The fuzziness that blurs reality, the smeared lines that make what I do okay.

Any other time I would've just coped, pushed one and crawled in to Jan's bed flooding a pillow with my tears...but not this time. This time it was just too much. The bruise on my cheek, the blood on my knees...I just don't know how much longer I can take this. December's face fills my thoughts and I want to get her a guitar so bad, the girl has so little to smile about. With her in my mind I start the 2 mile trek home.

Each step becomes a little lighter, a little blurrier, until I know I'm being set free. Tripping up the stares I turn the key to our home, trying to be as quiet as I can. The only light on is in the kitchen and I assume its just because someone forgot. Its not like there's much in there to snack on this late, and we're pretty good about rationing out the food. Curling up in the broken chair in the living room I try to let the drugs push me into a dreamless slumber. Jan would hate me when he finds me in the morning for not being in his room, but right now, it just didn't matter.

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Last Edit: Jun 12, 2012 23:21:56 GMT -5 by laphae8ash

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} Jul 10, 2012 2:26:18 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 10, 2012 2:26:18 GMT -5

There’s been a lull lately. Time drags on whenever the games roll in, and I think it may be my happiest of times after the reaping. It’s just another thing that I don’t have to worry about for a whole three hundred and sixty four more days. Even through all the fights and pangs of hunger, the capitol hadn’t separated any of us from one another this year. No, little December still moped in her room. October still stared at everything with wonder. Joon was still a lost soul through it all, crazy as she was sane. No, this year some young girl I’d never seen before had disappeared into the games along with a boy brave enough to volunteer as a ~~sacrifice~~. And so we’d been left to clean up the mess that had been steadily building in our home.

But this week was more stressful than ever—what with the mandatory viewings, the aching of the children wanting to root for our district and dismayed by the violence that struck down the poor girl, Fawn was brutally murdered by the other children. There was the usual crying from seeing such death, and the whispers and forehead kisses, the tender touching and wanting to assure them that that will never be you because I would protect them from it all. And then there would be relative calm in these little walls. They had a champion to root for in the boy: Cyrus Malloc was an upstanding tribute that had not killed anyone just yet. He lasted through the first few days, then seemed to grow in steam, and after day three I was rooting for him to go all the way.

He was one that I put some money on—we so rarely had a tribute that made it so far in the games, unless you count crazy Aesop Bloome, but he was not my cup of tea by far. So I rooted for Cyrus, and for the first time in a while I found myself enjoying the games. The mood seemed a little higher in district six when on day four; his alliance snatched victory from defeat and sliced up that tribute from district 9. We all cheered when he put the other tribute out to sea, a noble farewell to someone so close. I guess I got swept up in it all, because yesterday, when he’d been struck down by the kraken, I felt my own mood dip as well. ~~But maybe it was just the money I owed.~~

And at work it was just a little bit harder to clean the labs and wipe down all the equipment. Not that anyone seemed to really mind at all. No, life around here had drifted into that summer lull and as the rain began to drip down from the sky above, I wanted to do nothing but to get home and disappear underneath the covers for some time. Of course, I’d have to clean up the living room and fix dinner, and make sure that the kids had done all their work and count the money that had been made for the day. But after it all, maybe I could catch some sleep, enough to let me get through one more day. The clocks buzzed the end of shift and I couldn’t get out into the rain fast enough.

I didn’t think about the steps home, rushing through puddles and flying past anyone that was in my way. Something was driving me to get home fast as possible. Maybe, maybe it was a sense that something wasn’t quite right. Maybe I was still down and wanting to bury myself from it all. I won’t ever know what it was. But when I opened the door and found her—February—oh God, what was she doing I stood in the doorway, rain dripping down my face as I watched her on the chair. I didn’t even take off my lab coat, I just rushed to her side. I felt the side of her face and started tapping her lightly, trying to see where she was—this wasn’t her first dabbling in morphling—all the while cursing under my breath.

“Ary… come on… you gotta get up now… come on… what are you doing…” I whisper it all to her, not wanting any of the kids to wake or know just what is happening. I have to keep this from them. None of them can know. I have to get her to my bedroom and clean all of this up. “Please Ary… this isn’t funny… Ary… come on… GET UP!”

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laphae8ash

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} Jul 11, 2012 15:20:47 GMT -5

Post by laphae8ash on Jul 11, 2012 15:20:47 GMT -5

Doing
deep thoughts
thinking
talking
hearing
enjoying

The lights were dim already, but as Ary's eyes flickered shut she let the darkness surround her. Her body was limp and relaxed against the rough surface of the chair, her mouth slightly slack jawed as she let the depths of of the drug fill her very soul.

"February! Stop crying! You hear me! STOP!" her dad's voice rang through the near empty home once again. Its not like the young girl could help her tears. Wasn't it normal to cry when someone you love left? Her hands trembled as he stepped closer to her his voice raising with each moment. She didn't want to cry, she didn't want to be weak, but it was just what any little girl would do when they wanted their mommy. Foot steps pounded up the stairs and Ary's fists shoved against her mouth to muffle the sound of her sobs.

The stairs creaked and buckled under the thundering weight of her father. Don't let him find me. Don't let him yell anymore. Her eyes trailed up to the door of her closet the thuds coming closer and closer till the door flew open. Her father's strong hands pulled her out and started shaking her "February you stop this! She. Is. Gone. You can't keep crying over her. Its not right!" Her body felt limp in the limb jarring motion of her father. Her head whipped back and forth but she didn't say anything as the silent tears fell down her face.

With a quick motion her father threw her 6 year old body down on the bed and hovered over her. She bit her lip as he slid down next to her almost apologetically, "She had to go February. She had to. She's not coming back and you have to just stop this. Its not normal, its not right for you to cry all the time." His thumb flicked away the tears on her cheeks as he stared at her waiting for some sort of response. The words were filled with hiccups and breaks as she let the feelings escape, "Daddy I just can't help it, I miss mama. I miss her so much. She's coming back, she wouldn't just leave without a goodbye. I promise she'll be back." The innocence of her childlike thinking couldn't be disputed, but it flared up something inside her father and before he knew what he was doing his fist lashed out. Striking her hard in her eye she screamed and the tears didn't stop.

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The pain in Ary's cheek seemed more than a flash back as her hand fluttered up to touch it, but on the way it was intercepted by a harsher more worn hand. “Please Ary… this isn’t funny… Ary… come on… GET UP!” The words were muffled and sounded as if they were coming from a tunnel far far away. The hand was touching her cheek and the pain from the slap the man had given her earlier that night was throbbing. Swatting back clumsily she slurry "Go away daddy! GO! Don't touch me!" and the tears welled up behind her closed eyes. Forcing them open to let the moisture spill the face that greeted her wasn't the stern and broken face of her father, or the greedy and violent face of the John. Through blurry unfocused eyes she started to make out the features of January and reached out to touch his cheek.

"Don't hit me Jan...I didn't do anything...I can't help it..." with a heaving sigh she stared across the room and tucked her legs up close, nearly tumbling out of the chair in the process. The tears streamed down harder as she felt her mind sinking backwards into the drugs coursing through her veins. She just needed him to understand, it wasn't her fault... none of it was.

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} Jul 14, 2012 23:31:47 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 14, 2012 23:31:47 GMT -5

narration
thoughts
speech
listening
in the thick of it

When everything crashes down on me, I like to think of myself pushing back against a boulder. It’s heavy and it’s hard, and it’s going to crush me someday. It’s full of all the things that I never want to be—hard hearted, evil, selfish—and it’s going to boll me over if I make the slightest misstep. And every day there’s always a new boulder that seems to appear, near the base of that hill that I need to climb. So I have to throw my body against it and make it up that hill, otherwise not only is that boulder going to come down and crush me, it’s going to roll right past. And behind me there are 11 others that I’ve sworn to take care of—all of them trying to get up the same hill, but never knowing that there’s this boulder that I’m pushing out of their way.

I move to one knee as I look into her eyes. "Don't hit me Jan...I didn't do anything...I can't help it...” She mutters out as though the reason I’m hitting her is because I’m angry. No, I was doing it to get her attention, to make sure she hadn’t completely pushed herself past the brink. She looked as though she was having a bad spell, but maybe she was going to be okay. I chew my lip as I look around the room quickly. None of them can ever see her like this—they can never know that she’s falling apart.

[/color] She was the other half of my team. She couldn’t fall apart on me now when everything was running so ragged.

Sometimes Ary is there to help me with it. She cooks and she cleans. She makes money for us any way that she can. She sells herself because she can’t find anything else to do. She’s lost, just as lost as I am. Maybe more. And usually I can count on her to hold it together. She’s the one that tells me that there’s a reason to keep going, for us to keep trying to raise these kids the best that we can. I don’t know why, sometimes. I feel like they would be a lot better off without me, or at least, with less of us to have to look after. And I’m so hard on them sometimes, she pulls me back. She lets me know that what I’m doing is worth it, not just something foolish. And when she smiles… when she looks at me with those eyes and touches my shoulder…[/color]

“Come on… we gotta get you to the bedroom… can’t be out here…” I say as I move to wrap an arm underneath her back. The other angles down underneath her legs as I attempt to lift her from her spot on the chair. I only hope that she won’t resist me or think that I’m trying to do something else. I don’t want to have to restrain her, but at that moment I would do anything to make sure that we weren’t found like this. “Just relax. Let me take you. Everything is going to be all right. I promise… I promise you’re gonna be okay…”

It was a promise I intended to keep for as long as I could. But there was that boulder, pushing back at me. And the rains had made the hill muddy, and I was starting to slip. I was starting to feel the weight more than I ever had, and I was getting tired. If she gave up now—if she left me—I don’t think I could hold it upright. I’d slip and fall, and that boulder… that boulder would come crashing down, crushing me… crushing her… crushing everyone.[/color]
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laphae8ash

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} Jul 17, 2012 14:51:30 GMT -5

Post by laphae8ash on Jul 17, 2012 14:51:30 GMT -5

Doing
deep thoughts
thinking
talking
hearing
enjoying

Her eyes flutter close again as the throbbing in her cheek makes it feel as if her heart is going to explode through her face. On Ary's face the bruise was spreading as the swelling was reaching upwards, raising the tissue around her eye. All she wanted to do was rest, but Jan, ~~her loving Jan~~, had other plans. “Come on… we gotta get you to the bedroom… can’t be out here…” She could feel his strong arms slide under her and lift her from the battered and busted chair. Her head rolled against his chest as he whispered sweet promises to keep her safe. “Just relax. Let me take you. Everything is going to be all right. I promise… I promise you’re gonna be okay…”

Its never going to be okay. Never going to be anything more than a broken fucking mess of a life. Never going to be anything other than trash. He needs someone better than me. They all do. I'm so worthless. Just let me go Jan. Let me go. Her fingers fumbled with the collar of his shirt as she tried to adjust herself against him, her eyes parted slightly at the steady thump thump thump of his heart. "Don't Jan. Don't go. I'm sorry. I didn't..." all the words she wanted to say couldn't find their way out of her lips, but the tears fall and she hopes that Jan might just make some sense of it.

A sudden urge boils up inside of her. Its burning and aching as if all the filth that has accumulated over the past few years on the streets is forcing its way up and out of her body. She can feel her body start to tighten up and before she can move away the vile contents of her stomach spills out all over the front of January's shirt and down her chest. Over and over again she feels the pain releasing itself in her hair on her dress. Some of it drips down to the floor all yellow and foamy, as her head rolls back and her eyes clamp shut. A rapid twitching begins slowly at first but soon its rolling though fast and faster. MAKE IT STOP JAN! MAKE IT STOP! No matter how hard her brain tries to work its as if her body has given up and is giving out. Oh I can't die, why can't I move. Whats wrong with me. Make it stop! It hurts! It hurts so bad. Why can't I feel anything other than pain. Is this death? Is this what death feels like. Maybe its better this way. Maybe its better. NO I can't give up. I need him to know. I have to tell him I love him. I have to. I can't give up.

The battle of her brain and body waged on inside of her as she was trapped in the slowly fading seizure that shook her from the very core of her being. If she was going to die, at least she died in his arms. The shaking slowed as her breathing did as well. Death could be a welcome release for the pain inside. Her mouth slacked open and her fingers and body seemed to unfurl til there was nothing left but the slow shallow sound of her ragged breath and still pumping heart..

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} Jul 20, 2012 22:20:06 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Jul 20, 2012 22:20:06 GMT -5

narration
thoughts
speech
listening
in the thick of it

I’ve got her in my arms now as I head back toward the room. She didn’t struggle, but instead gave herself to me. I take a few steps, not bothering to check if any of the others have stirred at this point. The only thing that matters to me is lying in my arms right at this present moment. The only thing the world that has some value is trembling, shaking in my arms. The one that I’m to protect, and in return she’s supposed to protect me. But I pushed her too hard, I was too rough. And now she was losing her mind, she was losing the battle to all the demons that she’s collected. I’m at the doorway when I can she starts to shake in my arms, and I fumble with the doorknob, my back against the door, slamming my inside my tiny little hole of a room.

She starts to shake and I watch as her body starts to flail in my arms. She’s fragile still, her muscles tensing, her whole body convulsing like a shock has run through her entirely. And she starts to cough, and it in another instant she’s covering me with fit after fit of vomit. The stench of her stomach acid fills the air and I gag, but I don’t drop her. I hold her closer, letting her empty everything that she has onto me. “Shhh… shhh… it’s ok, it’s going to be okay,” I say this for me more than for her. I say it because there is no one here to help me, and it’s all I can do to keep from fall apart myself. I get her to the ground and place a pillow under her head.

I’ve dealt with this before—I’ve seen what drugs can really do. Life has been shitty for me, and for as many as I’ve known that have dabbled in morphling, but I try to push the darkness from my mind. I don’t want that door opened just yet, she had no right to open that door for me.

[/color] This… this was worse than bad, this was brutal. This was ripping her apart in a way that I’d never seen before. I stripped off my shirt and threw it to the corner of the room. I have to do something… I have to do something… I can’t just let her die… oh please… please don’t die on me, please don’t let this be my fault…[/color] My hands come up to the sides of my face and I pull back, squinting my vision and looking down at a barely breathing body.

She’s still beautiful, even now. I want to hold her and tell her everything, everything that I might not have been able to tell her before but that she deserved to know.[/color] Because there were so many things that she had done, day to day, that I had never told her just how much I would miss if she wasn’t there.[/color] And though I’d never uttered the words—I’d never gotten the courage—I loved her, I loved everything about her. I wanted her to be with me and only me, and for the two of us to be happy. And for something about this house to be normal, for a change. But now she was on the ground, her chest slowly rising and falling, and every moment that passed another for me to think about just what I was supposed to do.

Was I supposed to do this on my own? Should I have run and gotten one of the kids, or even tried to get one of our no-good-f—king-neighbors that might have known what I was supposed to do with Ary? Numbness overtook my body as I knelt down next to her. I had to do this on my own.[/color] I lay down next to her, my body close to hers. I watched closely to make sure that she was still breathing, knowing full and well that I wouldn’t know what to do if she stopped, but not able to move from my own curled up spot on the ground. No, I was frozen against the dank floor, locked onto the vision of Ary trapped far off and away from me.

And in her face I see my mother. I see myself as the little boy of not much more than nine, watching her shiver and shake on her bed. Of her screaming out terrible things in her haze and lashing out and clawing at the wall so hard that she bled. Of me wanting to find someone to do something, and yet not wanting to leave her in case she moved on without me by her side. And so I’d stayed, crying out against her, willing her to stay and to not give up. To give me a clue as to what I was supposed to do to stop it all and bring her back down to earth. But she’d flown away from me then, whispering nothing more than nonsense before closing her eyes into a pillow. And I’d frozen next to her, lying against her body as the warmth left her. And weeping, weeping, weeping until they pried me from her cold body.[/color]

And so I lay next to Ary, frozen, unmoving, unsure of what I was to do. A little boy lost.
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laphae8ash

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} Jul 24, 2012 20:17:41 GMT -5

Post by laphae8ash on Jul 24, 2012 20:17:41 GMT -5

Doing
deep thoughts
thinking
talking
hearing
enjoying

The world is swirling around me; shapes, colors, sounds I can't place. I don't under stand. Ebbing and flowing the light seems to break through the darkness as a thub thub thub beats through my whole body. I'm so f-cking broken. It was as if she had died the way Ary's body lay still on the floor. Trapped within her own mind and frame she lay there trying to pull something together, to give him a sign she was still here with him. Just reach out. Reach out and touch his hand. He wouldn't leave you. He has to be there next to you. Reach out and touch him. REACH Her mind fought to create the movement she so desperately craved, as a flicker of her eye parted the lids slightly. Sensation started spreading through her body and the cold sticky chill of the vomit she spewed was over her chest and legs. The scent so strong she felt that the heaving might come again.

Her lips parted and she tried so push some sound out through them His name, just say his name. January. January. Say it. Her throat felt as if she had swallowed the coals they used to heat the house in the winter, burning and ragged from the acid that had singed it. Every breath she sucked in was like inhaling the barbed wire that ran around the fence of the District. Her tongue moved and she forced her lips to form the words that would free her from this prison, but no sound came. Just a ragged breath escaping into the silence.

A twitch in her fingers, and a flutter in her eyes made her feel more alive by the moment, but nothing was working how she wanted. She'd tell her hand to move, instead a finger would lift. She'd tell her lips to call his name, instead she'd hear his breathing. He didn't leave you, you can't leave him. Wake up, let him know you're here. First one finger, than another, creep towards the figure laying next other, a strange desperation crossing her face. Slowly blinking she felt her eyes come into more focus and as her throat moved a groan slipped out.

Get me the f-ck out of these clothes, hold me. Hold me Jan. Don't let me fade away. Her stomach tense again as she gagged and heaved once more. There was nothing left inside of her but the pains wouldn't stop. "Don't..." She took a raspy breath, "leave...me..." Her eyes searched his face as they welled up with tears. As much as she loved him, needed him, craved him, she was nothing but a failure. He deserved so much more.

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A girl with kaleidoscope eyes// {luke} Aug 2, 2012 17:29:37 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Aug 2, 2012 17:29:37 GMT -5

narration
thoughts
speech
listening
in the thick of it

It wasn’t so much that her death had come as a surprise. It was that I had failed to do anything to stop it.

[/color] I was so busy hiding my shame from the rest of the world that I had not thought of the consequences of her pushing too far and too fast. But there she’d been, after a fight with my father, acting as though the world weighed too heavy upon her old shoulders. I could see the crowsfeet on her face in the dim light of the hallway as she stood clutching a little vial. I had just come in from school, and had whispered a hello[/color] to her that went unheard. She muttered something like a ghost, not wanting to acknowledge that I existed. Instead she turned back into her own room and tried to lock me out.

I’ve always been the protector. I’ve always tried to make sure that whoever is in my keep, they will never have to worry about anything. It’s a masochistic impulse that I have: I’d rather inflict myself with the pain and agony of worry rather than let it be saddled with someone else. Because I was more afraid of failing them and being pushed away, I was willing to spend nights worrying about keeping mouths fed and taking care of the kids when they were sick. And now, next to me, sat a living reminder of what failure to do that would bring. Worse still was that February was part of my team[/color] , the one that helped me to get through all of this myself. I couldn’t shoulder everything if she too decided to leave me. If I failed, I wouldn’t be able to go much farther myself.

That was the part that hurt the most. Not that I had lost her, because that had only been a matter of time. She’d been taking pills and losing time for a few years, since I was young enough to remember. And he—my father—never did anything to stop her. He never did anything of any use anyway, but he never took them away from her. I tried my best to flush them down the toilet, or to hide them, but she got worse when she didn’t have them around. She would be particularly vicious to me, calling me a mistake, calling me a little b—tch, telling me she wished I would get reaped so that I could be ripped apart in the arena. And she would scream and throw herself down on the ground and weep. But I never thought she was so bad—I never hated her. It took too much energy to hate them, and they were all I had.

“Don’t… leave… me…” I was still on the ground, my head on my arm, body on its side, watching her chest rise and fall. I snapped up from my spot to look her over and let out a pathetic whimper. I was so scared still, I wanted to cry, I wanted to let her yell terrible things at me, let her tell me how horrible I was to her. But she was still pleading for me to stay with her. She still had the strength to speak. I bent over her and wrapped my arms around her, drawing her close. I wasn’t going to let her give up, not if she needed me. Not if she could tell me what she wanted, I would throw myself off a cliff for her. I brushed her hair back again and tried to give a smile.

“Never… never ary, I’ll always be here…” I whisper out, my voice shaking. She wasn’t like my mother—she gave all of herself and had never asked for much. She may have had bad spells and did something that I hated, but she wasn’t my mother. I couldn’t let a woman so long in the grave stop me from making sure that the only one I’d ever really loved[/color] didn’t wind up there as well. I couldn’t promise much, and I didn’t have a lot to give, but I wasn’t going to sit back and watch her die. I wasn’t going to cower like I’d done with my mother—I wasn’t a child anymore. I could face this ghost, and if she made it through, I would have to let her know everything.[/color] “Just don’t leave me…”
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