what's {written} in braille :: jörge [jb blitz]

she was tracing the years with her fingers on her skin
saying why don't i begin again with turpentine and patches
with cold, cold campbell's from the can
after all, i'm still a jerk playing with matches
it's just that he's not around to play along

No one is coming for me.

The Justice Building is just a well-decorated waiting room for Death, every child in the District knows that. There is sorrow ground into the wood, tears invisibly staining the carpet – my own fell on the floor of this very room a thousand lifetimes ago, when it was Fledger sitting on this posh velvet couch and me wondering what on earth I was going to do without him. The childish, romanticized part of me that has hardened to iron over time had whispered that I might die in a world where he didn’t exist. Little did I know that for once, the childish, romanticized part of me was right.

I don’t cry now, though. Some blend of shock and stubborn defiance dried the tears from my eyes after that initial bout of hysteria, a few seconds of a breakdown that left everyone around me looking falsely sympathetic and Brooke confusedly frightened. I had fallen to my knees when Fledger’s name rang out over the crowds. I had fallen to my knees when the doors closed behind me, cutting me off forever from the world of the living. No more. I won’t give the Capitol the satisfaction of bringing me to my knees ever again. No delusions of victory allow me a spark of hope. I am not and have never been a Career; my rough-and-tumble past of schoolyard fistfights and the old salts out on the whalers teaching me how to throw a knife for sport will be nothing in comparison to the deadly finesse of One and Two. I can’t win, but I will fight. The squirming bundle of red curls and frightened eyes in my lap gives me no choice but to fight. I know the fate that awaits her if I don’t come home; know the guilt that will haunt me all the way to the afterlife if I don’t at least try.

No one is coming for me, and that’s all right. While the Ripley boy is drowned under the sea of his brothers’ tears, lost in the swarm of friends and well-wishers, I can have these last few golden moments of peace with Brooke, my eyes raking frantically over her face as I try to memorize each freckle and curl. She hasn’t asked questions, which is odd for her. I suppose I should be thankful – I wouldn’t know what to tell her if she did ask. We sit in rare silence for the longest time, the two of us, only broken when I wrap my arms around her and bury my face in her hair, breathing in the smell of baby powder and sea wind that will get me through the days to come. “Mama loves you, Brookie. So much.”

The door creaks open, and panic shoves an icy blade into my chest. This is it, it’s time to go, they’ve come to take Brooke away and I’ll never see her again and oh god no please no not my baby please – My breath hitches in my chest, arms locking around my little girl in a steel embrace. They’ll take her, I know they will, but I’ll fight like a tiger, I’ll claw and kick and scream until they knock me out and toss me on the train to Hell. The least I can do is make a few of them bleed for what they’ve done do us, what they’ve done to Brooke. I scramble up from the couch, ready to make a run for it, to barge right out the door past –

“Jörge?”

Was it only a few hours ago that the Libertine boy wished me luck as I pawned off a bag of old clothes like I’ve done on countless other days? Was it only days ago that he knelt down to give Brooke a piece of candy when we passed on the street, only weeks ago that he’d offered to babysit if I had to take an extra shift, only a year ago when I’d walked in the shop for the first time and he’d told me that my daughter was cute and asked if he could help me with anything? All of that seems entire infinities away, the world outside the Justice Building a bygone era. He looks sorry for me. I hate it. I’m not the one people should feel sorry for.

Brooke will grow up with no parents, an orphan thrown in with other orphans in a creaky old building that has never known the meaning of love or warmth. Something about that thought only seems more hateful as I remember Jörge and his candy, Mrs. Libertine’s smile as I traded old clothes for new, how despite losing two sisters they’re still a family. Brooke Rells will never know what a family is.

Something. A spark. A preposterous, outlandish, horrible thought. The sign out front of Libertine’s Pawn Shop says it all. We take anything. No questions asked.

“Just the man I wanted to see,” I offer Jörge a sad almost-smile, folding myself back onto the couch. “I need to pawn something before I go.”

i'm still an asshole playing with candles
blowing out wishes, blowing out dreams
just sitting here and trying to decipher
what's written in braille upon my skin
oh yeah, on this skin