mandy weils / fin

The two men sat at the counter, eyes fixated on the screens spread before them. Nearly twenty on one wall, equipped with zoom buttons and large speakers. They had already received countless applicants, each eager to star on live television... without having to risk their lives. Both of them straightened as the last in line entered, carefully positioning herself on the chair, her butt on the edge, her muscles tensed as if ready to leave at a moment's notice. Glancing down at the files distributed to them, they retrieved the one labeled, "WEILS, Mandy." Clearing his throat, the man on the left bent the microphone toward his mouth, merely glancing down at the script this time. He had done this many times. "Alright sweetie, tell us about yourself."

Glancing around the room nervously, she searched for the source of the noise, not used to speakers or intercoms. "Uh, I'm uh, from District Eight. I... have black hair?" Nervously, her hands went up to her brow, where her rather long bangs nearly covered her left eye. It was a stringy sort, and it looked in desperate need of a wash. The two men sneered as they zoomed in, their eyes greedily taking her in. They noted the greasy quality of it, how it seemed she had applied a thick coat of some sort of hair product before she had come in. They knew this was a far-fetched theory. There weren't such luxuries in the districts. The Capitol had made sure of it.

The men decided to have a little fun with this one. It had been a long, agonizing day full of boring childhoods and dreary faces. "What... color are your eyes?" They snorted, her face betraying how confused she was. The woman out front hadn't said anything about giving an analysis of her body during the interview. "Well, they're blue, I think. Some people have said they look scary, I guess because of the dark marks under them or something? I'm not really sure..." The men zoomed even farther, curious as to what the girl was talking about. Sure enough, several purple bags colored the pale skin, giving her an air of exhaustion. Closer still, they saw the true reason she was deemed frightening. There was a haunted look in her eyes, one that told of a disturbing past, of things seen that shouldn't have. The men shook their heads, continuing.

"Would you mind standing for us?" Brows furrowed, she stood, reluctantly, and put her arms up. Pushing the microphone away, the man on the left turned to the man on the right, cupping his mouth so as not to let the young lady hear. Take a look at her. She's skinny... but not like those others who look half-starved. They both shuddered, knowing full well what he was talking about. To push the dog-ishness of it all to the max, the man on the right allowed his eyes to travel slowly down, lingering on her chest. "Pretty nice breasts, eh?" The two shared a chuckle, returning the microphone, and speaking to her once again. "Thank you, you may sit. Let's move on to phase two, shall we?"

Tell me all that you've thrown away
Find out games you don't wanna play
You are the only one that needs to know

"So what do you like to do, back in District Eight?" She thought for a moment, tapping her chin with her pointer finger. She wanted to remain honest, but didn't want to put herself in a bad position with them. Did she want to sound crazy, to better the ratings? Or did she want to sound normal and boring, so they'd think she'd just be another player? "Well, I found an old chess set buried in my basement... I've gotten pretty good at it, and I play it every chance I get." Figuring this wouldn't quite satiate their curiosity, she decided to go on with her little obsessions. "I like playing with my daughter's baby dolls. Sometimes I'll take them from her and hide them in my room so she won't find them, and then I take them out when she's asleep and play with them." Thinking a moment, she realized how crazy she must have sounded. "Not that I'm a horrible person or anything, I just love playing with them. They remind me of that childhood. The one I never had. Which is why I like playing with a bouncy ball and that chess set." She sighed, almost wistfully, twitching uncomfortable in her seat.

The two men were speachless, completely taken aback. "Um... okay. Well do you have many friends?" The girl chuckled, pushing her hair back. "I don't have many. At all. I don't think I have a social issue or anything. I just think I push people away with my attitude or something. I can get snippy sometimes. My mother called me evil one time. But I don't think I am. I admit, I can sometimes be mean, but not so bad that you can call me evil..."

"So what do you call yourself?"

She thought a moment, deciding to tell the truth... but what was the truth? "Well, I think I'm a person whose made some very bad mistakes. And I think I've payed for them. People like to live in the past, like my mother. I, however, like to keep on chugging, into the future!" The girl was keeping secrets. She didn't tell the television producers just how screwed she was. Like how she sometimes had conversations with the dolls, during tea or lunch, when her daughter was down for a nap. Or how sometimes they talked back.

"Well then. Speaking of the past, I think it's time to move onto our final stage. Get ready, Mandy!"

"Alright Ms. Weils, tell us about your childhood, hm?"

The teenager sighed, thinking this answer to be the easiest. She remembered her past as if it were yesterday, over ten journals over just the span of ten years in that home of hers to prove it. But how much was too much? She had gone through quite a lot, after all, and blurting every single thing that had occurred might dissuade the two producers from choosing her.

"Well... my mother and father were a little eccentric, the neighbors almost never talked to us. Believe it or not, my father worked for the people who collected the bodies. He would search the bodies for anything of value and steal it. That's how I got my toys, usually. From the kids who starved or passed from diseases. And my mother... don't even get me started about that bat-shit crazy-ass woman." She shook her head, rolling her eyes at the ceiling. "After a long time sitting there by her bed on her knee praying, she'd look over at me and claim I was the child of the Devil. She said I didn't know who my pa was, that he was a different man than who I was accustomed to." She shook her head again, as if to persuade herself it was nonsense.

Again, she left out a few prudent details. How her father would sometimes knock her mother to the ground and kick her in the face. How, instead of the muffled moans and groans the other kids at school would claim to hear, she heard yelps of pain and hollers of protest. One time, she had walked into her parent's room to find a mirror shattered and a leg on her vanity broken, several precious pieces of jewelry (acquired from countless generations of careful care) strewn across the floor, in ruins. She had seen her mother cry. But never, never, had he put a hand on his daughter. He would occasionally yell at her too loud, or put his fist up as if he were resisting a strong urge to hit her, but he never resorted to physical violence.

Just with her mother.

When old enough to move out, Mandy had ran into an old friend at the local general shop. He told her how he was doing, she told her how she was doing, which eventually led to them hooking up in the grungy bedroom of her new home. A month later, her pregnancy test turned out positive. Her childhood bestie was nowhere to be found.

Struggling with pregnancy, she had searched for him a long while, turning up empty handed each time. Several months still, he turned up dead. Mandy had gone through many procedures with the authorities. Fingerprint scanning, alibi's, the whole nine yards. She was innocent. She had lived alone, with her ever growing daughter.

But no, she didn't explain this to the producers. They'd think she was crazy. Would they report her? The Capitol was quite unpredictable. Instead, she closed her mouth, and smiled sweetly. "May I go now?"

"Yes you may. Thank you for your time, Ms. Weils."


odair

dirty little secret - all american rejects
daniele donato
contestant in big brother plot