Chana Sev, District 11 [Done]
Aug 26, 2012 22:41:47 GMT -5
Post by cyrus on Aug 26, 2012 22:41:47 GMT -5
[/color]::Chana Sev::17::District 11::“Action is greater than inaction. Perform therefore thy task in life. Even the life of the body could not be if there were no action.”
::Appearance::
Too skinny.[/color] My mother clucks her tongue when she looks at me. She is a shapely woman, with curves that lead down her short and squat body. The years have been kind to her, her face with wrinkles few and smile bright, she’s everything I hope to be when I’m her age. But I am not my mother, nor am I my father. For my sister is the one that took their features, short and round as she is, I come from a different place. My limbs are long and my body willowy. The baby fat that shows on my sister is not present on me—even if we eat the same—I am shooting up toward the sky like the stalks of corn behind our little house. My smile may be the only thing that I got from either of them, it is as wide and bright as ever, even in the midst of hard.
My hair hangs down past my shoulders, though usually I have it covered. Being out in the fields and the hot sun, tending to the crops, it’s better to have it tied tight atop my head. Kisaan says it looks wonderful all laid out, the blackness of it overflowing when I let it hang down. He even has invented a little sign for it, where he puts his hands by the sides of his head and flicks his fingers as he brings them down. I laugh because I do little with it… I just let it grow and sometimes Mama will cut it… but who has time for vanity in the fields? Who has time when we are all pushing to collect as much as possible, to make sure that we make ends meet?
I like to say that I’m stronger than a lot of the others, if only because I have been wrestling with my cousins since I was a girl. Kisaan is stronger and bigger than me, but up until a few years ago we would wrestle and I could find a way to pin him. It’s more about grace than it is about strength. He would laugh about it, when he grew so much taller than me, and started to grow wider too. Chana, you are going to get crushed like a little flower…[/color] He’d move his hands and pretend to pluck one from the ground, smashing it to pieces. And I would laugh at him and tap his nose because I could easily bring him down on the ground. I have firm roots, and I am not easily taken.
::Personality::
I’ve always been the forceful one. The one that has a lot to say but may not say it in… well, the manner that I’m supposed to. They used to forgive me for it, being young and silly. But my father now will shake his hand and give me a yell—You cannot act without thinking[/color] —and my mother agrees with him. They see me as hot-headed, that the sun has gone to my brain sometimes and that I say things that could get me into trouble. It’s just that I feel as though I have a right to speak my mind, that I should be able to tell people how I feel and not hide around corners of words. Sure there is the threat of saying too much, but I am learning not to.
I was always in the shadow of my sister. We were competitive as children, and I was always the best physical. I was brighter, boys would whisper to me, say that my smile spoke to them. But then I started opening my mouth, speaking what I felt about Panem, about how they treated each other. I would tell them how things could be better arranged for all of us, for us to be happier and more productive. And then I was too talkative, I was… I was a whiner, it was the word that even Kisaan would call to me in jest. He would squeeze his fist twice when we would argue and it would set me off even more—that this was the symbol to say stop whining, even he would say it to me.
I just can’t help that I don’t like to hide anything. I don’t like for people to not know how I’m feeling—it’s better for me to keep it at the surface than to tuck it away. I guess I poke and pry, too, trying to figure out how other people are feeling. But I’m so used to speaking for other people… I’m so used to helping Kisaan, since he can’t always talk for himself… and for me helping out with the little ones at his house. It’s hard enough for me to hold it back after all this time. And why would I want to? I get uncomfortable with awkward silences… I prefer action, I prefer a life that has no silence.
::History::
My mother, Kela, had me just two summers after my sister had been born. I was a colicky baby. I would scream and cry out all the time, she said that I never once seemed to settle. I ate so much they thought that they would have to starve themselves if they wanted to see me grow big and strong. And yet after my second year I settled, and our happy little home seemed more complete than ever. We have a small house, one that was better for three than four, but my sister Mewa and I learned to share… or at least, how to stay within our own territories.
Mewa always tried to push me to prove that she was the better of the two. We measured one another in height—not fair, seeing as she was older—to see about the race for who was growing. We would race to the river and back to see who was faster. We would see who collected the most in our time out in the fields. When we grew older it shifted to seeing who could get the most boys to eye us… as though this was so competition that carried any merit. For a while my sister would win these silly contests, and she would be happy. But when I came of reaping age, my whole world seemed to shift. She grew heavy and started to look squat like my mother and father. I grew tall and thin… the boys took notice of me, and she was relegated to watching but never really being seen.
My mother chided me once, not long ago… she said that Mewa needs the approval… she is not beautiful like you, Chana…[/color] It shocked me to hear what she had to say about her own daughter. But I know that all mothers want what is best for us. She knew that Mewa was not the traditional beauty, and that life was hard enough for her to constantly battle with her sister and lose. And so I retreated some… I said less to the boys, I stopped challenging her to things. I spent much more time with Kisaan and she started to bloom. She found a boy in the fields named Masoor and it wasn’t long before the two of them had moved into a little house together just up the way.
I have always made much of my time with Kisaan. Ever since I found him as a child, on that little log in front of our houses, we’ve been nearly inseparable. He can’t hear—he had an accident when he was a little kid—and it devastated his family. He works twice as hard as anyone in the district, if only because he knows that they judge him for what he cannot do. So I took to speaking for him… for saying what he couldn’t; I learned how I could help him understand what others meant and vice versa. It’s a duty I have, now, to make sure that he is never left behind. Most of the people around here don’t have time for such things… they think he should’ve been thrown to the wolves long ago. It’s hard enough scraping by without having to worry about a boy like Kisaan. But he is too good to be forgotten… and I would never let him face this world alone.
People ask me, now that we’re getting older, what will I do? Have I thought about boys that I could marry? Have I thought of moving out of the little house and making a family of my own? But this talk is too much for me… too… focused on the future. I like to rant about what’s wrong with our district, I like to yell and cleanse myself of what I can’t stand. I don’t think any of the boys will ever want me while I’m this way. I’m only glad I have a friend in Kisaan, my cousin, who can’t hear everything I have to say… if I could find just one boy half the man Kisaan is, then maybe I would settle down.
codeword: Odair
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