LOGAN PERRI {DISTRICT 10}

Dear Mother,

[/i]

If we are flowers, then I am the dandelion.[/i] If we are the sky, then I am a cloud.[/i] If we are Lucky Charms, then I'm the oats, because let's be honest here; that cereal is nothing[/i] without the marshmallows. It has been two months, thirteen days, four hours, and approximately twenty-one minutes since I last took regards to the clock in our kitchen—you knew I'd be counting—and everything I'd held true in that moment has changed. [/i]Although I'm still living here in this very dull District Ten, you couldn't easily make the opposite argument. I'm eighteen years old now; often people actually address me as a man rather than a boy. Surely, we're on the other side of the district at your sister Elsa's farm, where every penny we find on the streets is a rainbow upon Harvey's face[/i]—okay, maybe just when Juno's the one bringing it, but oh trust me, Mother, you wouldn't like Aunt Elsa's son.[/i] Even then, that's not the only thing that's changed.

When you lose something, you start to realize just how much you've lost yourself. [/i]I wish, I so desperately wish, I could remember all of the simple things my mind seemed to skip over when I was so lost in everything else. [/i]Your face is fading in my memory, your voice is so indistinct beneath the millions of words that have dictated my life, and I can't even smell your perfume anymore. It's a gradual process, really[/i]—losing something; you lose so much more than you could have ever thought, even when the tears are pouring down your face and you think that there's nowhere else for you to go. That's only the beginning. [/i]However, there's one thing I haven't lost memory of yet, and that is the rhythm of your footsteps. [/i]You wore different shoes every day, yet it didn't matter, because I always knew. Each step was always a bit off beat, right foot being faster than the left foot. Still, your left foot was always louder—did you ever notice? I liked it.[/i] I liked how they were so subtly different from the rest of the world's, and now, every time I hear footsteps, I want to scream because they're never yours.[/i] I've gotten good at recognizing others'—too good, really—because I'm always waiting for the moment when the right foot is a millisecond faster than the left. [/i]

Now, Mother, I have something to confess, something that's been eating me away for what has seemed like eternities. [/i]That night when the flames found you, I was lying in my bed, long before it happened when I heard Juno screaming, “Fire!” louder than the anthem they play at the reaping every year. We were all stumbling out of bed after that; you were too, and why the rest of us made it out while you two never did is a situation of pure luck, I suppose. In some other universe, luck must be a happy thing,[/i] but in this world where children are reaped to fight to the death, luck will be forever bitter. [/i]Anyways, I knew it the moment my feet were moving, but I didn't want to think about it; I didn't want to have to face the horror of my actions. We all waited for you, drowning in hope and fear and pure horror all at once. [/i]It was the first and last moment since your deaths that I ever felt so close to them, because after that moment, things fell in all different directions. We didn't just lose hope. We lost so much more.[/i]

I did it, Mother.[/i] I left the stove on and I forgot to turn it off and because of that mistake, our lives will never be the same again and your life is nonexistent. You used to tell me, “Oh, it's okay, everyone makes mistakes,” every time I overreacted about my grades or got hung up over something I said, but this, this is a mistake that isn't worth learning from. [/i]Why must tragedies stem from accidents? And why must I now carry the burden of it all? Sure, everyone makes mistakes, but I can be positive that no one I've ever spoken to in my life has made this mistake. [/i]

No matter what my past has equated to, I promise I will not let you and Dad's deaths equate to nothing. [/i]My regret and my sorrow have deeper origins than the ocean's basement. Sometimes, I just want to curl up and cry, but if I know you,--and I do--that's the last thing you would want me doing.[/i] I've been through everything I can to protect the others. I've taped the corners of the tables so that they won't hurt themselves, I've attempted to devise a sort of alarm system, which didn't quite work at first, but it's getting there,[/i] and I've made sure that all lighters and matches are locked away safely. I keep tabs on where everyone's at before school, after school, and then at seven o'clock at the very least.[/i] I've traced out maps of where they should go and where they should never go and at one point, they shouldn't wander any father. Yet I wish there was just some way I could trace out a solution that would actually get them to listen.[/i]

I'm so scared. If you just saw what this loss has done to them—what I've done to them[/i]—you'd understand. Mal, I'm so concerned about her. She thinks she's hiding them, [/i]but those marks upon her arms aren't from fieldwork. Then, you should see how skinny Sloane has gotten! Juno is holding up, yet just seeing her and Harvey and their happy faces doesn't seem right. [/i]Josie's just becoming more and more distant. I feel like I don't even know her anymore,[/i] and every time I try to, she just starts talking to her imaginary friend again. Isn't anyone else concerned about that? She's thirteen now, not three! [/i]And then there's Lucas. I wish I could say that I'm happy about where he'll be in ten years from now, but seeing as the many choices--or lack thereof--he's making now, I can already foresee disaster.[/i]

It's a mess, Mother, an absolute mess! [/i]It's as though I have a string attached to me, where each step is merely a new knot in this tangled disaster. As you know, my room—or at least my portion of it—is positively spotless, yet every time I open that creaking door and take a few steps along the raucous floorboards, I feel as though I'm pulling myself through a swamp. [/i]This desk and this chair, which has uneven legs that continue to teeter below me don't feel right at all.

I'm so afraid for my siblings. The farm is so calm and relaxed, so away from the rest of society, yet I can just feel the tension beneath it all. [/i]However, I'm even more afraid of never receiving the love from my siblings that I try to give to them. One day, they might figure out what I've done and then what? I can't even imagine.[/i] Sometimes, Josie looks at me--no, she glares at me--and I wonder if she knows. [/i]I wish there was some way I could tell them without making the fire any bigger. Besides, the fire is big enough.[/i] It's turned me into this serious, controlling, concerned person, but Mother, I can't stop.[/i] They all need help, in their own special way, and I'm trying so hard to give it to them, yet every time I do, I'm pushed away. [/i]I can't let any of this go any further, but I don't know how to stop it. Harvey's got his eyes on Juno so much he doesn't even notice everything else around him, and honestly, Aunt Elsa couldn't care less.[/i] Someone needs to put things back in order, and right now, that person is me. Yet, even then, nothing is working. [/i]So what do I do? Give up? After everything, how can I?

I so rarely see Lucas's face. He's always off with a fit about something. I wish I could talk to him more; I think we have more in common than he can see.[/i] We're like apples: I'm a Golden Delicious and he's a Granny Smith, but no matter what color we are on the outside, we both have the same core. [/i]Of course, Lucas is obviously much more, well, independent? driven? okay, who are we kidding here? I have everything Lucas has. he's just a little less...afraid. [/i]Yes, that's it. He's fearless, really, and despite some of his seemingly “off” qualities, I really do put all of my respect in him for that--and quite a bit of jealousy too, [/i]but let's not talk about that. I only like this place a little more than he does, and knowing just how destructive he's been lately, I think we can agree that we have at least something to share.

It's when I'm writing letters like these, or lying in bed, attempting to ignore the rock-hard mattress below me which will someday cause me death by fatigue, when I remember who I used to be. [/i]I look at Harvey and I think about how if you eliminate the pitchfork, or whatever it is they call those darn farm tools, the overalls, and for goodness' sake, that sickly accent of his,[/i] that would be me, in some other far away universe where cows don't exist. I feel so different now.[/i] I've lost the humor and the sarcasm that used to resonate from my voice. Guilt has pushed it away. I even look[/i] different now. My light blond hair is still the same, my blue eyes the same shade of sky as before; however, my hands are callused,[/i] fieldwork having transformed them. My face looks a bit different too, older maybe. I don't usually recognize it in the mirror all too well. [/i]I'm still the same tall boy I've always been with the same broad shoulders and the long arms, but I'm really not.[/i]

Remember when I used to be the little boy that seemed so big? [/i]Remember when I'd start a game of pirates and then Sloane would immediately[/i] drop his toy truck and play along, when I helped Josie with her homework, when Lucas and I insisted [/i]we sit next to each other every day of our elementary school lives? Do you remember the time we were playing hide-and-seek in the backyard and Mal fell through that little window in the ground that goes to the basement? Do you remember how Juno and I so cleverly found a way[/i] to get her back up? Does it all equate to nothing?[/i] I used to be a leader and I guess I didn't think much of it then, but just like I wish I could have paid attention to those simple details that defined you, I wish I could have given more respect to what defined me.[/i] I miss having to set a good example for my siblings and I hate having to watch Harvey do it instead. Juno and I used to be so close, and now it seems as though together, she and Harvey have built a wall keeping me out.[/i]

I'm so sorry, Mother. Tell Dad I'm sorry too. I cried for nights on end, [/i]thinking that maybe you could have possibly lived and made it out, and that you'd come knocking on the door someday. Someday.[/i] When that idea was less than hopeless, I thought that maybe I didn't cause the fire. Maybe it really was just a frayed electrical cord, as became our explanation for the cause. However, no matter how many excuses I instill on the rest of the world, I know that it was me, [/i]and I am deeply sorry for it.

I hope that you don't forgive me, because that means you're happy I did it, and if you're happy you're dead we've got a problem here. [/i]

You had the best humor, Mom.[/i]

I miss it.[/i]


The young man quickly read through his letter once, and then folded it ever so carefully, [/i]slipping it into the envelope. He sealed it and wrote his mother's name on the back before kneeling on the ground before him, his hand gradually drawing nearer to the flame. [/i]He let go of the letter and it fell into the fire. A couple of sparks whispered their thank-you's[/i] as everything became one big sea of orange.

Slowly, and then rapidly, the envelope began to disappear. He could hear her voice in the cackling of the sparks, [/i]he could see her brown eyes in the darkened wood, and he could even smell her perfume, rising from the flames.[/i] Logan smiled at the memories so long forgotten. Then, he waited, watching the flames as its great arms caressed the words that were once his. He could only hope that they were the arms of his mother.[/i]

A moment of silence and suddenly the flames danced in the rhythm of her footsteps. [/i] Logan smiled. She heard.


codeword
odair[/color]
[/size][/blockquote][/justify]