leaves fall // open

The world seems to sound a sigh of relief as the temperature drops and the scorching summer heat slowly subsides. Even in the darkened night, I could see the trees limbs rocking softly back and forth to the rhythm of the southern wind. A symphony of the crickets chirping and bullfrogs croaking into the silence while the gleam of the flickering stars above made a series of spotlights created an orchestra production more grand than any Capitol made instrument could have produced.

The new found coldness in the air felt refreshing against my skin. A day in the still intense heat of the day with the blaze of the sun falling upon my neck still took a toll on my aching body. There was a patch of heat located on the back of my neck, no doubt a sunburn from the day of work. It took so much mental focus to concentrate away from the consistent pain of my damp shirt rubbing against my skin with every step I took. My body felt like a radiator – the only thing cooling my external surface off being the droplets of condensed sweat covering my face and the cooling air of the nocturnal environment. I could hear myself breathing heavily with every step, inhaling and exhaling in turn as I moved each of my feet. I finally became conscious of my volume as the symphony around me seemed to fade into nonexistence, the only sounds of life echoing from the distance.

My mind was focusing on that small bed where I would lay my head tonight; The small blanket conducting my body’s radiating heat. What else was there to worry about? The Capitol pulled the sinister Quell twist of focusing on the young children of Panem this year. As terrible as it sounds, I’m glad. I escaped the Games once again, finally being able to relax without worrying about leaving the District with so much left undone. Without me, my father would no doubt become one of the many District 11 citizens who lay in the streets with no purpose left in life but to simply exist – this I know for sure. The only cynical part in the situation are the twenty-four adolescents who will never be able to comfortable rest their heads on their pillows safely at home. Twenty three will fall, of course, but it will be quick and end. The victor, however, will be forced to cope with the nightmare of the Games forever.

Luckily, as sadistically cynical as it sounds, this isn’t my problem. The trek from the orchard fields and my minuscule homestead is divided by a lightly wooded area in the District. It was easier to follow a small, nature-made trail between the thickened roots of the fauna than to walk the outskirts of the forestry. My feet seemed to consciously know the path, allowing my mind to momentarily take a break from reality – just for one moment. The only things that truly bring be back to Earth mentally is whenever my head runs into a low-hanging branch or collides with a spider web. I feel hulking stumbling through the trees at night – especially when I collide with the branches.

There were small slivers of moonlight gleaming through the canopy of the treetops. It did two things at once – it revealed and it concealed. I could see basic objects such as the outline of roots or the reddened dirt on the ground while concealing the creatures of the night and berries that could be seen during daytime hours. Suddenly, something caught my eye – it was a yellow movement. My eyes open alertly then quickly squint in focus, trying to see what it was. In truth, it is probably a orchid of some sort that was caught in the revealing light of the moon between the canopy. The only doubt I had, though, was it was kind of… moving?

Suddenly, something grabbed me. It gripped me tightly around the front of my foot while I was absent-mindedly focusing on the hint of yellow hue in the relative distance. I felt my body shift momentum forward, my balance being thrown off. There was no saving this destined fall – the only thing I could do was to try to throw up my hands before I hit the cold, hard ground. That may have been the only success in my tumble. I felt my side slam into the earth, while the upper extremities of my anatomy being hoisted up by my hands. The impact between my callus-covered hands and the dirt struck a light pain from the spot of contact, though it may have just been the shock that had pained me. The culprit of my tumble was a root that was floating just above the ground as it ventured from the center of the tree. The space was just big enough for my foot to get caught and just big enough for my dignity to fall to the ground with me.

I feel foolish as my tender face rests upon the freezing earth. The pain in my body is absent in comparison to the pain in my ego. My mind and body lay in an earthly limbo – not wanting to stir from my accidental resting place. A sudden surge of energy rocks my body into kinetics, my hands finding the earth that had attacked me to stabilize myself. Once I found myself in a sitting position, I couldn’t help but let a small snicker escape my lips.

I wiped a clump of reddened dirt from my forehead, only slightly buffering the original debris. It wasn’t as if I had been completely clean to begin with, but the addition of dust and nightly dew seemed to stain my body worse than the laborious hours in the fields had. My knees, unfortunately, had taken the grunt of the discoloration from the fall. A patch of auburn was smeared across a khaki pant, covering a few other stains as it stretched across my kneecaps. The idea that I had fallen after traversing the forestry such a myriad amount of times infuriated me, but it could have been worse. The only witness to my own absent-minded unawareness was myself. No one else had seen my tumble into the autumn leaves that stifled the bullfrog moans for just a moment.

Or at least that’s what I had believed. Once I had gotten myself to my knees, a chatter slowly began to refill the forest. Once the fall had alarmed animals, it had seemed that they instantly became scared and silenced their behavior. Even the trees themselves seemed to cease rocking benevolently to the whispers of the wind for just one moment. Close to me, however, a new volume of sound seemed to pierce the night once again – the rustling of leaves. It wasn’t an innocent shuffling of nature’s golden debris, no. This was the rustling of something caught off guard by my impact with the earth. My fine-tuned ears instantly attempted to locate the general area of the source of noise while my eyes scanned the proximities. It could have been an opossum slipping from a tree limb as it slipped into slumber, or another creature scuring away from a bigger predator.

The shadows of the night seemed to cascade a blanket of hiding for the mysterious being. My eyes can’t adjust to the darkness through the etches of light seeping through the canopy of the trees. The ground, itself, has patches of rich reds and luxurious yellow oak leaves clumped around the bases of the trees. Suddenly, I have an epiphany; if this mysterious deer, peacekeeper, opossum, run-away, murderer, witch – whatever the case may be – had truly fled the scene, there would be an echo of footsteps and a fading noise of crunching leaves. There had only been the rustling of leaves, and a still silence. Whatever it was, it was still here. Whatever or whoever this thing was, it was intelligent, that’s for sure. My eyes began to search for a new target among the dead leaves and thick roots around the ground. A large shadow or some sign of an outside influence. My eye, once again, catches a yellow hue in the moonlight.

The yellow hue before? Was it the same patch of coloration that I had spotted before I tumbled or had it moved? No, it is silly to even begin to believe that fauna can uproot itself whenever it is aroused by external noises… But what if it wasn’t a flower? My brain is slowly piecing together the clues I have taken from the scene and registering the idea that someone is standing a few meters away from me. I feel as if we are examining one another, studying what the other will do before we react. I feel an intensity with this stalemate, but my eyes continue to scathe the surrounding yellow. Before I know it, I feel like I can see a shadowed clump by the trees that form the shape of a human being.

Years before this, my father always taught me that you make yourself look bigger to scare off creatures that dared venture through the fences around District 11. Even to this day, I feel like this little tidbit of advice has always helped me out in school – I was never the kid that got picked on because I just pretended to be bigger and badder than the other primary educated children in my class. This is it. I take a breath into my lungs, puffing my chest out much more than it already was. I try to stand up taller to make myself look bigger, my posture almost perfect. As I exhale, I try to keep my body size looking just as fierce as it was. If this thing is malevolent and wants trouble, I’ll give it trouble.

All of a sudden, my mouth opens and I say, “W-w-w-who’s there?” It was more of a croak, really. My words were lost in translation from my brain, and my speech immediately made me feel weak and vulnerable. My tongue couldn’t find a way to begin my aggressive assault on the hidden predator, nor could it make use of the syllable I first mumbled. I basically just aggressively mumbled at someone. I feel completely weak as my posture seems to subside back to a relaxed, yet still attentive, state. I had to say something else besides a scared whimper. “I know you’re there, you. Come out here.” Was this stupid of me to challenge this unknown being? For all I know, it could be a convict from who knows where for who knows what. I could have just signed my rights way at life with that one sentence. I stand attentively, however, and wait.

My questions and my demands are only answered by the taunting silence of the night. It would seem that even the distant roars of the cricket’s lullaby has also escaped me. The feeling of isolation and loneliness began to set in as I stood independently in the silent world. Did I just imagine the flash of yellow hue motioning in the distance earlier? I could have sworn this hue had begun a kinetic motion followed by a locational change. Perhaps it really was just a wild orchid growing in the wasteland forests of District 11. Maybe my eyes had become biologically mischievous and created a pigment of color I was unable to identify with my brain.

All of a sudden, something else catches my attention – a blurred, spinning motion meters away from my exact location. I could only see glimpses of it, seeing as how the night cascaded a veil of mystery around the object. Another noise seemed to break the sound barrier around me at the exact moment the object reached its destination. Once the object had made contact with whatever it had made contact with – creating a distinctive noise of nature unnaturally being broken by an external force. Nothing had stepped on the little oak twig, or else I would have seen a shadow of some kind. Nothing had fallen from the canopy of the treetops and crashed onto the earth. Something, therefore, must be toying with me.

I’m left with two options here. I could either take a moment and separate myself from the situation and leave everything here – but I couldn’t. Curiosity was slowly rocking my brain into a subtle frustration. If I couldn’t scare whatever it was, I would have to ease it out with compassion or caring or some other form. I cross my arms over my chest in an intertwined manner, taking a small, quieted breath in. Here goes nothing…

”Hey, look…” I begin, sincerity announcing itself with every syllable that rolls from my tongue. ”There’s nothing to be on guard for. I’m not going to hurt you…” Did he really believe that there was nothing to be on guard for? What if he had the roles reversed in his mind, the real meaning of what was happening not translating correctly to my brain. What if I was the one in danger? What if I was luring out and relaxing a natural predator who’s only objective as of right now was to cause harm to me.

It appeared that we were at a stalemate. The two of the beings, hidden in the cloaking darkness of District 11’s night sky, were untrusting to one another. Why wouldn’t they be? The thought had run through my mind that the individual I was questioning pointlessly had been a Peacekeeper once I had first seen the flicker of yellow colorization, but that thought was far from my mind now. A real Peacekeeper would have stood his or her ground and questioned me, would have interrogated my reasons for straying from the winding road that led to my house. They would most likely have armed weapons – much more than what I had currently possessed. They would have stood their ground just as I had.

That explains it. My mind finally interlocks with the idea; What if this person thought I was a Peacekeeper? I was big enough, sure, and my clumsy acrobatics across the forestry floor was very Capitalistic, to say the least. I think of something to say, trying to explain how I am not a Peacekeeper for the District, but a thought instantly appears. What if this fake identity is the only thing protecting me from him or her? It could be a wanted murderer, running from outlying districts and hiding out in lightly wooded areas. My fake persona as a Peacekeeper was probably terrifying the convict – it was protecting me from whatever this thing was. I was in a personal war with myself, both sides of my brain causing a civil war banging within my skull. To reveal myself, or to hide myself in plain sight?

I don’t know whether I feel a moment of insanity or if I figured out a plan finally. All I do know is, I throw my hands up in a surrenders’ fashion. “I’m not… I mean, I’m really…” My words, once again, become a jumbled mess trapped within my mouth. I was trying to fashion a sentence that was vague enough so no one could even decipher my true meaning concerning the criminal-judicial system or Peacekeepers. I always have a tender feeling on my back whenever I feel like talking about the Capital. The feeling that someone is standing inches away from your being, a presence that forebears itself upon someone. My hair prickles and I feel a strange pit in my stomach every time one of these subject comes up; It’s as if the Capitol is always watching. Always watching and always vigilant of its Districts.

I could never openly disagree with the Capitol, no matter how much I disdained them. The act of treason had an obvious outcome, and there have been too many public punishments in the District Square to me to mock the Capitol. My mind, however, begins to return to the situation at hand. My brain seems to scroll through multiple statements that I COULD say: ”I’m not dangerous to you. I’m not a Peacekeeper. You can come out now, I promise I won’t hurt you.” However, my brain translates those thoughts into two words.

”I’m Evan.”