District 11: Briar Rose Strekker

Briar is a thorny plant. A rose has thorns. Is that why I am Briar Rose? My parents call me Briar, all in all being a very gothic set of people. My cousins and uncles call me Rose, but I often correct them. To strangers my name is Briar Rose, but of the two I would naturally pick Briar to be called. I have grown up around morbid, gothic taste and have learned what to prefer. What is black to me but an endless abyss? What is darkness to someone who knows nothing but? What is silence to someone who has never heard sound? My childhood fairytales were of spiked barrels, monsters, and death. Not even the hunger games can bother me now. But though my imagination is on the morbid side, I am still like any Strekker child. I want friends. I am kind. I am friendly. I am extremely curius of the world around around me. I want to be free.

I enjoy talking to people. Well actually, I communicate palm to palm, signing on the hands rather than with. My mother and I are very close, maybe because we share the darkness. She tells me about sounds, which I eagerly soak up. My father though, he is deaf. We share it but he prefers not to be around me, though I know he loves me. I have a habit of chewing my tongue, and my mother often tells me to quit it. My friends are my cousins, as everyone else says I am weird.

Though I am weak and deafblind, I am still skilled in a few things. First of all, and in my opinion, my biggest success, is I can juggle five balls. I am not too clumsy with those! I enjoy reading, riddles, storytelling and another fantastic accomplishment thanks to my mother, I can play the piano. We have a very old one in our house my grandmother gave to us when she died.

>My parents are Elle Strekker-Delewe and Aro Delewe, and when I was born I recieved my mother's maiden name. I was born deaf, so my father decided with my mother that signing to me often would help me learnbetter, and it did, though I could not lip read. You can imagine what an awkward child I must have been, unable to understand most people and walking around in my strange clothes, with my strange blind mother. I was once told they complemented each other, my mother was my father's ears while he was her eyes. My mother insisted upon me learning the piano, and though I could not hear if I was getting the correct notes or not, I did rather well. I was as bright a child as any, but soon woe did find me. At the early age of five I caught trachoma and lost my sight. Immediatly my parents locked me indoors and allowed only my cousins to visit, and only they could take me anywhere.

I could still do many things, trust me, but my parents did not think so. They hid me for the first few years, struggling to teach me new things and always walking quietly around me. When I was seven, my cousin Aisling started visiting occasionally. She was four years older than I, though we did get along alright. Later on her sisters got old enough to come and see me, so I could count on them at least twice a week. And when I was twelve, they began taking me places other than the Reaping. I began to feel the world, the world outside of my cold and dusty home. I felt the orchards, the grass, the pavement, all over again I learned the warmth that was outdoors. No more closed windows and locked doors, I was free to be wherever I wanted. Whenever I had to go home, I would feel such disappointment, but knowing that my parents were waiting patiently to tell me another story made my life still blissful.

We did eventually work out a system of communication, but not until I was eight. My father decided since I could not see the signs, I could feel them. Does that make sense? They signed to my palms and I signed to theirs. I think I may even have started thinking that way, but only a little. I dream about the different feelings of being outdoors, the cold of inside, brushing my hands on a tree. Occasionally, colors will find their way into my dream. Places I saw before I went blind, the baker, my mother, a rose bush. But I will never hear sound. Not even, if it came to it, the boom of a canon.

At nine, I got a kitten. As my father said, she was mostly white, with colliding black and orange spots, especially on her face. She was the calmest kitten you would ever come across, and was content to sit on my lap and be rubbed for hours. At night, when I was moved to my bed, I would feel her rubbing my legs until I lied down and she could rest somewhere on me, my chest, my stomach, my neck. She would purr until I fell asleep, when no doubt I think she kept purring. I could not hear it, but I could feel the tiny movements. We were best friends, and I never needed another. I was content to sign into Fuzzy's side. Whenever I went outside, she would jump onto my shoulder or drop from there into my arms. There is no shaking my beautiful little cat, but that's no problem. She is my joy, and I will never lose her.