irony in your sinews // Axel
Dec 18, 2013 1:51:35 GMT -5
Post by Nomi on Dec 18, 2013 1:51:35 GMT -5
[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 400px; background-color: #343434; padding:20px; border-top: 10px #166B5E solid; border-bottom: 10px #166B5E solid;] Noon Yi Another year, another Hunger Games. My brown eyes veer away from the television screen as the District 4 tribute met his end, and thousands across the Panem begin to cry. So close, so close, they would think. Unfortunately, close is never good enough. My mother cries, my little sister Thistle cries, but I know it’s not because a young boy died. It’s an honor lost to the District 10 victor. Their tears are cheap because they are accompanied by curses on the dead tributes’ names. I pull Thistle against my chest, and thankfully she complies. She stands at a height equal to my nose; she could resist but she doesn’t because despite her murderous rage, all she needs is my soothing voice. I mumble into her hair, “There’s always next year. You could be reaped, you know. Send a trident through the District 10’s.” Her face breaks into a wet smile. My sweet murderous sister would give anything to be twelve at that moment. Truthfully, I don’t mind. The addition of her name means that my odds decrease. Since that thought might ruin our rare moment of sisterly bonding, I say nothing. Thistle wouldn’t want to know if I’ve suddenly decided to be a proper Career. With the balance restored, Thistle shoves me away to bother Juniper by the candlelight. As if my mother could read my mind, she blocks the door. “Where do you think you’re going, Noon?” “By the harbor,” I answer nonchalantly, “I need to check the crab pot.” It’s a lie we both know well since I function by a strict schedule for my catches. Still she lets me go with Dad’s waterproof jacket and too-big rubber boots. She never really knows what to do with me anyway. As I step into the dusk, step by step farther from the oppression of four walls, I breathe. I love the salt in the air. I lick my dried, cracked lips. Please amend to: I love the salt of the sea on anything. I try not to think of what that District 4 boy felt in the arena, so far away. From deep jacket pockets I pull out two pieces of bread. They’re our district bread, with fins and little pretend scales, and green. It makes me feel better. I hope that the cold doesn’t last long. I’d like to see the fish awake again. Ahead I can see the glistening stretch of water, littered with little boats. Even though the cold is enough to make me want to sleep, I still run, the bread pressed against my palms. I need to feel the water against my skin but I don’t make it there. Instead I trip in those large rubber boots, body thrown into the sand as a yelp leaves my mouth. The scrapes on my knees – earned earlier that day after being shoved by older students – are filled with grit, and the bread escapes my hold and rolls away. I am kneeling, face-first into the sand, as if it might have been purposeful. My dark hair has fallen around my face like a curtain. Against the sand, for some reason, I begin to cry. My knees hurt. The bread has sand all over it. It’s too, too cold. A boy has died. I convince myself that I am crying for him, but that’s so much of a lie that I actually laugh. I’m incapable of that type of compassion. I’m crying for myself, for the end of one Hunger Games promises the beginning of another. |
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