All is difficult before it is easy - [ Ella ]

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Luke Davis
18
Male
District Eight
Biography

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All is difficult before it is easy

I inhale the deepness of the district. There are two smells that cross me left to right - work and freedom. I can smell the factories moving ever so slightly towards completing their tasks, yet I can smell the trees shuffling off the smell of Panem's residents. I stand leaning on the fence outside my house, upon the small decking before the front door. Thankfully, I'm not cold. Before I left I put on my black jacket and gloves, and zipped it up tightly. I can feel my new haircut paying it's due, the cold air swirling through it as though it were blades of grass on a winter meadow. I smile to myself, because the thought of that meadow takes me away from all of the hard labor needed to get a decent wage in District Eight. I take in the view from my house. I can see the factory right up the street, which is dotted with a house here and there, and as you get closer to the factory the houses grow bigger, but you can tell more people live in them. They look like flats, or cramped apartment buildings but condensed into two stories almost. I don't envy them, my house is small and compact but it at least keeps itself clean without much care.

I push myself off of the brown wooden fence and it creaks a little as it usually does every day. My feet take me down the street and into the life of District Eight; work. I walk down the dusty road until it becomes pavement and more and more industrious as the steps go on. I see people I know, and people I don't - few stop and wave. It is all a big game of 'get on with your life', and I have to play it. The breeze beats me to the factory, and for once I do not envy it's freedom of movement. It is the last place I want to go this morning.

Through the doors I go, and because I am one of the more senior workers, I am allowed to just walk right in and get to work after signing the sheet of paper required. I stand at the end of the unloading machine, ready to move the cloths from one conveyor belt to another. "Davis. Expect a young one to train today." A gruff voice tells me as I lower the heavy stack of cloth onto the belt. "Right." I say back at him, matching his tone with me. I don't like it when people are uninteresting or uninspiring, it really doesn't help the work ethic. I wait for the trainee, but carry on working as well.