Tonight I'll Be Crooked | [Haleon+Uma]
Apr 2, 2014 18:23:29 GMT -5
Post by gamemaker kelsier on Apr 2, 2014 18:23:29 GMT -5
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Funerals have always been an easy thing to attend. You grow up with them in my neighborhood, someone dies almost weekly. It's just far more difficult when the funeral you're attending is one of a boy you've known for a few good years, who had a lot of fight in him, who had a girlfriend and a mom and dad that loved him. He was a good guy, fierce and loyal to the very end. The worst part is, I never told him goodbye, how proud I was of him. That's hard, knowing he's one less face I'll never be seeing again but for in games flashbacks on the television. His story will now be made a public display, a drama, or something. He's gone, but his memory won't ever be laid to rest because the Capitol won't give him back. By rights, we have his body but he still belongs to them. We all do, in the end I guess.
Too many strangers showed up to his funeral. Like most, he'd asked to be buried at sea. He was placed inside an old rowboat because he wouldn't have minded, and laid with the flowers that grew at the base of his tree house. Then he was dragged to sea by an old tugger, and released to the waves. We watched the boat and body disappear, watching until it was past the horizon. I remember that he believed the world had an edge. I hope he doesn't fall off. After that, we all dispersed, nothing left to say, unable to look at the parents, white faced and thin already from the loss of their other son last year. It really hits you, the unfairness of it all.
And you'd think with a father like Tom at home I wouldn't be the type to even touch a drink. However, I've always been the type of boy more interested in facing his fears than running for them. It isn't that I chase after alcohol, that I want to be drunk all the time until I forget myself, like Tom. It's more like I don't mind having a drink every now and then with the guys, more like tonight I feel like having one for my fallen friend. Sometimes we'd come here, just the two of us, to this bar out on the docks. It was because we both lived in this direction, him making his home on the water, me making my home in the place beyond these pines, in the guttermost part of the District. It was a halfway point.
Of course it has been months since then. The last time I saw him, he was standing on a platform, shit eating grin on his face, waving goodbye. I guess I'm happy, he went down fighting, doing what he loved. That's more than I can say for most of us, usually recipients of hunger pangs, cold, abuse and the like. Still, it's with a whistling air of melancholy that I make my way into the shadows of this particular bar, nestled at the crossroads of a canal. My black jacket is crisp at the edges, having not worn out it's press, my shoes shined, looking almost like new. My identification isn't checked at the door, the days of that are long passed. I'm not a kid anymore.
It's with an adult's intensity that I make my way through the already smoke filled and crowded room. Something is already happening on stage, I suspect it always is nowadays. With both of District Four's tributes dead, there is nothing much to celebrate so we have to make it ourselves. I catch the eye's of this particular club's owner, and he gives me a nod. Sometimes when I come across him, I almost feel like I should be bowing down to him, the air of regality he carries is almost overwhelming. He's a good enough guy though. Sometimes he'll come to us brawlers and he and I will wrestle each other down to the ground. I push my way to the bar front and wait patiently, hands splayed across the bench top.
I look for the bar man I'm used to, but he's not there. I have to remind myself that it's been at least a year since I came here. It makes sense that the bar will change every now and then. Instead there seems to be this younger man and I cannot tell who he is by the set of his shoulders, or if I should know him. I'm always careful about that, the District may be big but it's a small world, I wouldn't want to offend someone. I wait until he turns back around to make my order, "A beer please, on tap." I've never really gone for those fancy mixed drinks, and I stay the hell away from moonshine.
Too many strangers showed up to his funeral. Like most, he'd asked to be buried at sea. He was placed inside an old rowboat because he wouldn't have minded, and laid with the flowers that grew at the base of his tree house. Then he was dragged to sea by an old tugger, and released to the waves. We watched the boat and body disappear, watching until it was past the horizon. I remember that he believed the world had an edge. I hope he doesn't fall off. After that, we all dispersed, nothing left to say, unable to look at the parents, white faced and thin already from the loss of their other son last year. It really hits you, the unfairness of it all.
And you'd think with a father like Tom at home I wouldn't be the type to even touch a drink. However, I've always been the type of boy more interested in facing his fears than running for them. It isn't that I chase after alcohol, that I want to be drunk all the time until I forget myself, like Tom. It's more like I don't mind having a drink every now and then with the guys, more like tonight I feel like having one for my fallen friend. Sometimes we'd come here, just the two of us, to this bar out on the docks. It was because we both lived in this direction, him making his home on the water, me making my home in the place beyond these pines, in the guttermost part of the District. It was a halfway point.
Of course it has been months since then. The last time I saw him, he was standing on a platform, shit eating grin on his face, waving goodbye. I guess I'm happy, he went down fighting, doing what he loved. That's more than I can say for most of us, usually recipients of hunger pangs, cold, abuse and the like. Still, it's with a whistling air of melancholy that I make my way into the shadows of this particular bar, nestled at the crossroads of a canal. My black jacket is crisp at the edges, having not worn out it's press, my shoes shined, looking almost like new. My identification isn't checked at the door, the days of that are long passed. I'm not a kid anymore.
It's with an adult's intensity that I make my way through the already smoke filled and crowded room. Something is already happening on stage, I suspect it always is nowadays. With both of District Four's tributes dead, there is nothing much to celebrate so we have to make it ourselves. I catch the eye's of this particular club's owner, and he gives me a nod. Sometimes when I come across him, I almost feel like I should be bowing down to him, the air of regality he carries is almost overwhelming. He's a good enough guy though. Sometimes he'll come to us brawlers and he and I will wrestle each other down to the ground. I push my way to the bar front and wait patiently, hands splayed across the bench top.
I look for the bar man I'm used to, but he's not there. I have to remind myself that it's been at least a year since I came here. It makes sense that the bar will change every now and then. Instead there seems to be this younger man and I cannot tell who he is by the set of his shoulders, or if I should know him. I'm always careful about that, the District may be big but it's a small world, I wouldn't want to offend someone. I wait until he turns back around to make my order, "A beer please, on tap." I've never really gone for those fancy mixed drinks, and I stay the hell away from moonshine.
H A L E O N
{ and i have never been good at looking back }
{ and i have never been good at looking back }
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