Thanks {but I am} giving {up} // frumtum
Nov 30, 2014 2:56:24 GMT -5
Post by cici on Nov 30, 2014 2:56:24 GMT -5
“From now on, forget happiness."
freya hanig
It is the fourth Thursday of November, the day in which I am extremely terrified for my mother and for anyone who crosses her. She woke up hours before me, running up and down the stairs, ordering Avoxes round and round, barking this way and that, and making sure the house was spotless, flawless, perfect. I can’t help but wonder how many times Rum Tum has been shocked today, but I quickly dismiss the thought. My mother is too busy being a nervous wreck to indulge in punishment. That’s my father’s job.
Then, the family started arriving: first came Aunt Lorain and Uncle Maurice with their three grown sons and their families. Then came Grandma and Grandpa and then Aunt Genevieve and her daughter, Bailey. The house only became more crowded as more family filed in after that. Every Avox and his mother was in the kitchen, helping prepare.
As per my parents’ request, I sat in the living room alongside the rest of my family for an hour or two, answering every meaningless question that my relatives tossed my way in between Hunger Games commercial breaks. “How is school going?” “What have you been up to?” “What a beautiful dress, Freya. Where did you get it?,” and of course, the infamous “You’re talking this year, Freya!” Oh really? I didn’t notice. My grandma even decided to throw in a bit of serious talk with me: “Freya, oh Freya, it’s good to hear you talking again! Honestly, though. You need to tell us what happened. If there is a kidnapper out there…” But with a shake of my head and a “Please not now, Grandma,” she stopped and nodded, but I know that I’ll have to answer the imminent question soon enough.
Despite the overwhelming amount of attention on myself, there came a point when enough eyes were glued to the television (my whole family engrossed in the verbal exchange between district-eight-what’s-his-face and the sister of the district partner of Rum Tum’s brother) that I was able to slip from the room without notice. I guess that’s the nice thing about having a big extended family: things don’t revolve around me and my so-called “issues” for long before there’s something more interesting to get distracted by.
By more interesting things, I mean, the only thing I can remember from last year’s Thanksgiving is eavesdropping on my aunts talking about how atrocious my parents were for not having forced any words of out of me by then. “All they do is spoil her,” Aunt Tara had whispered. I’ve heard more than enough about my parents through the years, mostly from jealous relatives who wondered why they my parents had only one child when they had a house big enough to support twenty; or why my father often had to step out of the family room to take an important phone call for work; and of course, why Miss Freya Hanig was so troubled and abnormal and even more so, how in the world she had managed to go missing. Even in the Capitol where 90% of the population has enough money to buy anything they want, I’ve spent many too years of my life feeling guilty for the fact that we have even more than the average wealthy Capitol because of my prosperous father. I have so many relatives that would die to be anything like my wealthy, intelligent, innovative, well-liked, sociable father.
And yet all I want is to be nothing like him.
I escape from the living room and saunter down the stairs, bumping into seven-year old Julia as she runs in the opposite direction, followed by a couple of other children wielding plastic swords. I roll my eyes at what could have been a cute game of tag if it hadn’t included fake weapons so obviously resembling the Hunger Games. “Attack Freya! She’s a mutt!” One of the boys says. My stomach drops at the word “mutt,” and the only image in my head for a few moments is that of Rum Tum helplessly sprawled across the mud after being attacked. Suddenly, I’ve got one kid with his arms wrapped around my leg and another hitting me with his plastic sword.
“Stop it!” I snap. “I’m not playing.” I shake the boy off and push my way through to the family kitchen: one of the few places in the house that seem to be uninhabited. Just beyond the doors to my left, the Avox kitchen (yes we have two kitchens – as I said, I feel more than enough guilt just living in this house), however, is surely bursting with activity. After looking to my right, my eyes fall upon the door at the end of the hallway, just next to the laundry room. I walk towards it and stop only a few inches away, my hand resting on the doorknob. My father unlocks this door – Rum Tum’s – and every other Avox’ door every morning; no one else in the family is to touch it.
But I am angry at my controlling father, my competitive relatives, my hysterical mother, my cousins who teach their children that it’s okay to run around the house playing their own mock Hunger Games, and even at Rum Tum who makes me angry just because I don’t know how to stop making him inferior to me. In that case, I turn the handle and step inside this small room I have never entered before, decorated with nothing but family portraits along the walls, a window, a radiator, a dresser, a mirror, and an unmade bed. I close the door and lie down, pulling the covers up over me and lying on my side to look through the tiny window. Snow drips from the clouds and even the mere sight of it makes me feel cold, so instead, I look away from the window and bury my head into the pillow.
The room isn’t bad. It’s hospitable enough. When I imagined an Avox’ room, I imagined something inhumane like Harry Potter’s cupboard under the staircase, but I suppose my father makes enough to money to at least pretend like he has an ounce of respect for his house servants. I pull the covers closer to myself. I wish this were my room. If it were, at least I wouldn’t have to bear the responsibility of even pretending like I have a free will anymore. Besides, after everything I’ve done, I deserve to be the slave with a shock collar who retreats to this bed every night. Rum Tum did nothing wrong. And it kills me.
I pull myself off of the bed and exit the room, but my eyes immediately stop on the box of Christmas lights on the inside of the open laundry room. With a smile, I pick up the box and set it down just outside Rum Tum’s room before retrieving a roll of tape from the laundry room cabinet. I enter Rum Tum’s room and stand on his bed in efforts to tape the Christmas lights to one corner of the ceiling and then to another corner. I have to climb up onto his dresser in order to reach the third corner and then onto the windowsill for the last one, but after several minutes of meddling with the lights, they all seem to be secure at each corner. Lastly, I squeeze the plug into an electrical outlet and watch the room light up. I smile. I wonder if Rum Tum ever saw Christmas lights before the Capitol. I wonder if he even knows what Christmas is! If anything, I hope that he appreciates it; I hope that he sees that I’m not trying to hurt him, no matter how inevitable that is.
I leave the lit room and put the box away, closing the door behind me as I slip down the hall and past the kitchen into the empty dining room. The multiple long tables are nearly filled with platters of food, only a couple of spots left empty. I frown when I see that the red cabbage is next to the mashed potatoes, quickly putting it next to the green bean casserole instead. And the stuffing – that should not be next to the coleslaw. I quickly rearrange the food; my mother is very specific about her logically planned placement. Then I notice that the salad forks and the dessert forks are completely mixed up, not to mention that the knives are facing the wrong direction and some of the napkins aren’t folded neatly! Biting my lip in frustration, I scurry to fix the silverware. Of course. Rum Tum is the only one who could possibly get this wrong.
I hear footsteps at the entrance to the room and look back to see Rum Tum. My eyes linger on him for only a second before I return to adjusting the silverware. I then move towards the wall, checking the thermostat. “This room should always be 68 degrees,” I say distantly as I turn the dial. I move to the light dial. “And the lighting during dinner should be dimmed to 71%.” I can feel my words bleeding with impatience. I can’t let my mother see the dining room in a state like this.
I move to recheck the silverware but stop in my tracks with a frightened gasp when I notice a stain on the patterned rug. “Oh my god. What is this? Did you spill something?” I look up at Rum Tum, my mouth open and my eyes narrowed in disdain. “Well, make yourself useful already and help me clean this up,” I snap. I cross through to the family kitchen, snatching a towel from the cabinet before slamming it closed and running the towel under water. I open and close cabinet after cabinet, trying to find some sort of stain-remover. My efforts are unsuccessful. Removing stains and cleaning up spills is not my job. I’ve never had any other job than to look pretty and talk pretty and smile enough in public so that people don’t think I’m disturbed. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do anything.
I return to the dining room, kneeling on the ground and avidly scrubbing the rug with the wet towel. “Shit, it’s not coming out.” I continue the motion faster and harder, ignoring my sore arm and my clenched jaw. It’s not coming out. It will never come out. I just need to accept that. I just need to accept that, and stop trying and stop dying because a wet towel and a whole bunch of useless work isn’t going to fix it because we’re broken beyond fixing i’m broken beyond fixing there are too many stains we’re just stained fabric and that’s all we’ll ever be that’s all this carpet will ever be and it’s all my fault it’s all my fault because i don’t know how to fix it i’m too useless to fix it i’m too broken to fix it and
“My mom is going to have a fit when she sees this, and then my dad is gonna…” I fight to swallow down the unsettling feeling in my throat as I remember how my father can send shocks through Rum Tum Tugger so easily, it’s as if he’s only turning on a light switch. I feel panic coursing through me, but my arm becomes so tired I have to stop scrubbing the carpet. My whole body is shaking, and I can’t move from my spot on the floor. I feel terrible for being so bitter with Rum Tum, but I hate him; I hate that he can make me feel this way. I hate that I can’t detach myself from the fear of watching him hurt, because I guarantee my mother will walk in any moment now to check up on the food before she invites everyone to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner. That’s when she’ll see the stain on the carpet and turn into a nervous wreck again, followed by my father trying to resolve things with a few simple shocks.
Only minutes ago I was okay. I was happy to be hanging Christmas lights in Rum Tum’s room. But it's funny how quickly things can change, how quickly I can break into a billion pieces shattered across the floor.
Scratch that; there’s nothing funny about it. And there’s nothing to be thankful for either.
Then, the family started arriving: first came Aunt Lorain and Uncle Maurice with their three grown sons and their families. Then came Grandma and Grandpa and then Aunt Genevieve and her daughter, Bailey. The house only became more crowded as more family filed in after that. Every Avox and his mother was in the kitchen, helping prepare.
As per my parents’ request, I sat in the living room alongside the rest of my family for an hour or two, answering every meaningless question that my relatives tossed my way in between Hunger Games commercial breaks. “How is school going?” “What have you been up to?” “What a beautiful dress, Freya. Where did you get it?,” and of course, the infamous “You’re talking this year, Freya!” Oh really? I didn’t notice. My grandma even decided to throw in a bit of serious talk with me: “Freya, oh Freya, it’s good to hear you talking again! Honestly, though. You need to tell us what happened. If there is a kidnapper out there…” But with a shake of my head and a “Please not now, Grandma,” she stopped and nodded, but I know that I’ll have to answer the imminent question soon enough.
Despite the overwhelming amount of attention on myself, there came a point when enough eyes were glued to the television (my whole family engrossed in the verbal exchange between district-eight-what’s-his-face and the sister of the district partner of Rum Tum’s brother) that I was able to slip from the room without notice. I guess that’s the nice thing about having a big extended family: things don’t revolve around me and my so-called “issues” for long before there’s something more interesting to get distracted by.
By more interesting things, I mean, the only thing I can remember from last year’s Thanksgiving is eavesdropping on my aunts talking about how atrocious my parents were for not having forced any words of out of me by then. “All they do is spoil her,” Aunt Tara had whispered. I’ve heard more than enough about my parents through the years, mostly from jealous relatives who wondered why they my parents had only one child when they had a house big enough to support twenty; or why my father often had to step out of the family room to take an important phone call for work; and of course, why Miss Freya Hanig was so troubled and abnormal and even more so, how in the world she had managed to go missing. Even in the Capitol where 90% of the population has enough money to buy anything they want, I’ve spent many too years of my life feeling guilty for the fact that we have even more than the average wealthy Capitol because of my prosperous father. I have so many relatives that would die to be anything like my wealthy, intelligent, innovative, well-liked, sociable father.
And yet all I want is to be nothing like him.
I escape from the living room and saunter down the stairs, bumping into seven-year old Julia as she runs in the opposite direction, followed by a couple of other children wielding plastic swords. I roll my eyes at what could have been a cute game of tag if it hadn’t included fake weapons so obviously resembling the Hunger Games. “Attack Freya! She’s a mutt!” One of the boys says. My stomach drops at the word “mutt,” and the only image in my head for a few moments is that of Rum Tum helplessly sprawled across the mud after being attacked. Suddenly, I’ve got one kid with his arms wrapped around my leg and another hitting me with his plastic sword.
“Stop it!” I snap. “I’m not playing.” I shake the boy off and push my way through to the family kitchen: one of the few places in the house that seem to be uninhabited. Just beyond the doors to my left, the Avox kitchen (yes we have two kitchens – as I said, I feel more than enough guilt just living in this house), however, is surely bursting with activity. After looking to my right, my eyes fall upon the door at the end of the hallway, just next to the laundry room. I walk towards it and stop only a few inches away, my hand resting on the doorknob. My father unlocks this door – Rum Tum’s – and every other Avox’ door every morning; no one else in the family is to touch it.
But I am angry at my controlling father, my competitive relatives, my hysterical mother, my cousins who teach their children that it’s okay to run around the house playing their own mock Hunger Games, and even at Rum Tum who makes me angry just because I don’t know how to stop making him inferior to me. In that case, I turn the handle and step inside this small room I have never entered before, decorated with nothing but family portraits along the walls, a window, a radiator, a dresser, a mirror, and an unmade bed. I close the door and lie down, pulling the covers up over me and lying on my side to look through the tiny window. Snow drips from the clouds and even the mere sight of it makes me feel cold, so instead, I look away from the window and bury my head into the pillow.
The room isn’t bad. It’s hospitable enough. When I imagined an Avox’ room, I imagined something inhumane like Harry Potter’s cupboard under the staircase, but I suppose my father makes enough to money to at least pretend like he has an ounce of respect for his house servants. I pull the covers closer to myself. I wish this were my room. If it were, at least I wouldn’t have to bear the responsibility of even pretending like I have a free will anymore. Besides, after everything I’ve done, I deserve to be the slave with a shock collar who retreats to this bed every night. Rum Tum did nothing wrong. And it kills me.
I pull myself off of the bed and exit the room, but my eyes immediately stop on the box of Christmas lights on the inside of the open laundry room. With a smile, I pick up the box and set it down just outside Rum Tum’s room before retrieving a roll of tape from the laundry room cabinet. I enter Rum Tum’s room and stand on his bed in efforts to tape the Christmas lights to one corner of the ceiling and then to another corner. I have to climb up onto his dresser in order to reach the third corner and then onto the windowsill for the last one, but after several minutes of meddling with the lights, they all seem to be secure at each corner. Lastly, I squeeze the plug into an electrical outlet and watch the room light up. I smile. I wonder if Rum Tum ever saw Christmas lights before the Capitol. I wonder if he even knows what Christmas is! If anything, I hope that he appreciates it; I hope that he sees that I’m not trying to hurt him, no matter how inevitable that is.
I leave the lit room and put the box away, closing the door behind me as I slip down the hall and past the kitchen into the empty dining room. The multiple long tables are nearly filled with platters of food, only a couple of spots left empty. I frown when I see that the red cabbage is next to the mashed potatoes, quickly putting it next to the green bean casserole instead. And the stuffing – that should not be next to the coleslaw. I quickly rearrange the food; my mother is very specific about her logically planned placement. Then I notice that the salad forks and the dessert forks are completely mixed up, not to mention that the knives are facing the wrong direction and some of the napkins aren’t folded neatly! Biting my lip in frustration, I scurry to fix the silverware. Of course. Rum Tum is the only one who could possibly get this wrong.
I hear footsteps at the entrance to the room and look back to see Rum Tum. My eyes linger on him for only a second before I return to adjusting the silverware. I then move towards the wall, checking the thermostat. “This room should always be 68 degrees,” I say distantly as I turn the dial. I move to the light dial. “And the lighting during dinner should be dimmed to 71%.” I can feel my words bleeding with impatience. I can’t let my mother see the dining room in a state like this.
I move to recheck the silverware but stop in my tracks with a frightened gasp when I notice a stain on the patterned rug. “Oh my god. What is this? Did you spill something?” I look up at Rum Tum, my mouth open and my eyes narrowed in disdain. “Well, make yourself useful already and help me clean this up,” I snap. I cross through to the family kitchen, snatching a towel from the cabinet before slamming it closed and running the towel under water. I open and close cabinet after cabinet, trying to find some sort of stain-remover. My efforts are unsuccessful. Removing stains and cleaning up spills is not my job. I’ve never had any other job than to look pretty and talk pretty and smile enough in public so that people don’t think I’m disturbed. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do anything.
I return to the dining room, kneeling on the ground and avidly scrubbing the rug with the wet towel. “Shit, it’s not coming out.” I continue the motion faster and harder, ignoring my sore arm and my clenched jaw. It’s not coming out. It will never come out. I just need to accept that. I just need to accept that, and stop trying and stop dying because a wet towel and a whole bunch of useless work isn’t going to fix it because we’re broken beyond fixing i’m broken beyond fixing there are too many stains we’re just stained fabric and that’s all we’ll ever be that’s all this carpet will ever be and it’s all my fault it’s all my fault because i don’t know how to fix it i’m too useless to fix it i’m too broken to fix it and
“My mom is going to have a fit when she sees this, and then my dad is gonna…” I fight to swallow down the unsettling feeling in my throat as I remember how my father can send shocks through Rum Tum Tugger so easily, it’s as if he’s only turning on a light switch. I feel panic coursing through me, but my arm becomes so tired I have to stop scrubbing the carpet. My whole body is shaking, and I can’t move from my spot on the floor. I feel terrible for being so bitter with Rum Tum, but I hate him; I hate that he can make me feel this way. I hate that I can’t detach myself from the fear of watching him hurt, because I guarantee my mother will walk in any moment now to check up on the food before she invites everyone to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner. That’s when she’ll see the stain on the carpet and turn into a nervous wreck again, followed by my father trying to resolve things with a few simple shocks.
Only minutes ago I was okay. I was happy to be hanging Christmas lights in Rum Tum’s room. But it's funny how quickly things can change, how quickly I can break into a billion pieces shattered across the floor.
Scratch that; there’s nothing funny about it. And there’s nothing to be thankful for either.
“Now it’s just about saving the remains,
the wreckage,
the appearance.”
the wreckage,
the appearance.”
