Dust to Dust [OPEN]

I can’t get my hands to stop shaking.

It started a few weeks ago, just a few days after Levi had died. When we had to start making preparations for the victory tour, and folks starting poking around the farm to make sure all the Izars would be paying our respects. Since I’d had so much trouble sticking around before, there wasn’t going to be anything left up to chance. They’ll pull us out onto the podium, with Levi’s big brown eyes behind us, his face smiling like he’d never left. And it’ll be about praising how heroic he’d been, how strong, and how just once, district eleven had come back with good news. A girl, despite the odds, she’d gone and taken the crown for us. The first victor after all these years had done just what the Izars had failed to do. She’d gone and endured all the death and hate, the ice and the cold, just so that she could return home. She’d have her whole life to show us what that meant.

The weather is warmer now, the snow finally having gone and the rains come to take its place. I’m at the edge of the farm, standing just where the stalks of corn break and meet the old wooden fence. I hunch over the fire I’ve started. The pieces of wood crack and sparks leap into the air, all the while my hands shake. My mother’s fast asleep by now, my father likely at one of the taverns in town drinking another night into a stupor. Deval has all but vanished from these parts. Who would blame him? The fields barely yield enough for a sawbuck anymore. Picking up and leaving us was the smartest thing he could’ve done. Last I’d heard he was pushing toward the edge of the district pulling odd jobs, spending time sleeping in the loft of some old lady’s barn. How much time was spent sleeping could have been debated—he was celebrating with all the ones that had made it past reaping age, whose shadows could dance without fear on the edges of the walls knowing that they’d see the sun rise the next morning.

I guess I’ve spent so long unhappy, I wonder if we even have the right to it anymore. I had met Katelyn so long ago, back in the summer when I still could laugh. When things were normal—as normal as they could have been. A life where we were just kids playing around the waterhole. We splashed one another, we laughed about stupid jokes we made up, or stood around campfires drinking moonshine because that’s what we were supposed to do. We were just kids, making the best of an uncertain sky. She was there—she should’ve known, that the world could be fragile, but beautiful. There were little moments that could be normal because we didn’t have hearts of killers; we all just wanted the chance to not think about what tomorrow was supposed to bring. There was no philosophy then, no great meaning of what the universe was supposed to bring. Just laughter that could fill up a little camp fire, and stars that were just stars.

But my hands didn’t shake then. I didn’t think about how much I wanted to make a point of all of them. Instead it was more important to figure out why I thought boys were cuter than girls, or why my body wasn’t as big and strong as Deval’s. We’d sneak sips of alcohol because it was forbidden, not because the burn at the back of our throat meant we could hide some of the pain. When did the little things fall out of view? Do we always lose those moments, the longer time rolls on? I don’t want to think that the world gets to take that away from us too, but it’s hard to be happy about much of anything anymore. And what would seventeen look like, if it meant I didn’t have a dead brother, or cousins? If the world didn’t have its boot on the neck of the Izars? I bring my hands together and hold them in front of the fire.

I imagine the ghosts around the empty campfire. Of Benat cracking jokes; Asha holding onto to Deval; Levi and Nekane, and all the rest chattering enough to hide out the call of the birds in the distance. Life as it was supposed to be, life that was good enough for them, that could’ve been good enough for all of us. And I think about how seventeen was the edge of adulthood. That I was so close to what defined us it could all be over soon. The pain could be washed away with just one more birthday, and maybe I could start again. But for now, could I be seventeen? Could things just be good enough?

And my thoughts fade at the sound of footsteps through the corn. I don’t move—because I don’t want to be alone tonight. Not now. I let out a sigh and move to uncork the alcohol between my legs. I offer as much of a smile as I can.

“If you want some moonshine,” I hold up the jug and take a swig. “All you have to do is ask.”

HAYANA OF CAUTION 2.0