atticus burdock - d11 || fin

ATTICUS
" we don't need a cure for the weight of the world "
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male ● seventeen ● district 11 ● odair
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APPEARANCE
"we get a little faded the colours go"

You take a seat on the wicker chair on your mother's porch. It's rough but you love the feeling of it against your sandpaper skin. This is your place to think, to reflect on things and to realize the importance of things. You tend to be very observant, using your dull aquamarine eyes. You've never seen such a person with eyes as sunken into their head such as yourself. Something they say that you scare them, the circles of black indenting your upper cheekbones. Honestly though, they scare you, don't they?

You stand in front of your mirror every day and try to pretend that they aren't there, those things that make you look inhuman. It looks as though you haven't slept in weeks, the marks almost resembling bruises. You try to make them go away, brutally rubbing them until they're so red that they look even worse. It makes you mad though that it won't go away. You're mother tells you it's just the way you were born, you know that, but you also know that if you had the chance you would carve your eyes out without a second thought.

It's a weird hatred, the fear and loathing of eyes. It makes you upset to even see other's with their perfect eyes and you, not like them.

You sigh lightly, letting air escape from your thick, chapped lips that seem to be permanently stained almost a purple color. In fact, if someone were to look at you just overall, they would think that you were sick right away. You know you're sick, just not how they think you are.

You stand up, deciding that thinking time is over, knowing that there isn't any reason to stay outside and dwell on things that are never gonna change. Running a spindly hand through your thick chestnut colored hair, you walk inside with heavy steps and a feeling of helplessness welling up inside of you like it always does. It doesn't go away, you know that by now, but you keep pushing through because you aren't really alive.

They think you're dead Atticus, do you too?
    

PERSONALITY
"running out of all our clothes"

You open up the sliding door to your kitchen, walking in with a blank expression on your face. Your mother is standing behind the counter cutting up potatoes for dinner. She is an older woman with a constantly sunburned face and freckles much like yours. She looks up as you walk in and smiles, stopping what she's doing to walk over to you. She looks you right in the eyes and embraces you in a hug. You want to smile back don't you, you want to look at her and hug her tightly; you can't bring yourself to even have direct eye-contact with her and to look at her as a son should his mother. Instead you stand there, the expression on your face still blank and your hands curled into fists at your sides.

"Hey," You manage to get out, your voice rough and apathetic. No matter how hard you try, you are always said to be standoffish and that's why those kids at school have fun and leave you alone. Now it's affecting your relationship with you own mother, the only person left in your life who actually gives a shit.

And it's funny that even though you know this, it doesn't change your stone-cold face as she hugs you and you can't bring yourself to hug her back.

"How are you, sweetie?" She asks, she is the opposite of you, empathetic and a person who is kind to everyone. She doesn't understand you but she is trying so hard and yet you cannot try to understand others, including her. Some would say you are selfish, some would say that you're suffering; but really you're just not there, you're dead to most, so why show emotion if they don't see you as living anyways.

It's funny how most people see eyes as a common thing, just another feature on a person. You're different and you know it. They say it's strange the way that you can never make eye contact, hoe you always seem to be staring off into the distance.

Brown and hazel eyes are easier than Green, and blue are the absolute worst. Brown eyes depict usually one color, monotone and usually associated with people who are easy to talk to, people who will always be honest. Green is slightly better, a color that is in the middle. You will avoid Green for Brown but in the worst case, Green will make do.

Now, it's the blue ones that you will stay away from at all costs. Blue is cold, mean, and will always hurt you; or so you think. It's a funny system, basing people and judgments off of eye color, something most people would consider shallow. Wouldn't it be ironic if a person with brown eyes were to criticize you or put you down, how would you perception change then? 

People can't understand your obsession and fear of eyes, they say that you're a selfish, close-minded, arrogant person who can't see anyone other than himself.

But, dear Atticus, only if they knew that given the chance, you would never look at yourself again.

HISTORY
"and the flash don't light when the battery's low"

You realize at this point that you never answered your mother. It startles you to reality and a shiver runs down your spine as you're once again aware that she still has her arms wrapped tightly around you. You don't like it, you've never liked people touching you and being in your space. And even though she's you mother, this affection makes you uncomfortable. You used to think when you were younger that maybe you would come to like your mom and enjoy her company and hugs. It's sad to think that you probably will never feel that way, not just towards her, but towards anyone.

"I'm fine." You answer her briskly. She has that acquired expression that you've seen so much of in the past years. It's that one where she has her lips pursed tightly together in a fashion of regret, possible remorse, and helplessness. She told you once that she wished that she could help you, that she would do anything to help you feel like you belonged. You at one point, hoped her disappointed expression would make you feel something, make you feel some sort of emotion towards her and everybody else. You wished that something, something at all would replace that numbness plaguing your mind.

Now and then, such as when you were a small child, you felt happiness and a little sadness here and there. Those are natural human emotions after all. You were a good kid, one of those kids that a mother would be proud to have. Your mother was especially proud of you, considering that you were her only kid, and that she was a single mother. At least she thought she raised you well, maybe she was wrong, Atticus. Until you were about 10 you were an angel, that's what they said, and you were always a kind and loving boy. You were always willing to help out and make everyone around you happy, always making the best of any situation.

Something happened, no one knows what happened. Do you even know what happened? You isolated yourself and refused to talk to anyone. You remember how your mother used to pound her fists on your door in a frantic attempt to get you back, to bring you back to be her little boy again. You didn't like how you acted, but you continued to act the same. It was strange how something got you, how something took you away from her.

She ended up taking you to a professional, the best she could find. You're mother, though single and trying to support herself, was fairly well off due to her parents wealth. You went and the doctor looked at you, looked into your eyes with a small flashlight and watched you as your expression didn't change once. He himself had a concerned expression on his face, a puzzled look as though he had no idea what to say. At one point he finally looked back at your mother and nodded.

Alexithymia, that's what they called it. There were a few others, but that was the overlying diagnosis. They explained to you and your mother that Alexithymia is the lack of emotion, the feeling of emptiness and or little empathy if any at all. He gave a name to the eyes, that strange fear that you didn't understand. Ommetaphobia, that was the name for what you had. You sat there as he talked and looked at him, not directly at him, but close enough to see the hints of brown in his irises. You had a twinge of respect for him, you didn't trust him, but you knew that he wasn't lying because Brown will never lie.

And yet, through all of "treatments" he gave you, you didn't feel any big effect. He tried provoking your emotion, both the good and bad. It didn't ever seem to work, and if you ever did feel something, it was only for a split second. Those moments were good for you though, those strange little twitches and flutterings of something stirring inside of you. They would go away as soon as they came though, leaving you inside of your head and a stone-cold expression glued to your face.

"Do you feel anything?" You remember your mom bending down next to you and looking you right in the eyes. That was the strangest moment for you, you see, that was the first time where you didn't feel the urge to scream or run. That was the first time that you looked back.

You just nodded in response, and you remember a small grin on your face, a small smile that made your mothers eyes widen and her face light up. This movement scared you, and your mind collapsed immediately, shutting you into that dark place once more. The smile was wiped from your face in no time, there and then gone.

It was strange after that, wasn't it? You remembered that short moment of relief every so often and even at one point longed for it. Even though there was a war inside of your mind, that constant battle of you trying to open those door and let yourself be free, you were still a shell of a person on the outside. The other kids sometimes looked at you and they called you arrogant, they thought that you thought that you were better than everyone else.

In your mind, they're better than you. You consider yourself as low as dirt, the color that stains under your eyes. You never tell them this, after all, it's better to be ridiculed for something untrue than for something far worse.

They say that you get picked on if you be yourself, so why is it that even though you aren't yourself, you get picked on just as much.That phrase is true though, you know it is. You see, if they knew the real you, if you were to be "yourself", they would tear you apart.

But you don't care, do you dear? It doesn't matter if they pull you apart limb-by-limb, because in the end, they wouldn't find anything. It's like oysters, if your looking for pearls and you open them up and there's nothing there, aren't you supposed to throw them away. You could do other things but humans are careless selfish creatures, they are looking for one thing, and that thing has to conform to what they want. If it doesn't fit that criteria, or if something is off, they'll get rid of it, cause after all, they want one thing and if you can't offer that, you're worth nothing to them.

Won't they just throw you away, Atticus? You wouldn't mind, and you wouldn't blame them.

After all, who would ever want someone like you?