Mark Samuels (D6) FIN
Nov 1, 2016 12:26:28 GMT -5
Post by uwu on Nov 1, 2016 12:26:28 GMT -5
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Life always starts off so happy. Babies have no worries, except for getting hungry or needing a diaper change. Even though I'm happy to have lived 56 years, but with recent events, I wish I could go back. I would give anything to get my son, Jackson back. However, life can be cruel, so I must deal with it. It wasn't like I was close to him. One of the few regrets I have in life. I can still get closer to the rest of my children, though. Still have four of them. I really should before I lose anymore. I really don't want them to feel like I did when I was younger. No one knows what it's like to be the sad man behind blue eyes, which doesn't help much, either.
Way back when, when I was much younger than I am today, I used to be so full of life. In my earliest memories, I remember enjoying running, regardless of where I was. I ran everywhere I went, even if it was from my room to the kitchen to get food. I don't know why I did. I really wish I had that much energy now, but not with my current job, which I can't even talk about! I can only assume how tired I look. I've been called a raccoon from my children. Technically from my wife, who over hears the children talking about it. I have a feeling it's all thanks to my work. I only got it because I thought my family would be safe. I got a top secret job for the Capitol, helping invent mutts for the games. I guess I was wrong.
When I grew up, I remember enjoying everything in life. I easily got excited over everything. I didn't come up in the wealthiest family, but I remember being genuinely happy about all the presents I got, even if t was clothing. Those were good days. Now I don't even feel all thanks for breaking that point of being tired to being empty. I do love my family, though. They're the best thing to ever have happened to me. Now my birthday's feel like every other day of the year. It doesn't have that special feeling anymore. It blurs together with everything else. I really hope my children don't end up like that. I want them to be happy, not that I show it that often.
Going back to when I was growing up, I grew up with a small family, but physically and numbers wise. There were four of us: my mother, my father, my sister, and myself. When it comes to our height, we were all below average. Luckily, I grew up to be the tallest in the family, to be roughly 5'6". It still isn't that tall, but oh well. Life gave me lemons, so I ate them. I would have made lemonade, but I didn't have the right ingredients, and food is food, regardless of how sour.
Though drinks weren't my cup of tea, I could make food exceptionally well. My mother taught me and my sister how to cook early in life. She told me that she had learned from her mother, who learned from her mother, and so forth. She also taught me a couple important life lessons that she incorporated into the cooking lessons. For example, whenever we were cooking a piece that either my sister or I loved, she stated that we needed to wait for the right amount of time before taking it out, just like moving forwards in a relationship. If taken out too soon, it'll be undercooked. Depending on what it was, it could potentially be deadly. If left in for too long, it'll be overcooked and undesirable. There was a window where it could be taken out and be edible, but it wouldn't be perfect. She talked about how the more we cooked, the more likely we'd get it right, and it just took practice on getting better. No one was perfect the first couple of times.
Another important lesson I learned from my mother through cooking is that not everything's going to come out the way you expected. I learned that through when Jackson was reaped. She always warned us that even if we followed the rules exactly, double and triple checked that nothing could go wrong, and did everything in our power to do it correctly, something can still mess up. She always told us a story about how she made a cake for her friend's party. She had made her best cake ever, as of that time. It was the proudest thing she ever made, and is still one of her proudest moments to date. She took it out of the oven and put it on the stove to let it cool off. Unbeknownst to her, there was a huge air pocket in the cake that would soon pop, making the perfect looking cake look lopsided. She came back to be devastated to find her masterpiece destroyed. I forgot what happens next, but what she said was the moral stuck with me: expect for the worst, but always aim for the best. I seemed to have forgotten about the first party recently. Luckily, it came back to me, but in a way I couldn't have imagined.
For ambitions as a child, I was always fascinated in animals. At times, I wished I grew up in District 10, or the old District 8. On the contrary, I probably would have been fascinated with something else if I grew up being surrounded by animals. However, District 6 had the brains, so I could still learn about animals in school and other places. Luckily, we have the luxury of having amazing science classes, so I was able to learn how animals worked from a scientific viewpoint. We got to dissect a couple of them as well. Being able to cut open a dead animal was all fun and all, until I started thinking about how they were alive at one point. I always did try to avoid those thoughts. I could never find the enjoyment of moving through the guts of something that once was. It freaked me out. I would have loved to see some live animals rather than just dead animals as well. Beggars can't be choosers, though. I got what I got.
That passion grew the more biology courses I took. By the time I was old enough, I applied to go to the College. I got placed on the wait list at first, but I guess enough people dropped out or didn't decide to go that I was able to make o ff the wait list and into college. It wasn't an amazing feat, but I felt happy about it. Both my parents had gone there, and so had their parents. It was a legacy of ours. Being the animal fanatic I was, I decided to pursue a degree in biology, which later turned into a zoology degree with a botany minor. My parents and a couple professors talked me into doing a botany minor to help me be more well rounded, and I do think it payed off in the long run. When I graduated, I was in the top 20% of my class out of about 500 students. I wanted to laugh at the people that originally put me on the what list, to show them that I was smarter than they thought I was. At least, that's what I like to think. I'm sure they put me on the wait list for not doing that much outside of school or because of my writing abilities or something like that.
After graduation, I realized I need to get a job. I haven't thought about getting one since I focused much more on studying and doing as well as I could in classes. I knew I wanted to do something with animals, though. That was about it. I didn't know what jobs were out there that had something to do with animals. I decided to do research on it, and the Capital had a couple jobs available. I applied for all the animal related ones, even if it was cleaning up their crap. My brain wanted to get a job without thinking about how much I'd like it. I did review all the jobs after I sent my applications, though. Planning wasn't much of a strong suite back then. I mentally freaked out once I realized what some of the jobs I applied for. I debated on not showing up to the interviews if I even got the jobs. I came to the conclusion that I'd go to the jobs I actually want, and the first job I get I'd stick with.
Having no job experience before and never being told how interviews work, I was a nervous wreck. The first job interview I went to was for pest control as a person who created formulas to kill the pests off. For whatever reason, 22 year old me thought that would be fun. I got to kill annoying, useless, small animals. It wasn't my ideal job, but I wanted it. Then the interview happened. If the interview were to be televised, it would make a wonderful comedy, if one is into watching people make a fool of themselves. I suddenly got a severe stutter, along with a sweating problem. I could have created a salt lake for a future games with all the sweat. The next interview, which was for an animal control business, went better, but not by much. As time progressed and the amount of interviews I did increased, my confidence grew. It took ten failed job interviews for me to finally get a job. I highly doubt I perfected the art of interviewing, but I got a job. To be completely honest, I am flabbergasted in how I got it. The job was a Capitol job where people had to take care of mutts when they weren't being used or tested on. An opening in the sanitation department appeared when an unfortunate accident happened. They never said what happened, but I assumed it wasn't pretty. When I got called in, I still got nervous, but it was the least nerve racking compared to the other ten. I felt more confident than usual as well. I nailed every question they threw at me. By the end of the interview, I felt 102% certain that I had gotten the job. The funny part was, they didn't tell me what would happen after the interview.
They told me I had gotten the job, which I felt thrilled about and quickly accepted. The next statement to spill out of the interviewer's mouth sucked the thrill out of me. They stated that now that I was working for them, everything I did remained a secret, from where I went to what I did. Even the job itself had to remain a secret. Being taken aback, I couldn't speak. I didn't realize how serious working for the Capitol meant until now. I didn't back out, since I knew I would have felt bad for pulling out right after accepting. They gave me some papers to sign afterwards. I don't recall what the papers said from being in slight shake. I guess that's one of my biggest downfalls. I do utterly terrible when given situations I've never dealt with before. I guess that's everyone's downfall, but I feel as though I do worse than usual. But yeah. Papers. I did sign them. They wouldn't give me the job if I didn't sign them. The interviewer told me that I had I started in a week, after he got all the paperwork through with his boss.
Fast forward a long week later. It's my first day of my job. It definitely was an interesting experience. I got to ride on a hovercraft to the Capital. I'm sure not many people get to say that. The person who picked me up informed me that I would typically be talking the train after this, unless told otherwise. Today was my first day, so it was one of the exceptions. I had to be at the train station no later than 5 a.m. if I didn't want to miss it and be fired. I couldn't miss work except if I had a legitimate reason, like I died, currently am dying, someone in the family died, or work got canceled. No exceptions. If I had a terrible sickness, someone at the Capitol will give me some medicine to cure it. If I broke every bone in my body, get someone to bring me to a hospital. "You're in District 6, for Ripred's sake. Don't tell anyone else, but all the scientists and doctors are just as great if not better than the ones in the Capital. Don't forget that." That quote stuck with me for the rest of my life.
We eventually got to the Capitol. I don't know how long we took because I don't have a watch and they don't have anything that tells time in the ships. It would have been useful to know how long it would take everyday, but I guess not. It probably has some logical reasoning behind it. I'm going to assume it's for psychological purposes. Anyways, we finally got there. It was more spectacular than I could have ever imagined. Once I saw everything, I nearly forgot about how they send 24 kids into an arena, killing of 23 of them, then i remembered. I kind of regretted never volunteering for any games just for the sake of living here for three days. I probably wouldn't have survived, so i wouldn't have been able to get a job. I realized that having this job meant I'd come here every day and probably eat the food daily, so it would have been better than being a tribute.
My guide gave me a tour of where I would be working at and who I'd be working with. I didn't think of it much, until I was told I had to be somebody's shadow for a little bit. In order for me to get the best understanding of how the job worked, I had to follow and observe someone. I found that annoying to do so. They might not be that good at the job, or they might not care. However, the person I shadowed did a great job at showing me how to do everything. He even gave me opportunities to try out some of the job. He did a wonderful job, I thought. When I finally got to my own thing, my mentor mysteriously vanished the next day. I have no clue to where he went, and I never got anything from my boss. He never returned to work. I still wonder about him sometimes.
I kept this job for a couple of years. I wasn't one of the best, but I was good enough. I saw many scenes that I wish I could forget, or but I can't talk about what happened so it's hard for me to forget about them. I would love to just forget about them. All I can say is that they were horrendous, and definitely worse than any death that happened in any Hunger Games ever. I'd take being burnt alive than what happened to some of my fellow coworkers. It was in my sixth or seventh year at the job that I finally got "promoted." Instead of doing crap clean-up, I got to wash the mutts. I don't know whether or not which was worse. Some of the mutts weren't that bad, but have you ever had to clean a hellhound? It is the scariest shit I have ever done, excuse my french. I had nightmares, and I still do, of nearly dying multiple times due to trying to wash them. Bloody hell, I nearly quit my job loads of times. Sadly, I couldn't.
On a side note, I managed to meet a wonderful lady during one of my off days. I felt as though Ripread had blessed me when I found her. It was like my hard work was finally paying off, and He had noticed. I felt so honored. She was the perfect woman in my eyes. I couldn't ask for anyone else. She cooked amazing meals that I never got tired of; she was the perfect amount of strict and fun; she always had to be organized. I didn't know what I would do without her. We dated for a year or so before getting married. At this time, I was still mutt cleaner, but I was also in charge of the entire sanitations department. For someone that came form District 6, it was one of the best jobs I could get. It was almost unheard of to have someone from District 6 in charge of loads of people.
Anyways, we got married, and had four kids. The first two successfully outlived the reapings. I was hoping that the third one would be another successful one. I could have sworn having a Capitol job would have protected all of my children, but I guess that didn't happen. I should have known. No one is safe from the Hunger Games. That even opened my eyes. No matter what position I have will protect my precious family against the wrath of life. I took my family for granted. I swear I'll get to know them better than I do now. I need to. I don't know when the next one will be reaped, or taken. No one is safe.
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