Post by MrMista on Jun 3, 2017 2:22:08 GMT -5
Name: Izak (Zak) Izar
Age: 17
Gender: M
District: 11
Devotion and delusion are a blur, indistinguishable from one
another. They pull and tear at one another, then collapse together into a
whirling mass, a storm wreaking havoc wherever it travels.
My life is one of the places that maelstrom passed through,
upending my memories, and with them, my entire past, future too most likely.
My first few years are a jumble, an impenetrable cloud of
sounds and images that a witty director could piece together to form a museum
full of films, each distinct from the last.
“Spared, spared,” my father’s loud screams as he carries me
in his arms. “Chosen by the almighty power.”
My mother – it must be her, right? I can’t remember her
face, but that voice, it must be hers – holding me close, rocking back and
forth, a soft tune playing on her lips. There is a warmth, but also a dampness.
My father’s voice, repeats, in awe, “The eyes, two eyes, two
colors,” my face cupped in his hands as he stares at the subjects of his
speech, one blue and one green.
My father’s solemn expression as he looks at me and breaks
the news, “Your mother isn’t with us anymore.”
My arms straining against the restraints in the dim light as
my father approaches with a knife. “It has to be done,” he says with a tone of
calm, though his eyes are anything but. A tone, or chant of some sort, fills
the background – white noise I drown out as I look at him.
Where does one memory start? Where does it end? One day they
follow linearly, another they circle back upon one another.
Devotion and delusion – they have brought me nothing but
pain and confusion. Consuming all around me, they leave me a mystery to myself.
I know not where I come from, nor where I go, living each
day as if it my only, piecing together the truth, though it continues to dance
just out of my reach.
Start with the fundamental truths of life: My name is Zak,
full name Izak Izar. I am 17 years old, a number I keep track of by counting the
number of Reapings I have had to attend more so than anything else. Standing at
6’ 3”, I am quite the imposing guy. Well-fed, especially by District 11’s
standards, my broad physical stature makes me appear much more solid than I am
Fractured – that’s the word for my mental state. I try to
hide it from the public, painting a goofy grin on my face, but I know it never
reaches my eyes. The two of them betray my inner turmoil, twisting away at my
insides instead of providing them with a solid foundation for growth, causing
me to ever so often run my hands through my hair and tussle it every which way.
My father is the cause of my despair, inadvertently, from ignorance perhaps,
but nonetheless…
He and I are secluded from the rest of the family, ignored by
the others, and you know what? I think I can see why.
My father, so sure of himself in his devotion to, his delusion
of, this almighty being he claims to see, has no time for the rest of reality.
When he has his “vision fumes” he leaves us “mere mortals” and flies off into a
nexus only he can be sure exists. His blind devotion has robbed me of my past.
He once tried to force me to see what he sees, and that’s when, well, that’s
where everything went blurry.
As far as I can tell, I once had a mother who loved me,
cared for me as a real person, instead of as a piece in a grand game of chess.
She tried to keep me safe from his delusions, but he would not stop in his wild
goose chase. “You’re special,” he would tell me, but not the way she meant it.
At some point in life, she disappeared. Gave up perhaps,
grew tired, or maybe even got chased away. The delusions of his became the
focal point of my own life, as he brought me right into the fold. He knew I
wanted no part of it, but he “was commanded to lead” me to “my destiny.” My
eyes foretold it, apparently.
Well, in his twisted mind, my destiny was to be slaughtered
like an animal in front of a group of his followers. Yeah, people to this day
pay him to hear of his visions, no matter how ludicrous they may be. That’s the
only source of income we have, and, to be fair, the reason we haven’t fallen
into poverty with my twisted insides in the picture and my mother out of it.
If I was slaughtered, how am I alive? Trick question – it assumes
I’m truly alive. But the reason I can wake up every morning and continue
working on my puzzle of a life is because “he” spared me at the last moment. By
“he” I mean my father, but when he says it, his eyes scream of Ripred. It was
to show me the lord’s mercy, my father claimed at the time, so that I could
join them in their obsession with their deity when the time came.
That time won’t come.
It won’t come, because I can’t give my devotion to a
delusion that only exists in spurts and haze-filled dreams.
Then again, is my life not the same way?
I speak of fundamental truths, but the real truth is that my
foundation changes every day. Today, this is my story, but tomorrow, who knows?
When the facts keep changing, eluding my grasp, how can I
ever know myself? Another truth – I can’t. But I can keep searching, as I sit
in my room grabbing at straws, as I smile at the people of the district I pass
every day, as I glare at my father with a cocktail of toxic emotions.
One day I will uncover my story, but that day,
unfortunately, is not today.
