Look What You Made Me Do :: [Mayor Calliope Bloom, Oneshots]

maybe I got mine
but you'll all get yours

For some reason the keys feel heavier in her hand than the baseball bat. The doors to the justice building were built to imply that giants capable of carrying the earth on their backs dwell here and yet the lock still turns to the will of the young woman just declared keeper of this kingdom mere hours ago. She is dwarfed by brutal stone and an unreasonable amount of mahogany as she peeks into the dark hall. It has always oppressed her — even when she was a child too young to understand what this place was for — and she has to consciously remind herself that she has grown so much since then. She is big enough, giant enough for this.

Since her mother died nearly two decades ago, the world has weighed heavier on her shoulders than any building could. It was terrible enough to lose a parent at that age and then just a couple years later came the murder of her most beloved brother, then immediately the murder of Ethan Taurus (whose memory causes her to run her tongue over her teeth with a mix of emotions she’ll never be able to decode), the murders of classmates she didn’t really know and the murder of one who was a close friend... her best friend... her only friend through all the hard years when teddy bears and smiles were no longer enough for other girls to want to be near her. Poe was beat into a coma by his own druggie friends. He might have been Calliope’s least favorite brother and she might have sworn for all these years that she hates him (and she does... or did... or never... or always...), but that didn’t make it feel easy. Not for her. Not for their father. Their father who abandoned her because he couldn’t take any of it anymore, as if to say this is your problem now, kid. So she used the chemistry skills that could have done so much more to cook meth and survive by the demise of others. If she has learned just one thing it’s that everyone survives by the demise of others.

The baseball bat cracks against the head of a decorative stone bust of President Snow. The baseball bat cracks against the mahogany bench outside a clerk’s office. The baseball bat cracks against the spout of a water fountain that goes flying up to crash into a chandelier that glitters in the moonlight the same way it glitters as it shatters, only the shattering is so much bigger.

Water arcs through the air and floods the marble tiles, soaking the hem of the formal dress Calliope wore for election night. It was a gift from Wolfgang, a forgotten schoolgirl crush come back to haunt her. She doesn’t bother wondering where he is or what he’s doing; where she is and what she’s doing is unthinkable enough for the both of them. But the dress is beautiful, even drenched in destruction, and the reflection of herself in the water is like something out of a wild story — a fierce goddess of the endtimes bringing chaos upon mere mortal men.

Wrist flicking the bat in circles with swagger and showmanship for an audience that won’t be here for the show until the morning, she smashes aluminum into glass over and over until every pane in the main hall is shattered at her feet. Giggling as if her mind gave in and wandered to thoughts of the arrogant boy she refuses to swoon for, she spins in circles and dances her way down and down. Whirling fabric leaves subtle patterns in the wreckage and she feels beautiful for the first time since the days when she was allowed to be carefree as a girl. The world is new again and it glitters, more and more and more as she kisses it into new life with the bat, recreating everything in her image.

don't like your tilted stage, the role you made me play
of the fool, no, i don't like you

Thunk.

Calliope drops her head against the desk hard enough that a bright red mark has bloomed in the center of her forehead. Her secretary has already run into the office several times this morning to check on the young mayor, still concerned over the soft, frequent echo of her frustration that whispers out of the door and into the hallway. If anything, that worry seems to be growing rather than settling into Calliope’s new routine.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

There were a lot of big ideas said into the microphone during her campaign. Promises were made not just to the community, but to herself. More than anything, maybe even more than tearing this building apart with her bare hands, what she wants is to create a place to help the people that are too often pushed so far out of mind that everyone wants to pretend they don’t even exist. Like her brother Aesop. Or Poe. Or... her.

It all started with Aesop. The Bloom family had found a way to cope with the loss of their mother and the whole community had reached out to console them and offer help. So many casseroles were brought that they ran out of room in the kitchen — fridge and counters overflowing — and began storing them on the living room bookshelves. It wasn’t anything like that after Aesop was sent to slaughter. Not only did no one send hopes, prayers, or sustenance of any kind, hardly anyone spoke of what happened at all. Those conversations were held out of earshot, scathing whispers behind their backs about how it would be better for everyone if that lowlife druggie killer never came home. He had carried severed body parts around in his bag, for God’s sake. Who knew what he would do if he came back?! A look of relief was shared throughout the community when Aesop bled out upon the snow.

The young woman commanding the highest office in the District was only a child then, sobbing into her teddy bears with grief. That little girl wanted her big brother, wanted a reassuring hug, wanted to be told everything could be okay again. Maybe it was for the best that no one lied to her, holding their tongues with pity and harsh judgment in their eyes. It wouldn’t have done her any favors to grow up soft and naive — she wouldn’t have survived. Instead she would have ended up hanging herself when she was the last Bloom remaining, body left to rot until the rope frayed enough to snap and rats found her pathetic corpse.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

Despite everything, she refuses to become one of those people who looks the other way and pretends others into nonexistence. It shouldn’t be this difficult to get one thing done, to get people on board with her idea for a rehabilitation center — after all, it’s what got her elected. The people want it.

It’s a pity that the Capitol doesn’t care what the people want. To them, this whole District is nothing but lowlife druggie killers that would be better off dead... so long as they still get their regular shipments of medicine. Why fix what they can simply forget? There’s no reason to care and there’s even less of a reason to bother.

Thunk.

there's nothing I want but money and time
million dollar bills and a tick tick tick tick

It turns out there are rich people in District Six. Who knew?

Previous to her first banquet event (someone being honored for a Very Important Medical Discovery of the sort that won’t benefit anyone outside of the Capitol for at least a decade) everything Calliope knew about being a rich person could be summed up in two facts: One. Rich people are arrogant assholes who don’t care about anything other than themselves. Two. Rich people have a lot of money. Who knew there could be more to them than that?

Apparently many of them also love having their names on things like plaques, honorary benches, and buildings.

you've hit a wall and it's not your fault, my dear
Now you've hit a wall and you've hit it hard, oh dear

Calliope Bloom killed someone today.

It wasn’t because she wanted to. It wasn’t because Sara Hartfield pressed a knife to her throat, but it was still kill or be killed.

There was a mechanical failure across town in the factory district last month where Panem’s medication is produced. A bolt had come loose on one of the machines — months ago, maybe even years. Things started bending where they weren’t supposed to, so slowly that no one noticed until things began jamming and a maintenance crew was brought in to discover major flaws in the design. Such a small thing shouldn’t have mattered, but instead everything fell apart. It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious — production quotas were missed and there wasn’t enough to go around.

No matter what, the Capitol would take its full share. They would cut out Calliope’s tongue and hang her in the town square if she tried to refuse.

Selfish thoughts had filled her mind when she was briefed on the situation for the first time. Surely her District could simply keep the rest of this month’s supply for itself. No one here needed to suffer and several of her advisors agreed. It wasn’t until she thought it over on her own, not sleeping and not sleeping and not sleeping, that she realized that providing a (hopefully unnecessary) chance at saving an extra handful of lives here would cost so many more across the nation. With certainty. Half the usual supply could go a long way — there was always some that wasn’t used each month, that was simply allotted as a sort of buffer because antibiotics are usually so cheap and easy to produce. The population of District Six is small relative to some of the others and only sending out a fraction of the usual amount everywhere else would lead to devastating epidemics...

Half. All twelve Districts would get half. Including her own.

It was almost enough, supplies stretched to last three weeks without issue, but a virus spread through one of the elementary schools on the outskirts of Six, too quickly to contain. (Such a small thing shouldn’t have mattered...) The local hospital couldn’t contact anyone in time to see if patients could be transferred to places with more resources remaining. A six-year-old died. She died because weeks ago Calliope had decided that child would be expendable.

You must have the words in that head of yours
And oh, oh, can you feel the silence?

The coma ward is quieter than she remembers. Everything looks the same, but it feels so far away, as if her fingers won’t be able to make contact with anything she reaches out to touch. For years she came to visit her unconscious brother every day, if only to scream at him and dig her nails into the unresponsive flesh of his arm with frustration. She hated coming, looking at his face until she couldn’t take it anymore, but she didn’t want to become like him — pushing people out of memory. She would remember Poe. She would remember Aesop. That’s what she told herself, at least.

After she was elected mayor, time began slipping away. Days consume her, teeth sunk so far in that sometimes she doesn’t realize one has become the next until her secretary brings in her morning coffee, eying yesterday’s clothing with silent concern. Throwing herself into work is how she made it through life without losing her mind and it has become a dangerous habit. There’s too much she’s still figuring out about this job. With all the things going wrong in the District lately, the circles beneath her eyes look more like the aftermath of a fistfight than a mere lack of sleep.

How long has she been awake? Thirty-six hours? Forty-eight? More?

The world blurs. Any time she stays too still for too long she realizes that the world is still moving, not just on its axis, but in a way that says something about her health. She blinks it away and tells her feet to move, to follow a path she used to stick to so stubbornly before she went rogue on the last incarnation of her future. (It’s as if every few years, when she finally does go to sleep, she wakes up as an entirely different person — a carefree child, a science star with everything figured out, a distraught dropout, a drug dealing meth cook, a politician. Don’tsleepdon’tsleepdon’tsleep. It gets worse every time.)

Napoleon’s hair is so long and his unshaven face so confusing that she thinks she has the wrong room at first, unable to recognize her brother. It was always her that trimmed his hair and shaved his face so that the extra expense of a barber wasn’t added onto his already catastrophic hospital bills. The neglect is so obvious that she gasps. It takes fifteen minutes to track down the scissors and razor that were displaced in the back of a drawer and another ten to climb onto the bed beside him, repositioning him so she can get to all of his hair. His weight is less than before.

Usually she would lash out at him under her breath as she snipped away, but today the words don’t come. Instead she focuses on her work, on keeping her hands moving and her eyes flicking around his face so the world doesn’t spin too far without her chasing along behind it. He looks so pale compared to the teenager in her memories, but he’s certainly not a teenager anymore. He must be —

She can’t remember how old he is this year, there are too many other thoughts crowding her head. In his thirties. Ripred! How old is she? What happened to them? Where have their lives gone? That is the question that never seems to change.

Running her fingers across his newly smooth cheeks, she checks for missed spots, but can’t find any. The ends of his shorn hair seem straight enough, but it’s too hard to see through her tears. When did she start crying? The world blurs, moving too quickly and she impulsively wraps her arms around her brother in an attempt to stabilize herself. (All she can think is that she hasn’t hugged Poe since before Aesop’s reaping...) "I’m sorry." He’s supposed to be her big brother, but he feels so much smaller than her. The comatose Bloom can’t hold her up and they both slump into the hospital mattress, unconscious.

There’s no telling what kind of person either of them will wake up to be.

Tell me a piece of your history
That you're proud to call your own

When Calliope whirls on the peacekeeper standing beside her, throwing herself at him, she doesn’t think about how this is a good way to get shot. Instead she thinks:

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT, I DID IT! I ACTUALLY FUCKING DID IT! AHHHHHHHH!

The bright red satin ribbon tied across the front entrance of the rehab center was snipped in half with a comically giant pair of scissors and the only thought running through her head was:

HOLY MOTHERFUCKING SHIT! I NEED TO HUG SOMEBODY OR I'M GOING TO DIE!

She didn’t think about how those two things aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Even when she’s immediately tackled to the ground in front of the deeply confused crowd attending the ribbon cutting ceremony, she doesn’t think about that. Instead she laughs, grown so old and yet growing backwards, lost in a childish moment of uncontained giddiness. "Sorry, Mannix!" She squeals at the peacekeeper pinning her down, a gun pressed to her chest. "I just —"

She smiles so wide that she can’t keep her eyes open, sunlight bouncing off her teeth as she laughs and laughs, a red ribbon waving victoriously in the breeze.

We used to swim in your stories
And be pulled down by their tide

In a year or two when someone runs the numbers, they will conclude that there are statistically more deaths during the day shifts at the clinic than during the night shifts, despite the odds, and no one seems to know why. Much later, when someone else bothers to do the math on the mortality rate for this part of the community that many people try not to acknowledge as ever having existed at all, they won't be certain whether the numbers are up or down because there won't be much of anything to compare things to. The families of survivors will be convinced the world is brighter. The families that experienced loss cannot agree.

What's important is that sometimes someone who would have died, doesn't. Perhaps more important still is that every now and again someone who would have lived either way goes on to live better. They wake up from the brink of a different kind of gone. They hug their mothers, their fathers, their sisters, their brothers. They are hugged back. Calliope tries to memorize that forgiveness, quietly hoping to be asked for it someday.