Drawn Together [Absalom/Eloise]

He hadn’t expected the training center’s harsh fluorescent lights to bring back thoughts of home.

The white ceiling tiles looked to be the same make as those in the gym where he trained, popcorned and swirled in a pattern. Bathrooms reminded him of that same lemon-bleach smell, fresh and antiseptic. He could almost picture the time he’d wet his pants in the second grade and spent the better half of a day being pee-stain boy, crying in an empty stall. He should have been less surprised that at eighteen there were still those that remembered him for the childhood mishap, but then, when cruelty was a virtue, it wasn’t such a shock at all.

When the afternoon set in and some of the trainers organized a grappling session, Absalom excused himself. He was already one of the largest in the arena, and spent twelve years perfecting how to wrestle. If there was an area he was most confident it would be hand-to-hand. He reckoned he would be able to lift up any of the tributes – even the enormous boy Bill – and slam them hard against the ground. It was a matter of positioning, and force. As long as he kept his breathing steady, he could lock just about anyone out.

So he settled on other pursuits that day. Something that could clear his mind and have him settle. When he walked the halls, he would open and close his hands in fits of anxiety, unsure of what he should have been doing in relation to the others. Maybe he was a career by training, but only at the direction of his teachers. Without someone as his guide, he felt as though he was a boat that’d been untied from the dock, set to drift out to sea.

One of the empty rooms was set up like a classroom, with a set of desks in rows and a dry eraseboard at front. It converted to a computer display when he pressed it, bringing about an empty display at the touch of his index finger. He drew a circle with it and smiled at the thick black line against the white of the board. He started to doodle and drew all manner of things. A sun shining overhead. A set of rumbling clouds. A horse with a smiley faced cowboy ontop.

It was when he settled into drawing a picture of his new bunny-liking friend Walt that he heard the sound of the door swish open. He kept drawing, humming all the while.

“Pretty good, right?"