Wayne Goss | District 12 | FIN

You didn’t have a kind upbringing? Did you? At least, that is how you remember it. Small quarters in the seam of twelve did you no justice as you tried to keep your distance from a family that had very little interest in being that. 

It wasn’t your fault, or their fault, or anyone’s fault really. It was the hand you were dealt, and you didn’t have an opinion of it when you were younger. You couldn’t understand any of it anyway. An empty home though? That was something you knew way too well. Your mother was around, but not in a way that she wanted to be. The vocalization of her distaste of sitting around could be played over and over in your head. However, you were too young to work in the mines, unlike your brother who joined your father at a young age. 

There was a piano at your empty home. A piano that your father worked on even when he didn’t need too. It was a family heirloom, one that they said they would never give away unless it was absolutely necessary. Your mother had been taught to play, a skill that she used to make a living from time to time. There was never a time where you weren’t on the verge of having nothing, but the little bit your mother was able to make from time to time was enough to keep you afloat.

Your mother invested time teaching you the intricacies of the instrument before your father went to work. He would sit there and listen as your tiny fingers stumbled through the keys, stopping you from time to time to retune the piano when he heard a sour note. They could tell that you had some sort of talent, musicality is what they would call it if they knew the word for it. You wouldn’t discover that word until you were older. 

You fell in love with that off white piano that lived in the house with you. However, so did others, as it became apparent that your mother needed to teach more in order to support the family. You watched from your “room” as other kids walked into your house to sit at the piano that would one day be yours. Some of them found joy from the teachings of your mother as she worked tirelessly to elevate even the roughest of hands, but you felt like none of them could compare to yours. Sometimes your mother would even bring you out to give examples of how it should go. Those were the times when you felt like you actually mattered to the family. Like you finally had a job to do.

Like there was more to this world then just standing by the sidelines.

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You aged, but you did not grow into the boy that your father was expecting. Your arms were lanky, your body seemed malnourished, and your persona wasn’t strong enough to handle the mines. This wouldn’t have been an issue if your older brother hadn’t gotten sick. His coughs could be heard from outside of the house, which is where you tried to spend most of your time when he was home. It didn’t help that you had to share a bed with him, most of the time, keeping you up throughout the night until he had to wake up and go to the mines the next day. Sometimes he would keep your parents up too, and the only way they could get any sleep was if you woke up to play the piano over his coughs. The sound wasn’t always enough to drown them out, but it was enough to at least soothe your parents ears as they tried to sleep. 

It didn’t take long for your brother to pass, losing him was hard, but it was harder on your father as he watched you grow frailer by the day. It didn’t take long for you to get sick either, but you found ways to preserver it. The world wasn’t kind to you, and neither were your parents though. They always expressed how unhappy they were with their life, and why you getting sick could have been the worst thing for them. They didn’t think you were going to get better, going as far to try to dig you a ditch to throw you into next to your brother. 

Even on your worst day, you found ways to get out of bed. Your cough was never as persistent, and you realized that you were only sick if you let yourself think that. You found ways to come out of your room and be present. Sometimes you sat down at the piano and played songs that your parents never taught you. You made an effort to try to take care of the home while your parents both worked out of the house, and you even tried to learn how to take care of the piano you loved so much.

You got better, and your parents were amazed. Your father realized that you would never be fit to work in the mines, but maybe you could learn to be a carpenter, or a handy man, or someone that could use their hands for good. It started with quick fixes, a shakey floorboard, a ripped piece of cloth, a loose door. Nothing that you couldn’t do by yourself. Your father trusted you enough, but that only came with time. Time that you spent getting yelled at by him when you messed up. He was always there to make sure things got done the way they were supposed to. You were not allowed to half ass anything, even if you were doing everything right.

You were a failure to him before you even started.

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He let you work on the piano once, and that meant the world to you. His hands worked quickly through the strings to help tune, but you could not keep up. They moved so fast that while you were in there, you snapped one of the strings in half, which rendered the piano near useless. In the Goss household, perfection was expected, and if you did not meet that, then you were cast aside. Your parents threw that piano out, along with you.

You were useless to them if you messed with their way of life.

However, you took that piano with you, to a place where maybe you could find another string to make it whole again. You knew roughly how to replace it, but not as well as your father. That wasn’t the point anymore. You wanted to do things better than your father. You wanted to prove that maybe you didn’t need them. If they were going to destroy you, then you would rise from the ashes of the fire they threw you in.

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You found a string that could replace what you needed, and you played that piano wherever you could. You had some friends around the district, and you found homes every night where you could sleep at the very least. You lived on the edge, being poor was not an easy thing, but you found ways to be resourceful. Whether it was trading a song for food, or fixing something for a place to sleep. You had to teach yourself to be self-sufficient. You had something to prove after all. 

You spent a lot of time in the town square, playing your piano for everyone to hear. You felt like in times like this, everyone could have used a little music to at least ignore the hardships everyone faced. Sometimes people brought you food in order to keep you satiated, it just depended on how kind people wanted to be that day. When your piano would break, you found ways to get what you needed, even if that involved smuggling them out of the markets with no one noticing. You didn’t find pride in stealing, but you found necessity in it. In order to survive, you had to take advantage of others, just like people would have tried to take advantage of you.

That was until you were approached one day by a man that you did not know. He dressed well, and offered you food when you needed it the most. You took it, but he didn’t leave right away. He kept asking your questions about your life that you weren’t completely comfortable asking. He never broke eye contact with you, and the questions never eased off slightly personal. Was he sizing you up? Or was he trying to be nice? You weren’t certain.

That’s until he brought up watching you steal things from the Market.

You had always found a way to be sneaky when you do such things, but apparently not sneaky enough. You tried to apologize, but he simply waved you off.  He had no interested in busting you according to him. Instead he offered a kind smile and some words to encourage you. You don’t know why he was so interested, but he offered you a place to stay.

And who were you to turn something like that down.

You made sure your piano could come with you, and he welcomed both of your with open arms. You were still so innocent, but you had a feeling that you would be doing your fair share of deals with devils.

Anything to survive.