Clarity [Sarkine One Shot]

Sarkine Ottrel

Sarkine perched across the wrought iron fire escape outside the window to her boardinghouse bedroom. She rested an elbow against the cool metal frame and stared down three stories to the pavement below. Night was setting in, and soon the streetlights would flicker on along the street. Men and women would come down from their apartments and march off toward factories, while others would trudge home at the end of their shifts.

There was a rhythm here that hadn’t been a part of district one. A way of coasting through life that felt resigned, as though waking up each morning was seen more a privilege than a right. She could see it walking the streets, the way the men had it etched into their faces, or that no one was in so much a hurry as they were in one. They all knew exactly where they were going, at their own speed, even if it frustrated Sarkine to no end walking behind them.

She flicked a chrome lighter borrowed from the boy down the hall (he had smiled a bit too long and asked how long she was staying for), and lit a cigarette she’d been given by a girl on the first floor the other evening.

Amelia, she’d said her name was, had started work as a laundress after her last reaping, and lived in a little closet of a room. She had to go out into the hall to use a shared bathroom and paid extra to be able to switch on the radiator at night. She beamed telling Sarkine that she was the first in her family to move out of the two bedroom an hour’s walk from there, her four other siblings still stuck at home with her parents. She ate a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast and dinner six out of seven nights. On Sundays she had mutton stew, an odd concoction of curried goat and vegetables that made Sarkine wretch.

Earnestness hadn’t existed as much in one, at least, not the sort of girls that Sarkine knew. One could look at the crop of tributes that had been reaped the past few years to see it. She didn’t blame them so much as how their parents had failed them. Sarkine took an extra-long drag at the thought of her father glad handing the other important families back in one. He was all too ready for Absalom’s body to come back home so he could stand next to the Frays, about the only time the Ottrels would ever have the chance. She smirked at the thought of Sophie returning, and flicked away ash. Her father would be disappointed at the prospect of a celebration, one that would highlight Sophie and forget Absalom (and the Ottrels) completely.

She hoped Sophie won.

The wind shifted. She brought her peacoat tighter around herself and closed her eyes.

Five days had passed in district eight, and soon enough the games would be over. They’d want her tarted up for the victor presentation, forced to stand on some platform behind her brother’s beaming face. There’d be speeches and applause, and then, like all stories for the lost, and end. A chapter closed, an epilogue written, and they, the survivors, would go on, a part of the blank pages that came after.

She found herself crying now and again at odd moments, grief tricky and something she didn’t want to control. Maybe if she’d bought into the stoicism of district one she’d have been better off, but Sarkine saw it as bullshit that strength came from suppressing emotion. People that pretended not to get angry or be hurt were all the more suspicious. If they weren’t supposed to understand and mold their anger, or sadness, then how could she have ever known what it meant to feel happy, or elated?

She thanked Absalom for helping her understand that.

He didn’t how lonely she’d been, time and time again, purposefully separating herself from the ethos of district one. She struck out on her own and pushed away the ones that bought into training, or that climbing the ridiculous hierarchy would get them the eternal joy they seemed so damn interested in.

But it was exhausting, and lonely, to be the voice that chided their fun. To be the one that pointed out how what they were doing seemed flawed, that as much happiness as it brought them then seemed to need to put someone else down, physically (or to the more astute, emotionally, too).

She wasn’t without friends in one, but it’d taken so long for her to find them that she’d spent all the trust she’d had on herself.

She tossed her cigarette and watched it spiral down to the street below. Sparks scattered across the paving stones, and she smiled.

When the girls at the coffee shop told Sarkine how happy they were to see her, she shrugged it off as another empty gesture. Or when they didn’t say a word to her during her shift, that she’d been right all along. Paranoia crept in to whisper that no one enjoyed her, never had, or would, for the way she was brusque and too honest by half.

Tomorrow morning, she was to be back on the train to one, a few stories in hand, and a promise to be kept to her father.

A whistle sounded in the distance, calling out a change of shift at one of the factories. She spent a while watching the people march along the street and listening to their conversations float to the fire escape above. There was chatter of a wedding; of someone’s pregnant wife nearly due; that next weekend would be their eldest son’s nineteenth birthday. She idled in the mundane as long as she could.

She was jealous that her world would never be the same. She wanted to walk along the edges of the park near her house with Absalom and talk about the apartment they dreamed of living in. She wanted to imagine the nights they’d watch movies and eat seasoned popcorn. That one morning she’d bang on Absalom’s door for snoozing too long, that there was a lot they had to do and oh my god put some pants on already Absalom!

But that world was as much a dream as it’d ever been.

She’d be her father’s sole heir, someone to take on the business and expected to help with his climb through society. This was his moment. Sarkine believed that it’s all he’d ever wanted, Absalom dead and no longer a burden to take care of, or an embarrassment that kept his dreams from reality.

Sarkine lay down flat across the cool metal of the fire escape and stared up at the stars. Clouds of smoke blotted some from view, but she could still make out some of them.

Was it just a fact of youth to feel trapped? Or was it that district one had confined her to a future she’d never wanted, but couldn’t refuse? It’s not like she could change the whole of society, even if she managed to convince her father that she never wanted anything to do with his business. The boys would still be stuck upon themselves, and the girls molded into vapid, emotionless creatures that thought cruelty was synonymous with strength.

Maybe she could just give all of it up.

It had been part of her original plan, to come to eight and then – well, she’d just stay. And she’d felt giddy riding the train, as though she were a child playing pretend, the gravity of it all not sinking in even when she stepped off the train. After all, she still had a return ticket and visa papers in her pocket. And how much had Sarkine ever followed through on in her life?

What sort of crazy plan was it, to walk away from one, to disappear to eight, and not return – especially before her brother had even been buried? They’d hunt her down for sure, string her up, and cut out her tongue… wouldn’t they? And even if she stayed, the money she had would run out, and what then? She didn’t have any useful skills, other than a quick delivery of witty rejoinders, and unfortunately, she didn’t think that would pay her bills.

She found herself twisting the bracelet on her wrist over and over.

She’d be comfortable, in her father’s big house back in one, more money than she needed, a life of fancy parties and attention, too. She could find a nice husband and a nice house. She’d have some children who she’d preen and tell folks they’re just my whole world, and she’d smile, even though by then she’d feel absolutely nothing. She’d push it all down because that was what would have been better for her, to find a life that was comfortable, that didn’t make waves, that made her well liked even if she didn’t much like herself.

Wasn’t it?

There was nothing left in district one, not without Absalom.

She sat up and pawed at her jacket until she pulled the papers from her pockets. She held the stamped visa letter detailing the dates and times of her travel. Underneath were the train tickets, one marked for the next morning.

Courage came a lot of ways, she imagined. Even as terrified as she was, enough that her hands were shaking, there wasn’t a single voice to tell her what she was about to do was foolish. Instead, as she opened the lighter and flicked the flame to start, she couldn’t help but feel a rush through her veins. This was her decision, one that she couldn’t turn back from, one that would be all the dangers she couldn’t see then and there. As the flames ate through the papers she dropped them in front of her, and crouched over the end of the woman she’d been.

Sarkine watched the embers glow red and orange, the paper blacked and shriveled to a lump. She smiled, stood from her spot, and crouched back through the window into her room.

She ran into Amelia when she’d gone to the kitchen for a glass of water, the girl munching another peanut butter sandwich after another long shift.

‘Say, someone looks like she’s in a good mood,’ Amelia sat back in the old wooden chair and motioned for Sarkine to sit. She slid down next to her and nodded.

‘I think I’m going to stay, after all.’ She’d not told Amelia much of herself, other than she’d meant to stay the week to take care of some business.

‘Cheers to that, then. You going to settle in this neighborhood then… Sark, was it?’ She plucked away a piece of crust and chewed.

‘Sara. Call me Sara,’ Sarkine sipped at her water. ‘Sara Ott.’