josie moores | d11 | done

josie

Fuck squirrels.

Their tiny, beady eyes boring into your soul as they scurry way too close for comfort before quickly darting away before anyone can get close enough to see what's truly inside of them. I'm entirely convinced that they're each outfitted with a pair of cameras to spy on all of us.

Even more importantly, they're free to do whatever the hell they want. They're a tease, a joke concocted by the capitol to spy on us while hurting us at the same time. Their seemingly adorable appearance is just meant to lull us into a sense of security while they mock us and run in and out of the fence around district eleven.

If the Capitol controls everything, and squirrels can leave whenever they want, they cannot be real.

That's why I keep my barn clear of any squirrels, and each time I see them, I set my dog on them. He never catches them. They just scurry back over the fence and away from his frantic barking, but he's enjoying himself and the Capitol will never see what's hidden away in here.

The toy props, the stage, the small array of costumes I've been able to amass over the years.

My hidden fortress meant for display.

I'll never get my debut on a huge Capitolite stage, the kind that Caeser Flickerman never fails to announce the deaths of tributes on each year. I'll never be on the T.V. each night, acting out a marvelous scene as citizens of Panem watch from their couches. It's simply not allowed from the cage the Capitol has locked district eleven in.

But each Saturday night, my friends and I play for the small audience who isn't afraid of retribution. The laughing, the clapping, the cheering at the end. They whisk me away from the confinement of the linked fence.

My grandfather, an actor from a time long past, had told me stories while I was kid. About crowds, about spotlights on his face. He had lived the life, so when I was little, I would beg him to write stories for me, and once they were complete, I would run through the house. Wooden sticks became gleaming metal swords that clashed against my sibling's shields.

Imagination became my escape. It was the only way to feel the warmth of the spotlight on my face just the way grandpa had described it. Then when he passed away, I knew what I needed to do.

The old barn behind our house became my theater, a wooden mess my stage. My siblings grew older and they began to tend to the farm. They let their imagination slip away from their grasps as adults always do. But I was different, I would never let the memories of chariot rides through the corn fields, battling my dog, a viscous dragon, with a chew toy, and losing the love of my life, once, twice, and over and over again in my mind.

Then as I failed to grow up, I found other's who refused to accept the fate of age that was unwillingly thrust upon them. My friends helped me build my stage, my meager spotlights, and pretty much everything else that our imagination could conjure into reality.

Then, our shows began.

Each week brought a few more people as they sought the brief enjoyment that staring at the TV couldn't bring. Our stories would tear people away from their brutal lives and into something far more whimsical and childish. They were never real, but it didn't matter to us or to our viewers.

And after each finale, our ovations would bring the wish that these stories would never end. Everyone, even the most adult-like adult, wants to be trapped in a story away from their miserable life, and that's what we never fail to deliver.

My parents sometime tell me they wish that I could grow up, that I could be responsible like my siblings, that I could work my dreary life on the farm without complaint.

But if growing up means I have to leave my life behind, then I guess I'll just stay a child forever.