Have a Little Faith [pre-election oneshot]

V A S C O

I tried all of that
I'm giving it back
I feel under pressure
I want to relax
I want to be messed up
Don't want to be jaded

Yani’s little hands gripped a stubborn patch of purslane. She gave a few tugs before rending the weed free from the earth, scattering the dirt at her feet. Next to her, I pulled out whole handfuls of hogweed and dandelion that had snuck past our defenses and soaked up the summer sun. It’s a fluid motion, hand around the whole of the weed with fingers trailing to the dirt to press into the clay and pull upward. Root and all should come up out of the earth, both to free the weed and prevent others from getting any ideas.

She formed a pile of green at her feet, steady in her work. It’s a sight how far she’d come from the days when she’d been strapped to my back, head nestled against my shoulder in these fields. Now she threatened to be taller than I was at the rate that she was growing. She had tied back her hair in a tight ponytail, curls exploding out over her shoulders. She looked more like Emma each passing day, her eyes giving the same playful glances, or the way her smile curled up the side of her face. That and the way she clicked her tongue when I told a particularly bad joke.

We paused our work around noontime, when the sun cut through the cloudless sky and heat became more than both of us could bare.

I’d soaked right through my shirt and pulled the soft cotton from my back so my skin could feel the breeze drifting. We walked out toward the hills on the edges of these fields to find shade underneath the few oaks that hadn’t been pulled from the earth all those years ago. The rocky soil proved difficult to sow, and the river nestled past the thickets flooded now and again. My father had said this was no-man’s land for farmers of eleven, too stubborn to be freed from nature and too difficult to be bettered by man.

As Yani plucked a torta from the knapsack I’d packed, I listened to her explain that this year she’d be learning about the seasons, all the things that could change the soil, and maths that focused on shapes and distances. She puzzled out that her friends would split their days in the fields during the morning and in the classroom through the afternoon. I nodded my head along with her and paused to chew my thoughts.

Where did we get all the seeds for the fields? (From the department of agriculture in the capitol). Who was in charge of counting everything we’d buried? (The appointed overseer looks over yields and I helped certify them). How many harvests had I been a part of? (At least forty). How long had we been a district? (Eighty-five years, or more). What did you do before you were a mayor? (I farmed, just like we’re doing now.).

Each time taking another bite and munching along, she made sure to listen to every word I gave. Curiosity had swept over her and never let go, save for the times when she saw the line she didn't dare to cross. That afternoon, as she finished the last of her lunch, her voice grew quiet. Each time she would open her mouth to start, before looking at me, then over her shoulder, as though another person could hear.

She settled back against the earth and lay in silence, lost in her cloud watching. I stared off at the river and wondered how many more months it’d be before I had a grandson (or granddaughter, but Emmanuel's wife was showing less in her front so I really thought it’d be a boy).

Yani sat up from her spot on the grass and hunched forward, elbows on the ground, and head in the flat side of her palms. She furrowed her brow and looked as though she was struggling to piece out something for me.

‘¿Y ahora con la muerte del presidente, seremos libres?’¹

“¿En serio?” The question left my lips and I could hardly find a shred of my voice. She covered her mouth and leaned backward, shamed into silence.

But as we packed up the blanket into our knapsack and tucked away the I kept thinking of the question over and over. How far we’d come from five years ago – the riots and the anger that pulsed through the districts. There was a hunger for change. Even Yani was well enough aware or had heard others talking (my money was on Druso, if I had to guess).

I knelt to place a hand on her shoulder and meet her eye to eye.

“No puedo prometerte eso. Pero te digo que no debemos descansar hasta que todo el mundo sea libre.”² I wrapped my arms around her, and the world is quiet, save the trickle of the river running down below.

We spent the afternoon doing honest work: handing out the bread and canned goods at the food pantry; talking to farmers who needed money to fix their irrigation systems; lending a hand to the men and women that were reconstructing the silos burned down in the fires months ago. Not once did Yani complain about the work – she smiled as she arranged the plastic bags of bread; asked the farmers why they preferred drip over sprinkler irrigation; and put on a hardhat too big for her head and hammered whatever they’d let her hammer.

I’d spent the last six months thinking that I’d step down as mayor. For all sorts of reasons. The fact that my family had become enemy number one to those in power. That there had been unrest in the wake of all the hurt we’d experienced. That even as the fifth year set behind us, freedom was far from view.

I walked hand-in-hand with Yani home along the gravel road letting my thoughts get the better of me. She rested her head against my arm as we pressed along, smile as broad as she could manage. Looking down at her, you couldn’t help but smile back.

Hope, it seemed, continued to bloom in district eleven.

It was never the pain that defined us, and never would be. The capitol wanted us to believe that the generations of trauma were what validated our existence. That we could never become better people without suffering and were never valid unless we submitted to grief. But the Izars had never submitted to grief; we’d learned to mend each other’s wounds and put one foot in front of another. We’d discovered our hearts were better measures of who we were than our tragedies. We were too strong to bow and too proud to kneel to injustice from a system rigged against us.

As Yani charged up the steps and into the house, I crept over to the hanging bench to rest. I closed my eyes as I sat and rocked in the cool autumn evening.

No one had seized the crown from Snow, and by now it looked as though no one would. How long could a group of squabbling capitolites manage an empire? How long would they last against a group of organized citizens who dared to call for freedom, for equity, for all the things that they’d deserved for generations?

Change had come to eleven these past few years; panem had started to fracture, and some of us were willing to question who held the power. Pierre, Althea, Catherine – others who at the least could see times were changing.

Five years ago, I’d preached of unity of our district. That through love and hard work, we could come together and fix what ailed us. Yet it wasn’t a big enough scope; we needed more than just us to solve the problems we faced. We needed district eight, four, and three, all the districts to unite and for the walls to come down between us. To speak in one voice rising up to say, we will not be broken again.

I heard Yani call that dinner was ready from the door, her shadow spilling out onto the porch.

Any revolution would not be for me, an aging man with twilight years within reach. But for the ones who dared to still dream, who knew what was good, and what they were worth. For those that held onto to dignity and faith. To those that would put aside their greed and ambition to rebuild a space for all.

I took one last look at the setting sun and gave a two fingered salute before heading through the front doors.

There was much work to be done.

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<sup>1. and now with the death of the president, will we be free?
2. I can't promise you that. But I'm telling you that we shouldn't rest until everyone is free.</sup>