chimalus freeman // d12 fin

i bet on losing dogs
i know they're losing and i'll pay for my place
by the ring
where i'll be looking in their eyes
when they're down

Eager hands reach to the sky, grabbing towards the clouds like it's only one inch away. Chimalus lays on the red clay of the property, feeling the way the blood drains down his arm, how lightweight it feels to beg to the sky --  they've always been a kid with too active a mind. Too many questions, too many perspectives for some one to never live: it's something that's always weighed on them. 

How much of life will they never experience? 

There was a time in life where they didn't have enough, where living here wasn't enough. People in Twelve weren't given media, weren't given anything but a box television set that blared those old death games, over and over again. They would watch it in secret at night; not for the tragedies, not out of sick, morbid curiosity, but to catch glimpses of what the world was. 

Such an emphasis on the cruelty, on the violence, the pain, Chimalus rewatched so many of those tribute interviews, hearing of all the experiences they'd never understand. To hear of oceans and mountains, of families so unlike him, what they had lost. 

People so unlike what felt like home, when they would go to the market square and hold their uncle's hand and see so much. Things that weren't shown on television, of what makes family feel so much like love, Chimalus doesn't understand what the world wants from them. Like there's a closed door in front of him, shaped like a wire fence and the dark forests that separate him from the rest of the world. 

Why are we closed off? 

What can be out there? 

Chimalus and his sister would sit in the garden while they learn, they would scribble in the margins of homemade text books, drawing notes next to the graffiti their elders made. Years on top of years, they keep the books inside of a chest, locked away inside of closets when they aren't using it. Their sister forgets just as much as they do, legs crossed, their ankles resting on the red clay. 

Information is everything, they've learned that much. You are only a product of what you know, the dry, coarse earth they live on as a reflection of what they are. Some people are products of the ocean, of the factories and dead land; Chimalus sits with his sister, roaring static broadcasting through the open arch of their home. It seeps through the air, like smoke, like a siren. 

They broadcast the death of Kahinta Jones. The closest to what looks like him, "can you go turn that off, Chimalus?" 

"And what if I wanted to watch it?" 

"Again?" She doesn't look at him, only scrunches her face at the notepad she writes on, "consider it a favor for both of us." They groan before walking back to the terrace of their home, something they should proud of. The Freeman's have it well enough off, the people of their district resent the little bit they have. Things they have grown and tended to, fragile cherishes that can be taken away on a whim -- Chimalus finds it hard to be grateful. 

They have it better; not worse enough to complain. 

There's plants on the terrace, broken terracotta pots his aunt had made for his father's birthday. Broken pots are a luxury, he thinks himself too spoiled to see it. Women like Ridley Le Roux have diamonds, luxuries they can afford to break, afford to lose or sell or hate -- it stings to not experience that. Nico Thorne sold two limbs for everything, Temple and Kahinta Jones are forced to watch each others deaths for crumbs. 

We work to survive. Their home built by hand on red dirt older than they are, they wipe their hands on the thigh of their skirt. The threads catch at Chimalus's palms, friction as a kiss before they open the door to their home. Jones's words feel like a haunt, like a repeating song; there's a promise somewhere in there that's like a tease to Chimalus. What would happen if someone like them had one? 

Nico Thorne is hope. 

That's something to be grateful for. 

Kahinta is dead, and there's a promise that Temple Jones is still alive. Just two districts away, somewhere between the clay and the dirt and the dying, their footsteps sound so loud on the tile floor, like it's a disrespect to walk as Kahinta talks. She speaks of righteousness, they feel shame as they turn the television off. 

Did she not deserve to live? 

Why are these questions that get asked each day?

What do they die for -- that's the part that's confused Chimalus from the start. They return to their textbook, idle mind wandering down paths too treacherous for a sixteen year old. Every year it looms like a threat, her name is written in their books by the binder, like the blood of the pages. The fiber of each chapter, embedded in each thread: Piper Freeman. 

'LaCour.' Bull shit. 

Older than them, than their adult cousins, than their mothers and uncle's, and their father's father. Held above their head and respected in their earth, they planted a tree over her coffin but it doesn't mean they're safe. She's with the clay, but where does that leave those above it? A young girl killed over eighty years ago, she died for nothing. 

Chimalus traces his thumb over the width of the book, "I turned it off."

"Ew."

"Oh, shut up." 

There isn't space for Chimalus in this system. It's two years until they don't need to worry about it anymore, until it's just another coming of age story and they can sit aside knowing it won't be them. Call Chimalus selfish, ungrateful, whatever means they give to live and see the end to their questions. 

They call them she. That's how They make sense of them, male bodied child; they are a son, a sun bearer, they dream of love and family. They chose district twelve female for their sister, for their aunts who weave and create, for their mother and grandmother. 

for Temple Jones, the unkillable. 

for Piper Freeman, the flute. 

As they sit, Chimalus flips the book on the wrong page. A later chapter, the margin reads "District 13: the Beyond," and they don't show their sister how wide their eyes get.

 Someplace kind. A place so hard to imagine for a sixteen year old.