READ SOME ARTICLES AND HELLO ?? THATS SO CUTE MAN

The Tributes I; Simon Riley and Evangeline Thomas

The Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games ; Did I cook guys? More parts to come.

A day off meant sleeping past sunrise in the bed of straw with my little brother. Even in the heat of summer, I found my arm around him keeping him warm. He was so fragile, frequently with fever. Mum always worried about him, always put more food on his plate, always had us looking after him. Mallard and Everett always complain, claiming that “he’d be fine without us” and that “he needed to be a big boy.” However, maybe it’s the big sister in me, but I could never let him struggle.

So here we sit my arm around him, watching as the light begins to shine in the window. I pull up the blanket, just a little bit higher, tucking it in right below his cheek. I place a kiss on the back of his head, knowing that this day off will be the worst day of the year. I can't protect him from this.

I crawl out of bed doing my best not to disturb Lykus. I pull on a pair of trousers and a cotton shirt. It’s supposed to be hot out today, but nonetheless I don’t want the sun on my skin, that’s how you get heat sickness. Next I tuck my feet into my working boots. The supple leather finds its familiar form underneath my toes. I tuck my plaited hair into a bun with a thick wooden clip. With a family of mostly boys, my mother does her best to keep the two women in the family looking somewhat feminine. I always tell her that won’t bring the money in and that it is extra work, but it means something to her so I tried my best.

Even on a day off, there's still other work to be done. I open the door from the attic and head down the rickety old stairs that I’ve had to replace so many times. Nails stick up here and there and I have learned the patterns on where to step on the floorboards. I checked my mum’s door to see both my parents sound asleep still, on days like this the nightmares are the worst so I let them sleep as long as they can, knowing that they’re up half the night. I know for a fact, both of my older brothers are asleep, as much as they are pain in my asses, they work just as hard as the rest of us, maybe even more. Extra sleep might be the best thing for them right now.

Since Mallard aged out of the reaping and moved into the working force, he hasn't been in the house much. Got a job driving trucks of hay back and forth from the fields to the mill. It’s a good job, compared to the other ones he could have gotten. He has always been a hard worker which has never let him down. His boots leave the house at dawn and don’t come back till dusk.

Colton, our scraggly, old dog, comes out of the bathroom where it's the coolest in our house. A large bathtub and sink made of porcelain rejects the heat and keeps cool allowing for a surface to escape to. As a kid I would just rest my face on the side of the tub on those hot days in August. He follows my feet as I head into the kitchen. I picked up a satchel bag that I had snagged from a girl at school when she looked the other way and stuff in a few slices of bread, an apple, and a canteen of water. I set the table with plates, a fork and a knife, and the glasses that I can find in the bare cabinet that spiders are starting to make their home in. I only let them keep the flies and harder to deal with pests away. Seeing a black widow eat a roach one day, was quite a sight to see. I do my best to keep up around the house, after my father’s accident my mother has to work a lot harder and I try to make her job easier.

Just looking at a scythe these days makes my skin itch. The silver of the blade makes the metallic taste in my mouth erupt like a crushed olive. He says he’s better now, but the effect isn’t just on him, it’s the scarred hands of my brother working longer hours than he should. It’s the bags underneath my mother’s eyes from staying up all night, tending to his wounds. It’s Lykus running to me when something is wrong because he knows he can’t go to my father, that he won’t be able to help.

I know it was an accident, but you never know how much you rely on your father until you can’t anymore. Sometimes I catch him, just sitting by the fireplace, staring at some far off shore place. He might have lost a leg in the accident, but what is far worse is that my family lost their father. My mother says that he’s just sick, and when bad things happen to people sometimes they need some mentally to fix themselves. I believe that, but I can’t bring it to myself to fully forgive him.

I resent him as much as I understand him. My oldest brother, Mallard, struggles the most with it. He was only thirteen when it happened, I was eight. He became the head of the family when my mother was too busy, tending to wounds, and trying to keep my brother healthy after he had been so sick when he was born. Everett kept getting into trouble at school and it was not my mother but me who was going to the principal begging for him not to be kicked out. Mallard was the one out, searching for food, trying to keep us afloat. A family of six on the oldest brother's shoulders, A family of six in the only sister's hand. We managed though. Through all of this disparity, it is still a day off. It is still reaping day. One day, everything is out of our control.

Pulling the old door shut and hushing Colton from barking, I swing my bag over my shoulder head down river. My house is in The Farm section of District Nine. Far from town, we are the ones harvesting the grain and transporting it to The Mill. Half of us work in the fields and the other half work in the giant windmills right on the river that powers them. That is where our small town is that leads to the road where the heart of District Nine lies. That is where we will be heading to this afternoon but till then the morning is ours. Up river is The Mill but down river leads to the fields.

The fields are where we all would play as kids, towering stocks of corn, endless amounts of grain. I am the fastests of my siblings. For a girl I have long legs with long strides, powerful muscles hide underneath my clothes from the hard work of harvest. Even children work during the harvest season, cutting the wheat, hurling it into trucks, turning it into flour, transporting. Being weak meant you couldn’t work as much, not working as much meant less food, and less food wasn’t an option for a family as big as mine. Mallard and I have always been determined to feed us.

As District Nine, grain has always been our main export but if you hike out far enough you’ll find fields of things we used to know how to grow. Everett has always been curious about it. He has a knack for finding things to get into trouble. We would cross at the river entrance to what we dubbed our “secret farm” because they neglected to continue the electric fence that kept us in. Rows upon rows are plants that bloom different times of year. During the autumn months we bring back pumpkins, squashes, apples, types of grain we have never had before. During spring we find strawberries, peppers, blueberries, blackberries, and more. In summertime we get watermelon, my favorite. We cut them up to eat, make rine stew, sometimes we even try to make drinks with the juice. During months we could find food we never went hungry, never had empty bellies. However, winter isn’t kind to a family of six. I went weeks without a proper amount of food. However, more important hands were grasping for more and the entire district felt the hunger. Everyone was starving. No amount of saved food would last you all winter. There wasn’t even food to trade or buy at the markets. You did the best with what you had. Mallard always guessed it was a farm from back before the dark ages. We once found an old house but it was collapsed in and nothing to be found. The capitol must have just forgotten about it or neglected to do anything about it.

Everett and I made a book a few springs ago, cataloging everything we could find. Testing things out, making sure they were edible, doing research in school, asking teachers without being suspicious. I made a plan in my head to someday try to move my family out there. Stock up enough things and try to fix up that old house. Living in Panem was hell in itself, the long working hours, never enough pay, never enough resources, you lived to the next hour not even the day. Sure my family had enough food to get us through most of the year, something a lot of others didn’t, but it came at the cost of a target on our backs. If anyone found out what we were doing, Everett and I could be taken to the city square and shot for what we have been doing. I managed to find buyers and traders for things that we were finding to get other things we need like medicine, clothes, and other things we need.

I made my way down the path along the river, the sun was already high and I could feel it burn the back of my neck. I felt fortunate I didn’t get dark hair like my mother and Lykus, the sun would be drawn to my head and I’m sure I would burn to a crisp. Instead I have my fathers hair, straw blonde. It was thick and long and if my mother wasn’t so attached to it, it would be cut to the nape. It got stuck in things and in my way but my mother finds comfort at the end of the day brushing the twigs and leaves out of it. So I let her. She rarely finds moments in the day to rest, between my fathers mental ailments and my brother’s physical ones, she never has a day off like the rest of us.

It’s about a mile to the entrance, the river cuts off the fence to the other side. A few hops on some rocks and I’m on the other side. It takes about twenty minutes to reach our farm, I naw on the pieces of bread I placed in my bag as I hunt through the field of summer plants to return with. We plan on making fish stew with some we caught in the river yesterday. They are currently in a hole outside covered in salt while on the stove waits for the boiling pot. I need some herbs and roots to add in hope that it will make it well for my father to eat. He won’t eat unless it’s something that interests him and as the days go on longer his appetite dies down. I think all of us but Mum knows it’s almost over. Mallard gives it a month, Everett a few weeks, and I a few more weekends. He won’t eat, barely sleeps, and refuses to even drink water sometimes. It takes all the coaxing in the world to get him into the tub and only my mother finds it in her strength to argue with him. My brothers and I gave up long ago. However I still find myself at his bedsides some nights recounting my day to him. For that moment I get once a year where he touches my face with his hard callous hands and says my name sweetly. He was my favorite person in this world when I was a kid. So strong, so resilient, would do anything for his children. Crazy how a leg can cost you more than just your health, but everything that you are.

On my way back I found myself with barley, parsley, and some of the plants Everett had added to the book. I manage to snag a watermelon but have to be careful on the way back, security is up on reaping day and I don’t know who is wandering. I’m careful to take the path through the stalks of corn, hiding myself away. I had marked the path with strips of cloth that led me back to our home. Without it anyone, even the people who work in the field would lose their way. Every stalk looks the same and is above the height of most average people, even someone taller like me, would get lost.

Finally I arrive home and plop my belongings on the table. I finally get to that apple and take a long sip of my water. I didn’t notice how dry my mouth became over my journey. Anxiety will do that to you. Water will find its way to sweat itself out of you until you are bone dry.

“Evan, what did you bring home?” Lykas rubs his eyes creaking down the steps.

“Stuff for stew tonight,” I head over to him and button up the shirt he hap-hasardly put on. I almost forgot what day it is. I have to find a dress. “Sit, I'll feed you.”

He finds his seat that is placed next to my mother’s and I and puts a plat of strawberry jam and toast. We found we could make strawberry jam with crushed up strawberries and mint leaves. It’s a little sour but goes well with bread. I give him my canteen and head up to the attic to rough through my basket of clothes. The same dress I wore last year will do, it was my mother's work. Before my fathers accident she would sell clothes she had sewn herself. Old pieces of cloth from bags of grain that she managed to actually make into nice clothes. This was blue scrunched at the waist line with a ribbon that most have cost us a few runs to our farm. I replaced my boots with slip-on shoes I stole from a cabinet at school and let my hair down to touch my waist.

Looking into our dusty old mirror I look at myself. I always hated my eyes, how gray they were, so lacking in color. Most families have green or hazel eyes, the color of moss. I got my grandmother’s silver eyes, they look like a scythe and I shiver. My brothers hate it when I give them an angry stare, say it’s like I’m cutting into them. I wish they were soft and brown, welcoming with arms extended. My body appears so hostile, tall, lean, long light hair, narrow dark eyes, and calloused hands. I wish I looked like my mother and her small features and soft face. My father fell in love with her for her kindness and loving-nature. I instead have been called rude, bossy, and straightforward. It’s not that I hate it, I appreciate the strengths it comes with. I sometimes just long for the optimism that I associate with my mother. My life has been a lot of push and pull, without gentleness. I didn’t have a hand to hold, no, Mallard and I picked up the slack without complaint and did what we had to do. I only think about this when I have the time to look in the mirror because unfortunately most of the day there is no time to contemplate my personal life.

“Evan!” Everett calls in his rough, exhausted voice. “Truck is here!” It’s time to go. They send trucks to the outer parts of the district where walking would talk an entire day. I rush down the steps and knock on the parents door. My mother is already up and trying to coax father out of the bed.

“Papa, we have to go now, get up.” I say firmly unlike my mother and yank his arm till he is sitting up. She helps me pull him into his wheelchair. He grumples and says something nicely which I tune out. I normally wouldn’t be rough with him but I know he must attend or he can be shot.

I help my mother push him out to the porch where my family is standing for the count. Mallard stands at the end, then Everett, then I take my place, on my right is Lykus, then Mother and Father. A peacekeeper in his shiny white uniform that is so out of place in the fields of beige and brown, pricks each of our fingers for the census and escorts us to the large truck. It’s a grain truck that’s bed was turned into row seats to fit people. Mallard and Everett mumble to each other and I reach out to pull one of their ties tighter. Lykus crawls into my lap whispering that he is scared. He is only thirteen and this is his second reaping. However, at seventeen myself, this is my last potential death wish. Mallard is twenty-three, and Evertt is much behind at twenty.

“My sweet Süßer, nothing shall harm you, I shall see to it,” My family keep nicknames from a forgotten language. Apparently eons ago my grandfather came from a place called Germany, and somehow it kept being passed on. I can speak bits here and there and my father took the time to learn it much more in depth.

The road there is old and dusty, sand and dirt finding its way into the truck bed as we go. It should only take about an hour to get to the city. My family and I try to stay away from the city. It’s where all the factories are. Dangerous things happen there, many are hurt and injured due to unsafe working environments. Many of the people lived in cramped apartments and on the streets begging. The food is even less abundant here due to population. Out in the outskirts there might not be a lot to share but the number of people you have to share with is not as big as the city. You know when the road switches from dirt to asphalt. The smell hits you right after, grain and wind become trash and smog. I tuck Lykus' face into his shirt and lean my own face on Everetts shoulder to protect my face. It’s down right nasty here compared to our breezy home.

We are dropped off at the city square where we are immediately pushed apart and shoved into age groups. I kiss my brother’s foreheads before finding my group of seventeen year olds. I keep my eyes trained on Mallards until he disappears. While I love all my family, Mallard is my home. He is the one I go to when I can’t get through it alone. My parents and Lykus are a responsibility to me, Everett is a wild card, but Mallard, Mallard is safe. He’s been bringing around this Mill girl, Betty. She’s beautiful, long auburn hair, small nose, big blue eyes, freckled pin cheeks, and a kind smile. She’s perfect for him, a perfect wife. I like her well enough, I go to town once in a while with her when I need to get more medicine or do a trade. She reminds me of Mother, soft voice, kind words, and loving hands. She’s everything I wish I could be. I want to be a maker, a creator, a healer, but my body is made to work, to push, to fix.

District Nine’s population of around seventeen thousand find itself in this square, more than half are children caroled into areas of age groups from twelve to seventeen. The reaping isn’t only for choosing two kids death sentences, no, it’s also to take tallies on the population. They like to assign jobs by looking at us and how we handle ourselves. The two will be chosen then seventeen year olds will be brought to officials of each job. Depending on our housing, our abilities, and demeanor we will be given a job. I’m hoping for something like my brothers, work out of the sun, something that gives a good pay, without much risk. The most popular jobs in the district are: harvesters who manually plant, Farmers who raise the plants, plowers who control the farm equipment, sower who scatter the seeds, and the cropper who coordinates the management of our farms. I think I could do the latter well, manage and coordinate the farms. Usually though, many girls end up working in the mills as it’s a more stationary job, a few set hours in the day then to go home and take care of children. I don’t care for those as much, they don’t bring enough money and are horribly boring. Betty claims to enjoy it but it is more like she can’t say anything negative, like ever.

Quickly we move into the ceremony and after hearing it at not only school, but now for the fifth year in a row I have no interest in the history of the games or the bloody debt we owe the Capitol. Isn’t my fathers leg enough? Or my brother's tired hands? I instead look to Lykus with the thirteen year olds, squeezing his hands into fists, I know what he is thinking. It is what we are all thinking. Not me, please not me, not me. I wish for it not to be me, I wish for it not to be my brother, but there is no one in particular any of us wish it was. Even those you grew up not liking you don’t wish this fate for. The Hunger Games. The battle to the death for those who fund it. They take enjoyment, they take satisfaction, they take pleasure in the death of children. To remind us what we owe the people who protect us? No, it is to remind us where we stand. They say look how we take your children and you sit here helpless. You feed us, you power us, you keep us up and running and we starve you of everything. Yet what is there we can do to stop it? No amount of strikes will put a dent in their supply. Heard of talk of an uprising in the market one day, next day the men who had utter the word “rebellion” were publicly hanged.

After that was over and my eyes nearly rolled into the back of my skull our Capitol Representative, Pearl, announced herself on stage.

“Happy Hunger Games! May the odds be in all of your favors. It is lovely to see you on this hot hot day! Ah, I just love holidays!” As her name, Pearl, suggests she was dressed up like the gem you find in oysters. A white dress, beaded necklaces, wig of curls, belts of the white. I always hated the superficial white of the Capitol. It was too clean, too beautiful, too sterile for people whose hands bleed like the river. Each step they take blood pools are left behind. “As always my dear ladies first.”

My heart drops like it does every year. I know there is such a low probability of it being me. My family doesn’t have to take out Tesserae like the others do, my name is only in the ball five times. I worked too hard, too much, to let this all go to waste. My brothers need me, my mother needs me, god my dying father needs me. Her fingers with its long pearlescent nails around the large, glass bowl till it finds a slip. Carefully she pulls it out and undos the tape. I can feel how my slip on shoes and its shiny black plastic dig into my heels, the dress too short for my tall body pulls up as my shoulders hunched forward in expectation. My nails have pressed themselves into my palms and pink fleshy underskin starts to show. Bitte, bitte, bitte, sei nicht ich, sei nicht ich.

“Evangeline Thomas,”

And the odds are not in my favor, not on this hot day off, the first one in early June.

At first I hear my mother cry out, then Lykus yells my name. My heart swells and I force myself to take a breath. Every camera is on my face, Do not choke Evangeline Thomas. DO NOT CHOKE. I carefully take steps knowing these are my last steps in my district. I look forward to the stage, the mayor in his solemn expression, Pearl and her fake smiles, John Price, our last victor’s face of remorse, and my face on the big screen with her sunken eyes, grimace of a mouth, and pinched eyebrows. I am anger, I am rage, I am also sorrow, and I am grief. All at once. The buildings that surround the square threaten to close up on me as my mouth runs dry, I approach the steps.

“Up you come my dear,” as if an order in another language only my body understands I ascend the stairs to her claw hands bringing me to the microphone. “Evangeline Thomas! Your female tribute of District Nine.” Growing up Tribute was synonymous with corpse and hearing my name mix with it makes me flinch. My eyes find Mallard and the alarm on his face brings the water collecting on my skin to my tear ducts, I push them away and grit my teeth, no weakness. This is where being soft would do me no good. I am my fathers daughter at the end of the day. I look away from Mallard knowing I will cry and try to let my mind go blank, instead, I’m faced with worse thoughts than leaving behind Mallard. I’m going to die, horrifically, and painfully, in front of the world to see. I will never have a job, I will never see my family grow old, I will not be there to hold my father’s hand as he dies. No, instead, I will lay bloody on a battlefield in front of all of Panem. I want to scream, I want to kick, then I remember what is next. A boy tribute. Every fiber I have in my brain goes to wishing for Lykus’s safety, he is my little brother, he cannot die, he cannot, he will not.

Pearl announces, “Now for the boy tribute,” and pulls a slip from the man's bowl. My first thought is thank the world it is not Lykus. The name is, however, one I recognize from whispers at school, about the monstrous city boy and I know I am in for. “Simon Riley.”

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nonbinary-cheshire

3 years ago