award tour; fox [carnival thread]

[kousei ♚]

k e m a l i .

"We on Award Tour with Muhammad my man
Goin' each and every place with the mic' in their hand"

He was getting it cracking up in this festival.

Music? Check.

Mixer? Check.

Cup? Check.

Rum? Motherfucking check.

He was already 3 mixed drinks deep, for a youth like Kemali that was actually enough. When he looked at the sky, he found himself smiling. Everyone in District Nine had their vices. Some turned to smack or crack. Some turned to booze. Some turned to gambling what little money they had left. Kemali? His vice was hope and straight vibes. He'd hardly listened to the speech that was given on the first day, he was just excited to roll with his school friends. He didn't even find himself looking over his shoulder for them. Although he wouldn't put it past them to put a bullet in his skull at a party, he found he just didn't care.

Suppose it was easy to just not give a fuck during the carnival. Everyone else was having a good time. And he saw plenty of gang members simply enjoying themselves, still armed probably, without causing no trouble. If they could enjoy their day? Why couldn't he?

And it was a beautiful day. The Capitol had shattered the winter's unforgiving grip on the district; he didn't feel the need to fold his arms or stick his hands in his pockets as he shivered. Everyone was just enjoying themselves. When he looked around he couldn't help but smile.

Until he saw him.

He blinked twice, just to make sure it wasn't just the rum making his vision blur. For a split second, Kemali wondered if he was just a tipsy afterimage. But he wasn't. He was there, standing in the flesh without so much as an open wound on him. And he was walking, standing, with porcelain skin and obvious strength. She did him up good. A war raged in his head, he wondered if the boy would even want to see him. Kemali took a deep breath when the war in his head came to a close.

He moved towards him, sidestepping dancing district partiers as slow and as careful as he could be. Kemali tapped him on the shoulder and managed to smile - it was surprisingly easy. "Good to see you're walking again," he motioned to the scene around them and laughed. "I suppose this is the best celebration you're gonna get for not dying yet, y'know."

elegant

[rolling for beads]

uXE8kaR5ak1-10

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[fox]

I O

► ► ►

Three, four weeks ago, I didn't even know of Africa, a whole continent buried by the Capitol in a grave in the garden with all the other losers of the world – chimera from the limbs of history, resurrected so they could still play with it from time to time.

Now, so generously, our gracious Capitol gives us something from its iron fist, as if it wasn't all of ours to begin with.

Guess that's culture.

The carnival roars over the tops of the district, a streamer becomes tangled in the wind. It rises – I feel myself float too, two inches from the ground and lost to a tangerine beat, pulse on tempo to paint thinner and a tube of pills stolen off the bedside stand of a window ajar.

I climbed the drainpipe of an eyesore of a house in brick and marble, filling my pockets with hydrocodone and jewelry.

Guess that's enough.

And in the sunset haze, a hand catches my shoulder – my hand reaches into my jacket. Kemali's bracelet weighs on my wrist before I even see him, and all of a sudden, his face comes like a vision. There's a drink splashing in his hands, a smile on his face.

"Wow, you lived bitch."

I've never seen a ghost so real.

It seems like a dream – except the scar on my arm, no longer glistening but still raw to the touch, and in those two weeks of withdrawal, I burned until the brimstone burned me anew. Just to do it all over again.

"Ha! I'm glad too see you too. Actually, I have something for you."

I don't.

"Consider it a lil payment for your efforts. Plus I think Genevive's never gonna get those bloodstains out of the couch so she's gonna need a new one."

Pockets like a lost and found, I dig around, pull out a bullet – "Whoops, not that," and then a knife rusted with blood – "Shit, that's embarrassing," before finally I've got an emerald bracelet in my hands, greener than the sea. I hold it up to the sun and it glitters like water.

"Stole this for you,"

I didn't. But it's the afterthought that counts.

D38d9xd7og1-10

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