Killer and the Sound [Sunflower Rebellion]

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

v a s c o 


Nothing ever comes, ever comes if you call it
Choking like a dog, like a dog on a collar
Open up your mouth, your mouth if you want it
Listen for the sound, the sound, the sound is coming down

I had cried over Carmen and Faux; been torn apart by Rex and Arianna. Jacob had wounded, and Kass’s return lingered with a shadow cast. Memories of children who could not be saved, only sworn to the capitol. Kissed on the forehead and prayed for, promised a spot at the table on their return, and another speech on their virtues. Milo and Asari slipping to oblivion.

Sarina and Alfonso meant to destroy me, a message to all of us that we were never to question, only serve. Cyro deserving to see the home he could’ve had, Arabella her mother, too. Rebellion could’ve come through Neysa, could’ve burst open with Delroy. How many would come so close – Belle? Revan downed at the edges. Estelle another touch of blood, and Six, a boy who’d have done Eleven proud. Abel, too. Luya deserving more. None of them forgotten.

We had watched the murder of Kareem.

Though it had been me with my eyes glued to the television when it’d all started. Yani had been out in the kitchen humming, scrawling across pages with crayons, now and again calling out about the story she had been writing. She’d gotten used to my quiet, the space between the walls filling up with her voice while mine disappeared at the back of my throat. The thud of my heart drowning out her asking whether I’d wanted lemonade or tea. I’d dug my fingers into the edges of the couch and leaned forward, springs screaming while I put my hands to my mouth.

I’d held my breath along with him, as though somehow if I could beat back the fire burning in my chest it would hold off his end.

My prayers hadn’t come through for Celeste. It felt especially cruel that a girl who’d sacrificed herself in a year she could’ve chosen anyone else went as one of the first. Or maybe it’d been better for her to die without torture or misery. I can’t be sure anymore. When they take our children, death becomes the culmination of their misery and our humiliation. I’d stayed up all night crafting a way to honor her – to honor them all, somehow. With what little money I had left and time, too, sitting in this seat, I could still do something.

Why did they have to be brave for us?

Yani’s the one to turn off the television set.

She’d kept watch of me from the doorframe while she twiddled a small sunflower between her fingers. I can’t say I remembered what I’d said, if anything, after Kareem had kept under the waves, only that I’d let out the air I’d been holding in, all my chest burning. She crept over to the couch and tugged at her overalls before sidling up next to me. She’d tucked the little sunflower into my jean jacket’s front pocket with a strained smile. She wrapped her arms across my neck and stayed, head against my chest, listening to my heartbeat.

He'd been marked for death in the square. Kareem had been defeated, standing there in the justice building as though this was some sort of penance for the crimes he’d committed. Except – no matter what had been, he couldn’t have deserved this. And somehow, he believed – so many of us did – that we’d only be worthy through violence. But what he’d deserved had been here, on this soil, in this space.

Life went on. A call to the plumber to fix the septic tank and a few of the pipes showing age. A zoning meeting where we’d agreed to a new store going up along the edge of the square and tearing down the old parking lot to make way for a series of apartments. Emma settled a case between an older man and his neighbor over a damaged tractor. Thunderstorms came and went, petrichor creeping up from the cracks in the dirt. Yani made me another quartz necklace, and I’d played cards with Bakar for a change.

I’d scattered grief across these memories; better to bask in the sun than hide in shadow of the clouds. But picking up my jacket on a chilly afternoon, I’d found the sunflower again, and, true to form, couldn’t stop turning it all over in my head again.

So, we’d set aside a few acres. Spent some of the money out of my own pocket, called on my brothers and some favors to start planting all the rows and rows of them. Afternoons complaining about how our old backs ached, that ten years ago we wouldn’t have felt a single pinch, but now all of us were practically hunched over by the end of the day. Which we’d laughed until we’d cried, knowing that it could have been that way until we were old and gray.

This was our oasis. A gift to the district. A memory for the rest of their lives.

Rows upon rows of sunflowers stretched out, racing up toward the sun. A gazebo sat in the center of it all, with stone benches alongside the paths weaving through the stalks. Plaques had been set out to mark the names of those fallen alongside the flowers – starting with Uxue Izar – until Kareem Hasim.

We’d held a little ceremony, inviting the families of those that had fallen, but the whole of the district, welcome, to see the new monument.

“The sunflower. Stretching toward the sun through wind, rain. Growing tall and strong, like all of you. Standing alongside each other. Offering up nourishment. And hope.” I stood in front of a microphone, recorded for the posterity, but so that others could hear me, too. “And each year, we will return to this place to plant them again, and again. To remember.”

“We shall not waste another moment thinking that what we watch is the inevitable. No one should be without a voice. Without memory. I dedicate this in memory of our children. To those that have lost and to those who have struggled. To hope. To a different Panem.” I pressed a hand to my chest, and tapped at the sunflower in my pocket.

“From this garden, we’ll send seeds to the other districts. To eat, to plant, to join with us. To all those who believe in a different Panem, know that you can show others how you feel. That sometimes, it’s knowing another is there that can give us the strength we need.” Would they listen? The other mayors hadn’t dared to even question the quell.

But perhaps this was all I could ever do – at threat of the peacekeepers who’d wanted me to cry out in rebellion at the capitol.

I’d never wanted to bring any more danger, to cause any more harm.

Standing here now, it’s not that I could imagine any more pain for my family. It’s that how little a life I would lead, even if it’d meant in peace, without so much as trying to do more for boys like Kareem, for girls like Celeste.

Besides, the capitol was mistaken in thinking an Izar could ever be broken.

They had tried to bury us, but they didn’t realize that we were seeds.

elegant