[91st] The Reaping - District 10

[admin kay]

"It is time," Musket, the District 10 Escort, said as they stood over the impatient people of the District, "To once again send two of our own children to the Capitol to compete in the Hunger Games. Let us begin the Reaping!"

They did not look to see the reaction of his district before reaching into the glass ball that held the names of the children. "First up," they announced, pulling out a slip of paper. They unfolded it and read out to the crowd, "Cachimorro Olentzero!" They then reached into the other ball. "Michael Gallows!"

OOC - The deadline to exchange spots is Tuesday June 7th.

[gunner, d9 ₊⊹ 👹 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

"burning hair    flesh, & bones
within the south wind blowing
 over flowers & mossy stones."

In the Gallows abattoir, we play classical music on the kill floor.

Carcasses — gargantuan and imposing — hang by the hock from the meat hooks affixed to a track in the ceiling that winds around the cathedral-like chamber. As they hang, they are emptied of blood, skins, flesh, and ultimately their integrity as they are divided down their lines of symmetry.

This is how a “side” of beef is made.

This is what becomes the juicy dinners of many in Ten.


I rise before the sun. It’s routine by now, a fluid sequence of movements that is embedded in me as muscle memory, and it begins with freshening up, rinsing my hands clean, and trying not to dwell on the parts of the skin where the blood hadn’t been completely washed off. Comes easy enough. Work enough years in a slaughterhouse and you learn how to distance yourself from even the most gruesome of horrors. Some even, with a forced laugh, have began calling it the laughterhouse.

They know better, though. So do I.

But as is the nature of every family-run trade, there is a steel-grade bond between all of us at the abattoir, sealed by what we do there. Every Gallows past the age of twelve has to lend a hand. When you’re older than twelve in the Gallows home, it means you can stomach the sight and scent of blood.

Bryon and Gage have already finished breakfast by the time I get downstairs. I pout, “you guys finished the eggs again.” Bryon makes that older brother look, flecked with a mishmash of compassion and smugness, whereas Gage is wolfing down the last of his sunny-side ups that’ll surely help power him through his first day of middleschool. I grin, tousle his hair, and then immediately take advantage of that single affectionate gesture by stealing the yellowy yolk on his plate.

“Hey, you fucke—”

Both Bryon and I silence him with our eyes.

“Now,” older brother arm-fold, “what did we tell yer’ about manners?”

Gage blows a raspberry.


First day of school means Gage doesn’t have to go.

Bryon and I, however, pack up our tools and straddle up our steads. Ma’s at the market which, knowing her, means she’ll promenade and won’t be back for another two hours. Pa’s gone already, I'm certain of it, because he’s the kind of man who revels in the challenge of waking up before everything else does. Our horses nuzzle our warm hands. The sun paints the fields golden, the cicadas sing, heralding a smiley day indeed. And with everything set and the house locked up, we pull on the reins and head towards the outskirts, towards where the civil ends and the wild begins.

The grass grows ragged along the way. Trees gnarl and snarl, and the bright-colored walls of most homes in Tens are replaced by ghost-shelled factories, lit only from within by harsh halogens even at this hour of the day. The sun doesn’t encroach upon this part of Ten. This no man’s land is a graveyard, a cemetery that is not dotted by wreathes or tombstones but rather by carcasses and fleshflies. This is the Ten they don't want you to see. 

Look at a knacker’s yard and try to picture a horse again.

But over the long years, I learnt how to see the beauty in the gruesome. It’s more than necessary here—a survival instinct, even. And truly, there is beauty here, hidden under small things like the gold-limned pastures at sunrise, the milkmaids who are preparing to deliver to the whole district, the workers that greet us as we sway in on our steeds. Mary’s the first, Rob the second. They are married and have been on the farm for as long as I can remember. Rob’s job is to pluck the hearts from the carcasses and roll them down a chute to Mary, who has a knack at rinsing out blood clots and packing it all up. Mary loves to sing. Rob has an anthology of poetry that has forever been a work in progress.

Mary looks up. "Charleston," she drawls. "Bryon."

“Hey Robbie,” I grin. “Mary,” I do a little tip of my hat.

“How’s little Gage? Nervous? Excited? I told Peter to take care of him at school, packed him two lunches,” Mary says.

“He’ll be fine. Middleschool jitters. We all had ‘em.”

“Not me, kid,” Rob breaks in. “Failed twice. Teachers said I could only write dogshit.”

“But Robbie, your poems are so nice.”

“Heh. Don’t mock me, kid. And get off yer’ high horse! We got a big one today, so we’ll be needing that magic touch you have.”

I leap off the straddle, hear Bryon snicker behind me. A dark look goes his way. “There is … no magic touch,” I protest, to which Rob only belly-laughs and turns away.

“Yes yer’ do. Kid, I ain’t never seen someone who can soothe a beast like that before putting the bolt in.”


The work is, to the surprise of most, easy.

It’s taxing, of course, but it’s unnerving how you get used to performing it when it is done often. I see the rorschach blood stains on the kill floor and I do not feel a thing. The numbness is the worst, yet I have come to embrace it. Some has to do the dirty work. I’d rather it be me. I know what I can offer: a seamless end, no suffering. It’s a mercy killing of sorts.

But there are things you can’t unsee, ghosts you can’t exorcise. For me, it is the heads.

At the end of the slaughter row, there is always a row of them, with all saleable parts removed. One thing was still attached though: their eyeballs. Whenever I walked past that row, I couldn't help but feel as though I was watched by an audience of a hundred hollow eyes.

A jaunty tune whistles throughout the room. It hides the drag of my cleaver under it.


On the way back we buy flowers for Ma. Snapdragons, majestic blooms, fresh from the morning harvest. I tuck a flower behind my ear, turns to pose when Bryon looks my way. “Ya’ like?” I do my best southern bell wink. He snorts. A stone statue that man, hard-faced and barely soft, but maybe it becomes with being the firstborn. Bryon’s shoulders are broad enough to hold all the expectations of all three brothers.

“We need to stop by the town hall first,” I tell him.

“Oh yeah. You haven’t aged outta’ that shit?”

“Soon,” my also-broad shoulders roll, “it’s my last year. Celebrate with some beer after?”

“Sure. Just gotta’ make sure Gage doesn’t find the stash again.”

“Wishful thinking, that is.”

Bryon laughs. I do, too.


Gage is right by me when it starts. Children crowd together, eerily reminiscent of the holding pens but I don’t linger on it. The reaping never touches us. Smalltown butcher-sons, we’re not made for the big glamorous stories. Gage, however, shuffles nervously. He’s afraid. I remember what that felt like and I remember how Bryon comforted me back then, so I repeat the gesture by wrapping an arm around him and pulling him closer.

“You took yer’ medicine?”

Gage nods against the side of my chest.

“All of them?”

A pause. Then he nods once more.

I ruffle his hair again. That’s good. Doc said the medicine will help keep the disease benign until we can explore other options. We can that. The abattoir has plenty trade, we’re raking in coins and we’re nearing the goal. I feel a warmth fill my chest, the blood pooling there almost tenderly. And I look down, only to see Gage’s bright blue eyes tilted up at me.

A blink.

“You alright?” I whisper, do a quick assessment of him to see if he’s hurt or anything. But his eyes do not falter. I feel their hold bolt me in place too, frozen for a moment as though I am a beast about to walk through the chute. I look up, around, and ultimately at it. At the knowledge of what has happened.

I was watched.

I was watched by an audience of a hundred hollow eyes.

[ Charleston accepts. ]

Trib wall: x | x | x | x

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

c a c h i

I am never anywhere
Anywhere I go
When I'm home, I'm never there
Long enough to know

"I’ve only ever been good at two things: suckin’ dick and milking cows.”

To be fair, I’ve only ever applied myself at suckin’ dick and milking cows, so there’s the distinct possibility that I could get out of this shithole and onto something of value, like driving a bus or selling bolo ties.

‘Dude, why do you have to spoil the vibe?’ Xavier breathes out a cloud of smoke into the night air. He lets out a chuckle when he passes a bowl and I stare at the still lit embers along the edge of the painted glass. As I press my thumb along the edge, I stare back at the rusted roof and shingles clinging for dear life along the side of our rancher. My sisters pretended to go to bed a few hours before, but I can still see the light from their room piercing out across the porch.

“It’s fucking bleak, man. You got – kids who lose their parents before they’re twelve? Babies raising babies?” I take a deep drag and hold. My lungs burn from skunk weed and a lifetime of disappointment. I release with a cough and shake my head, “No wonder people marry their fucking cousins here, at least they know what they’re fucking getting…”

‘Trust. Shit is gross.’ He takes the bowl back, another few weak drags roll over the center, embers lighting up the darkness. He taps it against the hard dirt along the edge of our blanket, cashed.

We spent summer evenings out under the stars, the two of us.

Not for gay shit.

But to like, look up at the stars and try to catch a cloud to carry us out of here.

I tell Tolosa that – catch a cloud and get the fuck out of here. She knows she’s not supposed to stay when she turns eighteen. I’ve got a whole ass bank shaped like a rooster sitting above the silver refrigerator where we put every last extra penny. They all know the deal, they get to escape and I get to watch cows until I can’t walk anymore. And if any of them makes it big enough they get to come buy the farm and get me the hell out of here.

It's not so bad, watching stars and high as fuck with your best friend.

"Hey."

I roll over onto my stomach and place my hands along the cotton patchwork blanket underneath of us. My hair falls into my face but I can still see the outline of his shaved head and nose peaking up in front of me.

“You’ll stay here if I go away, won’t you?” It’s a prayer to an unborn wind, hovering still between us. Too heavy to move, too far from where it’s supposed to be.

‘Why do you have to be like this? There’s a thousand? Ten thousand? Fuck. How many kids are in this district?’ Xavier shuts his eyes and it’s like he’s going to blow a gasket trying to manifest the number of kids in district ten. ‘Anyway. Yeah. You fucking know it.’

I rest my head against his side and shift to look up at the moon.

We never had to spend much time finding one another. The whole universe deciding that two chuckleheads could live right next door to one another, be raised right, and know that some bonds withstood all the hunger and drought.

“That better be fucking right. Or I’d haunt your ass.”

It’s what I think of over and over in those lines, watching the silly reaping video that’s glitzed up like all the glint of Saturn City could distract from the fact they were picking kids who probably handspun their clothes and got a fourth grade education at best.

“Just let us fuck our cousins in peace!” I shouted up at the screen, which about half the boys in my line thought was funny, but the fat peacekeeper with the blond mustache who came waddling over sure as hell did not. Bastard.

I tried to think of the last six tributes from ten, but we’re not exactly a games watching household. There sort of comes a point after a while you have to decide whether or not memorizing two names every year of your life leaves enough brain space, or not.

… Cachimorro Olentzero…

Except they say it more like ‘cach-e-mor-oh oh-len-zero?’

Because fuck me of course.

At least the guy they chose as my district partner is hot this year.

[Cachimorro Olentzero accepts the other D10 spot]

[claiming xolo maridueña soon for his fc!]

[trib wall pics: x and x]

elegant