Sampson Izar, District 11 [Done]
Apr 1, 2013 0:21:03 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2013 0:21:03 GMT -5
[/i]Grief of grief has drained me clean;
Still it seems a pity
No one saw,—it must have been
Very pretty.
(Name) Sampson Ignatius Izar
(District) 11
(Gender) Male
(Age)
(Favorite Color)Green
(Family)
Bakar Izar [father]
Ara Denar Izar [Mother]
Clara Iza [grandmother]
Deval Izar [brother]
(Pets) Gregor [Dog]
(Likes) Stars, the outdoors,
(Appearance)
Zea mays indenata, or feed corn, is known for being fed to all the animals that make up the livestock for Panem. There’s nothing special about feed corn; it’s yellow and hard and tastes bitter when you try and cook it. Because there’s nothing special about it and you don’t get much after eating it. People write it off as a kind of afterthought. We grow tons and tons of it because it’s needed all over, in all sorts of products. Sometimes they boil it down and use it for sugar, or they turn it to dust and make it into filler. Because there’s nothing to it; just a starch that gets burned and processed to death before they’re done with it. So we forget about it, curse it, grow it out of season to rotate the crops and make what the capitol needs.
If I were anything grown, it’s definitely be feed corn. You noticed me? Tell that to everyone in my life, ever. Blink and you’ll miss me. When it was just the five of us, Benat would be cracking jokes or telling tales, and Deval would be arguing and huffing or bleating, and I’d just be there, underneath all the noise. Add our cousins, uncles, aunts—all the Izars of District 11—and I’m the feed corn. Sure, I get put to use, but no one recognizes me—see me as blending in and filling in wherever it’s needed. Has a purpose, but it’s no one’s favorite, right?
I don’t much like talking about how I look to anybody. It’s an itchy kind of subject, the same kind of thing that people with too much time have to talk about it. Like, the girls in the schoolhouse all try their best to wear their hair in ribbons, and some of the boys comb their hair and part it down the middle. They scrub behind their ears and get the dirt and grease out from their finger nails; they don’t show the hard work we do in the fields. But most of us here ain’t got the time to keep clean; we barely have enough time to pull the corn from their stalks or the cotton from the vines. Not that I can hide behind excuses; a part of me wants to look like they does in the capitol… I want to look the way my brother did when he was getting interviewed. Had a fresh face and a clean suit they gave him. I never saw him look more handsome.
If I had to say, I’m more like my mother than my father. My brothers took after my Poppa, he’s got brown eyes and furry eyebrows. My momma’s got green eyes, and big lips. I got the same little squished nose as my brothers, that’s how you can tell the three of us are Izars. It’s something that’s run in our family forever—grandpa said it’s why we’re good cooks, since we got a nose for smelling—but I just think it just makes us look pudgy. And my teeth—well, I ain’t got straight teeth like some of the boys and girls. It’s something that stops me from smiling too much… I don’t want people to think that I got scary, sharp little teeth that don’t sit right. Though my brother Benat and my Momma always told me that I haven’t got much to worry about, that I’m gonna grow up handsome. But I think people say this anyway, since they’re related.
My hair gets pretty long and curly—another thing that runs in our family. I don’t like it short, makes me look as young as I am. I like people thinking I’m older; sometimes it stops the kids from bothering me. I don’t got a lot of meat on my bones, even with all the work in the fields. Benat said it comes in time—heck, he was only a head taller than me when he was Eighteen, so I don’t think the Izars get very big. Still, I’m just under five feet now, and maybe a hundred pounds in a rainstorm. No one wants me to be on their team when we play red rover… I just get bowled over when the first set of kids race back and forth. Tends to show more than I want around here. But my family tells me I’m still young, I got to hold back and think about how much time I got before growing up.
(Personality)
I want to believe that there’s an answer to everything. Staring up into the stars at night, I want to know that there’s a reason behind everything that happens. Why are we stuck in this district, hungry all the time, when there’s so much else in the world? Are we the only ones here, or is there somewhere else, far away, where people don’t have to break their backs every day just to get by? I don’t ask the questions ‘cause I know that there aren’t answers; more so ‘cause I know no one’s going to want to know if they’re true or not. I guess I’m just silly that way, wanting to know everything. They don’t teach us about anything in school that’s important—nothing more than we’ll need out in the fields. ‘Cause we’re not scientists or artists or anything. We’re simple folk—salt of the earth—and we don’t need nothing fancy. Or at least, that’s what I’ve learned from them.
Not everyone’s been that way with me, though. Benat used to say that getting me to talk about things was like plucking teeth from a mule. He was the only one that got me to say much of anything at all—I guess because he was so patient with me. But I never thought what I’ve had to say mattered much. On account of me not knowing anything; I’m not old enough to do jobs like the bigger kids, or help run the farm. I guess now that he’s gone it’ll take a little bit more to get things done around here.
I’d like to be able to spend my whole time staring up at the stars and figuring things out. It’s peaceful out in the fields at night. I like the way the wind blows through my hair, and the sound that the leaves make when they brush together. Or the feeling of mud between my toes on a hot summer’s day. Benat liked that, too. Deval says I’m silly—he treats me like I’m a toddler or something. I get that I don’t know as much as he does… since he’s two years older, and all. But I don’t get why he treats me like why I have to say doesn’t matter. Sometimes it hurts my feelings… makes me not want to talk to him about anything. He doesn’t know how to tell how I’m feeling like Benat did.
I remember everything. Not like a superpower, but I can tell when things happened and lay it out in a nice, neat order. Writing it down helps, but it ain’t necessary. Like how I remembered for Benat’s 16th birthday, we celebrated by going to the watering hole and skipping rocks, and then ate a piece of pecan pie with the pecans that momma had been saving since August—eight whole months—just to make what was his favorite. It’s the only time I ever get asked anything, by my family, is to remember things. It helps me stay noticed—to stay a part of things, instead of being behind them.
(History)
Everyone’s heard of us by now, I reckon.
We used to be the Izars, the big ol’ family that lived up the road. The ones that popped out a ton of babies—well, my father’s father—on account of all the uncles and aunties that I have. And they took a farm and split it up amongst themselves, and then cut it up again, and again—until there was just pieces and plots like a quilt stretched out over the district. Benat used to say if you pricked your finger, you could probably find a drop of Izar in you. I don’t know how true it is, seeing as District 11 seems big and I don’t even know all the kids in the schoolhouse. But I have enough cousins to know that we aren’t a small family.
I was the last one born—I might be the youngest out of all the Izars, I think—to my momma and poppa. They’d had Benat first, and since he was such a wild child, they waited to have Deval. But then not two years after Deval, I came next. I think they were hoping for a little girl, since they had two boys already. Maybe not so much my poppa, he likes that all of us are boys. But my momma’s taken a special shine to all the little girls in the family. Not that they ever treated me badly; I think I’m one of the luckiest kids in my district. We got a roof over our head, land to sow our seeds, and a momma and poppa that love us. Ain’t nothing more that I should need, not now anyway.
Growing up was a test of who was in charge. Benat picked on Deval all the time; they got into scrapes more than he ever did with me. He said that I was too fragile, on account of being so much younger than him. He was funny that way, always pushing the limits. Like when he pretended to be cut up by the machines in the fields—he got whipped by poppa for that. Sure enough was always trying to make us laugh, or sassing my poppa the older he got. He was smart, but not just that he shot off at the mouth. He was the kind of boy that could have you smiling, no matter how you felt, if he wanted to make you feel that way.
Besides my grandpa, I’d say that Benat taught me almost everything up until now. At least, he made everything make sense. Like why people act the way they do, or explaining how to feel… about the boys making fun of me for my voice, or girls saying I was dirty. He said it was okay for me to ask questions, ‘cause sometimes that was the bravest thing I could do. A lot of people are afraid to say anything; I know I am most of the time. But he made me feel okay about thinking, about questioning the way things were. We used to go up the creek and just sit, ‘cause that was the best thing, just sitting and not doing anything. I liked falling asleep on his shoulder while we watched the stars, just not saying anything.
I didn’t believe him when he said he’d come back. Maybe it’s cold or maybe it’s just the way I’ve always seen things—with the glass almost empty—but I knew as soon as they said his name he was dead. We watched all the pomp and circumstance on the little tv set. We held on for a while, thinking he might have been lucky. He lived five whole days, it was longer than almost all of our tributes ever had. But I knew, I just… I could feel it was over as soon as I saw his face in the bloodbath. He’d been scared, and he’d been dead since he took a step into that arena. He didn’t want to kill nobody, he’d just wanted to come home.
We don’t say his name no more. It’s supposed to be bad luck, to mention the name of the dead unless it’s their death day. District tradition, my momma says. Don’t know if we’re supposed to go around pretending like he never existed, or if I’m supposed to learn from his death and move on with my life. ‘Cause he wasn’t much of a fighter, he’d died. And if we want to survive, we’re supposed to fight, too. It’s a long road to the end, though. And while I keep trying to keep my mouth shut, I don’t know how long I can let it hurt without sayin’ nothing.
Because he taught me about the sun, the moon, the stars—he taught me everything—and I can’t forget that. I won’t.
Because I remember everything.
(Codeword) Odair
(Poem) Edna St. Vincent Millay—Three Songs of Shattering
(Out of Character Notes) Sampson is the youngest brother of Benat Izar; his other brother, Deval, will be played by the lovely Sampson. There might possibly be some cousins in the works, if others are interested. <3
Editing note: Aged him up (with the approval of Cass) <3[/blockquote][/size][/justify]
