Sebastians Eams | District Nine | Finished :)

[goldskies]

Sebastian Eams
Male
District Nine
Odair

Every day I wake up on the hard bug-infested mattress on the floor in the dark. I don’t much sleep nowadays. There are some night I don’t stop working until one in the morning and have to be up at five again to get a few hours of work in again before school. Even when I do get a decent amount of sleep it is constantly interrupted by my own thoughts and Allan’s snoring.

Allan is one of my two older brothers. I also have four younger brothers but even all together they don’t count for much.

In the dark mornings you can’t see the stars out our grimy broken windows because of the District Nine smog. It’s thick and it stinks. Kind of like my brother Jared. Anyway, I  have to get ready in the dark in the mornings which is means I can’t see my reflection is the old mold-laced mirror above our only sink. Edgar, the oldest by four minutes and our family neat freak, once tried to clean off the mold with chemicals and burned his hands. I know Gaston’s, the littlest, is the family prodigy but I consider myself the smartest. Street-wise, anyways.

If I could see my reflection I would catch a glimpse of a very hollow, dirty seventeen year old boy. Or man. Which am I? I ask myself that question every day.

My eyes are the color of murky green pondwater. We have one pond in the factory-inhabited District Nine and it is the most beautiful thing around. It’s as ugly and filled with scum and has muddy banks no one would bother to ruin their good pants around.It’s also a breeding ground for leeches and mosquitoes so nobody actually goes to see it except me.

I have high cheekbones. They are the one thing that sets my apart from my mostly round-flat-faced family. My skin might be pale if I could wash it. We just have this creaky old sink with no hot water. If you want a bath you have to fill bucket after bucket of water and throw it into mother’s washbasin meant for clothes. That’s how she bathes the little ones once a week. I couldn’t fit inside the basin. I’m taller than all my brothers even though I’m not the oldest. Allan and Edgar are twins and are the second-tallest, and they’re still above average. Let’s just say I’m tall enough to where people call me tall but not so that people call me a freak. Mother always said I started off as a butterball of a baby and was slowly stretched out over the years. Now I resemble not much more than dirty skin strung over long bones. I wear a stained white shirt that i won’t bother changing out of and put on some cargo pants and muddy black boots. My only jacket hangs on the triple-locked door. It’s thin, green, and a hand-me-down from Edgar. It even smells like him. I’ll grab it before I leave.

My hair is as long and is goes down to my stubbly unshaven chin. I could cut it if I bothered but I don’t. I once had a girl I cared about very much tell me she liked my hair however I did . I like my hair like this, no matter what my father or mother thinks. I do not, however like how it’s dishwater color I had as a child has turned deep brown, almost black. Whether from the coal dust and the dirt and not washing it or just from age I do not know. I try but it’s a waste of time. I think it would be curly i fit wasn’t so tangled, matted, and weighed down with sweat. It only looks straight with some strange bends at the end.

I wish I could see my wide-lipped grimace in the mirror. I scare myself sometimes. I’m good at pretending to be happy.I have to for the little ones. Fatigue shakes my body. I grip the sides of the sink and it creaks. I don’t have to pretend here, in the dark.

School is just a way to pass time before work. I scrape by the best I can but when it comes down to it work is more important. It’s more important to help feed my siblings and actually put some meat on their bones. Father, Edgar, Allan, Jared, and I all work. Mother takes care of the two youngest and they do nothing but play in the dirt all day. Lucky.

I know mother wishes I’d take school more seriously but I can’t do that. Every hour I spend studying is another small amount of money that could be in my parent’s pockets but is instead sitting, waiting for me to sweat and bleed for it. Don’t get me wrong, I hate work with all my soul,but I hate starving more.

I work two jobs. My first job is at the factories with my two brothers and father. That’s where most of District Nine works. So many teenagers work that they actually let them out of class two ours earlier than the younger grades. So I work there every day from two to six, no if ands or buts. I also have a job as a dishwasher, handyman, and general do-it-because-the-boss-doesn’t-want-to-guy at a wealthy Peacekeeper’s home. I squeeze in hours there whenever I can. Weekends, mornings before school and after. He’s fat and old with a son who’s about the most annoying priggish person you’ve ever met and a daughter who thinks it’s her civic duty to show me pity and flirt with me at the same time while I’m trying to work. I don’t know why, I usually smell awful and I never have anything nice to say. I doubt she’s ever seen me smile. She never will, either.

I like to tell myself one day I’m going to amount to something. That one day I’ll be the one giving orders and having the dishes cleaned for them. I’m not as diligent, or nice, or intellectual, or respectful as any of my other brothers but I know how the world works.
I know to always carry a knife when you walk alone in the dark. I know how to say “Yes Ma’am.” and “No, Sir.” I can fake my way through anything and seem at ease when I’m nervous. I’m not good with little kids but I sure as hell know how to feed them and tell them off when they decide to go and do something stupid. My house is full of crazy little kids. I can’t wait to get out of here but I know if I left them that would be one less paycheck to keep decent clothes on their backs. Father can’t keep working forever, either, one day he’s going to get old and not be able to do much and then there’s one more person to look after. Edgar got some girl pregnant so now that’s where all his money goes. No matter how hard he tries, though he’s never going to make up for a stupid mistake like that. You can count on me to not be that dumb.

I grab my jacket and walk out my front door.I walk down the streets to the Peacekeepers home. It is dark and smoggy and sickly hot out. The factories are already going. My father should be getting up soon, too. I step in a puddle of oil. My hand is in the pocket of my cargo pants, fingering my knife. This is my life. Welcome, you won’t like it here.

   Part of the Eams family plot

[Python]