St. Jude [closed]

[Deleted]

And I'm learning, so I'm leaving
And even though I'm grieving
I'm trying to find the meaning

---

If we’re to become anything, I hope that it’s with promise. Freya and I have talked so much about the future that I can feel it climbing up my back and nipping at my neck, same as the stars when the sun sets—ready to be drawn around me, and to make me still. I want to believe that we’re meant to be something because for each other, we’ve come too far to fall away. And still we’re like sand on the beach, tumbling down every day that the waves come in. How many times can we build up again, make castles with sea shell windows before—before the sand comes out from underneath, and all that’s left is a set of rocks? I think about all the mistakes that got me here, and how many more that I’ve yet to make. The same ones that could spell the end of each of us, only because we’re too afraid, too naïve, too far from what we were supposed to be for either of us to become. It chills me to the bone because I know, I know that I want to be with her, I can’t live without her, but what makes me a man has been enough to break the two of us apart a million times over.

The city streets are empty in the evening during the games—these streets, the ones that lead to the stalls in alleyways, and little bars that have no names because, the clientele would rather not to be known. It’s here that the avoxes sneak, one of the few places that when they are not locked away (can I say they? Is it still us?) they reclaim a bit of who they were. Would that I was without a tongue. The world would be better off not letting all the words come tumbling out, acting like a spray of water against the hot pavement. They’re temporary, enough to make a mark but not enough to stay. Just a bunch of nothing, not firm enough to ever take seriously. Is it my fault that my life has been one wandering to the next, that I’ve never tied down to one single place long enough to know what it means to be a part of the world? But still I want to be a part of it, to know what it is that I’ve been missing because—because even the capitol is beautiful. Even a place that takes the worst can have its moments, the quiet dark that sets down at night inviting a person to discover, this is beautiful.

They call it saints row—but I’d think that they couldn’t call it anything—a set of statues that line a narrowing corridor toward a set of tall stairs. Where do they lead? But the answer doesn’t come from the boney faced avox that wrote me her words at dinner; they are stairs that lead to elsewhere. And that’s just life, giving meaning to something because it exists. Sometimes a set of stairs is a set of stairs; sometimes a star is just a star. But I come because today is the day that my mother was killed. Today is the day that I found my father, and missed—by hours—meeting the boy that had my face. My brother. And it should be no more significant than the next day, or the next. Death is, not more. The world doesn’t keep turning when we go back into the ground, food for the worms. We’re a set of lonely creatures left on a rock turning round and around, but still. Still.

I think about, that we used to be the type of people where the world was always getting bigger. My head would rest in her lap and look at the stars and wonder that—there’s nothing further away, nothing so small as me. Except with her we were the universe; we were the wind in the trees and the dew on the morning grass. We were barefoot splashes through the river, and humming birds at dawn. And just because no one else ever saw us, or cared didn’t mean that we weren’t. Just like the stars that come at night don’t have anything to prove—to anyone—we burned, existed, lived. She taught me that even though I knew no one else, that there was a world that deserved seeing. I am the small piece, the one singular thing that may have ever laid eyes on a redwood tree in a thousand years. Who’s to say that for all their greatness, any capitolite ever accomplished as much? We have the world at our fingertips here and it’s not a world at all.

Am I like her?

The statues are decorated with trinkets, shiny baubles, and scraps of paper. Offerings because—it is tradition. It whispers through the alleyway but, no one answers the word—tradition. We follow in the footsteps of one another because there’s no better way. They are well worn with age, some with missing fingers, others with chips along the stone carved faces. Tradition that we offer what we have to them for protection. Maybe there is magic, and maybe there is a force that’s greater than anyone. Is it any better not to hope that we’ll be protected? What’s lost by tossing out a silver bracelet, or scrap of paper? I step along the cobble stones and fading light to stare at the face of a woman shrouded in cloth, her body covered in necklaces, flowers, and all manner of rubbish. Tradition. My mother would have given an offering. She would’ve knelt down in front of this woman, this face from long ago as though it would have made a difference before she died.

And now I’ll kneel.

I’ll get on my knees because, just like everyone else, I want what’s out of my control. It should have been so simple—to want to disappear into the nothing, to never be found again. My mother wanted the same, taking me with her in her arms after being cast out. Did they argue, my mother and father? Did Benat scream when she left him behind, a reminder that she couldn’t be forgotten? And what if she’d left me behind, instead? Where would the world have been if I had been in the arena instead of him? But those are dreams, like children not born, whispering only to the stars. She hid herself, and me, from the world. She knew that our separation was better than what we could live through—that a quick, sweet death could have been better than a life chained behind a fence, plowing fields. That’s what she tried to teach me, through smiles that spread for days. In the nights when I shivered by the fire, and my stomach ached.

But she wasn’t out of the world, she couldn’t be so separate. Not when she thought about the boy she left behind, and the man. We were the ones that paid the price, the ones that suffered through the storm between parents. Could I blame her for doing what she thought was right? Was it a betrayal that had us thrown out, cast away from the district, or a man that knew he couldn’t be the man he needed to be to my mother and me? It’s so easy for me to hate him, to say that he took away my mother’s life the moment that he had her leave. But there’s no anger, no fire in my stomach for him. It’s a heavy sadness, one that pools through my veins in thinking of all the times I’d never know what songs they sang, how they named the same stars that we named. That hate, that could make understanding so easy, it’s salt water. You drink from the tap until you’re always thirsty. And soon enough, it’ll drive you insane, until at last you die the husk of man you were meant to be.

I don’t blame either of them for being the ones that, for all that they knew—did the best that they could do. Maybe that’s the lesson, that we’re all doing the best that we’ve ever done, so that we can survive. Is that what this means for me and Freya? Our world’s just an approximation of the truth, of—hope, distilled to be a belief that we can make it away from everyone. We can escape the world; disappear, because we have one another. That makes us stronger than whatever we might have to face. It doesn’t make me any different than my mother, does it? But she wasn’t a bad woman, she wasn’t any less of a mother for what she had to do. I kneel, with my hands holding the little white rabbit’s paw I’ve kept for so long.

It’s tradition, to give an offering—tradition. I twist the paw between my fingers and stare. Tradition.

Who am I to be the one to be any different?

[Deleted]

What if our hard work ends in despair?

What if the road won't take me there?

Oh, I wish, for once, we could stay gold

~~~

It’s too damn early to be awake. Or maybe it’s too late to be asleep. That’s the problem with the capitol, you never know when you’re supposed to be somewhere because all the time sort of f—ks together into one massive blob that you can’t move in and out of, until you’re face first in someone’s bed and then you get the buzz on your phone that the delivery of the package is to be made. And it’s like god f—king d—n don’t chap my a— because you need some little boy to take a message for you from one end of the earth to another, I’ve got a hot piece right here in bed with me, why on ripred’s green earth would I want to leave that? I mean have you seen him? He’s this hot big dumb thing that I took home last night—or I guess he took me home, here I am in his bed—and it’s as though that doesn’t even matter to some people. I swear. All this time trying to live for myself and what do I get, but, you know, torn out of where I really want to be because out of the kindness of my big heart, I promise to keep my promises. Granted when those promises face execution upon not completing them you don’t really have much of a choice.

Ugh. He’s so hot. You know, I could look at his a— all day, it’s like someone carved him out of stone and then sanded off anything that was even supposed to resemble a blemish. And this f—king apartment! Marble on marble on marble. It’s like he turned to the carver or whoever and said, yes, but you think you can fit another inch of stone in here because if I drop anything I want it to shatter into a million pieces on any surface that it lands. Better that than the all wood aesthetic, like, who wants to live in a f—king boat their entire lives? I can’t even believe that I’m putting on my shoes right now, he’s going to be up in an hour, and then we can do what we did last night but with even greater cognition. I doubt there will be as much flopping around and he’ll probably try to talk more, too. That’s what’s so sad about all of this, he’d just open his fat stupid mouth and ruin it. All of the capitolites always do, opening their mouths and removing any doubt that they had a brain worth talking to.

At least he was good enough to leave a capsule of morphling for the road. Not that it’s really something I need now, but, you know, I’m doing a job and I can still be professional and fun. He probably won’t even remember—well, not that anyone ever does—that I was even here. Like a dream, floating in the air hence—and all that metaphysical bulls—t. You know, it’s so much easier to keep tabs on all of them than it was in the districts. People here are bold, there’s just no other word for it. How many of them think that they’re the special-est snowflakes they’ve ever seen, like their s—t isn’t made of the same s—y molecules as everyone else’s. And it all gets flushed down the same tubes, that’s for sure. There goes my alarm again—I get it, Olivia, you needed me there yesterday.

It’s good to have a mutually exclusive relationship with someone that controls half of the free world. You know, it’s just good business to keep in good graces with someone that ends most of their sentences threatening to execute people. Of course I would be more worried about her not speaking to me, because that’s when you know that she has something painfully terrible planned. Sort of, cut up into pieces in your sleep and then thrown into an incinerated to erase any trace of you, bad. Not that someone of her stature would ever sully her hands with such a request. That’s what she has people like me for, I’m sure.

I hate this part of the capitol, the spots where things get too dark for people to notice the filth lying around. You could get lost in all the nooks and crannies if you really tried. I think they’ve all forgotten just how many places exist here, moreover the ones that don’t make much sense. I mean, a row of statues that people worship like they’re good luck charms? How very pre-war of them. Worse still is that anyone would ever believe something in the capitol would grant a wish to the lowly and downtrodden. I bet there’s a captolite that comes around at night to collect all of their mess, just so they can start over the next day. Not that they have anyone to complain to. What’s a tongueless man to do when he’s being disrespected? Hold up a sign?

Look at him though, on his hands and knees. This is the boy that Olivia wanted me to help? Looks like a pudgy little nobody with a slittable throat. Could be good in bed though, the squirrely looking ones always are. And his face is cute enough, but—why does he have to have found religion? Hands folded over one another as though he’s got someone to listen to for all of his problems. That’s his real problem, thinking that solutions are ever going to come from anyone but himself. The world doesn’t owe him a d—n thing, and here he is asking the universe for something in return. Not that growing up helps folks to find that out any sooner.

“You know, I heard this one is supposed to be for people afraid of drowning? Is that what you’re looking for?” The cigarette I plop between my lips tastes even sweeter. I strike a match. “Rum Tum? Oh, forgive me, you don’t have to know me but,” I grin through the smoke. “Boy, do I know you.” I give a grin. “I’ve got a package for you.”

[Deleted]

And I'm learning, so I'm leaving
And even though I'm grieving
I'm trying to find the meaning

---

My mother used to say that growing up meant we recognized what was really important. Holding on in your heart to what don’t belong is what children do. Being a real man meant that we put the rest of the world past us, and saw that there was a beauty in shouldering the burden. I wonder though, about the scar tissue that had my mother playing at being good for the world. A man walked out of her life, and she couldn’t ever let him go. She’d chased him back until it was the death of her. How’s that for holding on to your heart? But she’s got the benefit of death now, since all I can do is speculate on could’ve and would’ve been. There’s your truth, wrapped up and out of reach. We stumble, like children through life until when we’re old enough to know better, get plucked from the world. I guess I always believed that people were wiser, that even when their head wasn’t clear their hearts could be.

I turn the rabbit’s paw over in my hand again. Boy, do I know you. His words are crisp and fill the air around us like a shower of rain after midnight. His face is long and gaunt. His eyes trail up and down my person, and he does not kneel down next to me. There’s an airy quality to this stranger, like a ghost flitting into existence. He mutters about the statues and I stare forward. Olivia’s sent him, whoever he is, to lecture me about what I’m to do for her. Except I already know that I’m dealing with blood. The war that these people fight with one another has raged and will always rage; there’s always going to be someone thirsting for the highest rung on the ladder. They are—human—which more and more I learn means fighting off what you need in favor of what you want.

In between his fingers he holds a small envelope, a tiny little square. I don’t know what it is and much less care about what it’s supposed to do. Their world’s never been more than a shadow to me, even when I’ve stepped into the light. Whether or not I affect the outcome of whatever games they play has never mattered. I’d rather have been sitting on the grains of sand a thousand miles away and forgotten than have to trouble with all the folks in power. That’s the truth of it all. I’d come back for Freya but wound myself up in their web. Every lash on my back was a reminder that try as I might I’ll always have been a part of their world, and that without her—it’d have been in vain. The living on my own, the wandering, the watching of stars, all of it would be washed away just as soon as I’d closed my eyes for the final time.

“And here I am, not knowing yours,” I say in reply. I bow my head a final time before standing. He’s taller than me, but he’s fragile—a thin wisp of a man. “Let me have it, and I’ll… I’ll be on my way.” There’s nothing to be lost now, cementing myself in the favor of someone that could have broken me into a thousand pieces. Not that I was anything more under her control. I’d always been a vanished boy. The mask at the masquerade was the closest I’d come to being a part of it all. Funny, how folks treat you so much differently when they can’t tell just who you are. And for all the evil one could do, or all the niceness, without knowing, things were just the way they were. Would that I could have stayed hidden forever, with Freya. She deserved better than me, and I—I could’ve lived in a world where I wasn’t on the bottom, even if they never bothered to know me. Couldn’t I?

He moves to hand the package into my palm, and I pause. “We’ll be safe, for a little while? From… all of this?” I want to believe that, in the midst of everything, we can leave it all behind us. The moments where she felt small, the pain on my back, being without a voice—that it too, will fade in the dusk we find at our backs. “… that they aren’t going to come for us again?”

[Deleted]

What if our hard work ends in despair?

What if the road won't take me there?

Oh, I wish, for once, we could stay gold

~~~

Oh, and here it comes. You know what I’ve always been proud of? Is that unlike boys like this because—he’s not yet a man, not by a long shot—I can stand on my own two f—king feet without having to ask for the approval of someone else. It’s bad to not know just who you are, it’s worse when you seek that approval around you. Maybe it’s living in the capitol too long, or maybe it’s never having been born a part of this whole world at all, but Rum Tum Whatever hasn’t got a clue. You don’t get by here by asking for favors from someone unless you’re willing to pay, and you certainly don’t ever get to just pack up and leave. Life has a way of winding you back, even if you do. And now he’s standing here, looking at me like I’m some kind of stone sculpture savior, as though I can look into the future and tell him, no Olivia would never hunt you down and gut you or your girl like a fish. That’s not how life has ever worked, and it shouldn’t ever work that way.

“You want me to say that you’ll be okay.” I start. It’s good enough, and I can see the look in his eyes, the same f—king look a deer gets when you stumble into a briar patch with its fawn. Maybe it’s not fear, maybe it’s just confusion. But you know that you’re an intruder, entering into a world that’s never been your own. And here he is, big doe eyes and all, cute little lips almost quivering at the mention that things may never work out. “Well darlin’, you can’t always get what you want.” I move to plop a cigarette into my lips, and strike a match. I pull a good long drag and puff the smoke into the evening air. Man alive, it’s been too long since I’ve been able to taste the tobacco. Being friends with powerful people has its perks, if most of them happen to be substance related. “Oh now, don’t go looking like you’re about to get trampled by a herd of misled calves.”

The folly of youth isn’t that they don’t have the experience, and it isn’t because their naiveté gets the better of them. Youth is wasted on the young because of perspective. You see, what you want, and what other people want, they don’t always mesh. And that’s certainly true in this life, seeing that we like to tear boys and girls apart for fun. They take our brothers, and they laugh in our faces as though we don’t feel a d—n thing. And people that are young they, well they rattle their chains and make a point that they’re going to do something about it. Lead a revolution, take down the folks in power, just so that they could start something that turned into the exact same d—n thing. Right? Because the devil you know tends to be a lot better than the devil you don’t…

“You want to know the truth?” I flick off some ash and give a grin. “Olivia could gut you like a fish anytime, anywhere.” The Secretary of whatever, she’s got a finger on a button that could annihilate half of the known world, if she really wanted. Whatever goes on in that little head of hers, I don’t know—she was foolish enough to spare me from getting my eyes plucked out from the peacekeepers, and here she is tipping her hand at this boy, giving him the same chance. “Best not bite the hand that feeds, you know?” My district six twang comes out—how rarely it does, nowadays—and I shrug. He was lucky to be alive, and luckier still that he was getting out from these walls and into the fresh air. Not that I wouldn’t be right behind him, making sure everything went as planned.

“But you know— she likes you, why that is I’ll never know. You’re not really my… type.” I show my teeth and step forward. He’s short but bulky, rounded features and far too tan for my liking. I like another body to crash my bones into… I don’t trust a man who’s had too much to eat. I take a final puff of my cigarette and raise my eyebrows. I give a sigh and extend a hand. “Not that I’m sure your lucky… lady, isn’t happy to have you.”