beyond the matrix {zori}
Sept 16, 2017 15:59:39 GMT -5
Post by Lyn𝛿is on Sept 16, 2017 15:59:39 GMT -5
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[newclass=".TheoTable"]width:400px;height:690px;padding-left:50px;padding-right:50px;background-position:center;background-image:url(http://bestanimations.com/Nature/beautiful-forest-waterfall-rocks-nature-animated-gif.gif);color:#000000;[/newclass][newclass=".TheoTableContent"]width:400px;background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.65);float:center;text-align:justify;[/newclass][newclass=".TheoTableInterior"]height:530px;padding:10px;overflow:auto;[/newclass][newclass=".TheoTableInterior::-webkit-scrollbar"]width:5px;[/newclass][newclass=".TheoTableInterior::-webkit-scrollbar-track"]background-color:rgba(255,255,255,0.2);[/newclass][newclass=".TheoTableInterior::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb"]background-color:#405040;[/newclass]marguerite harvard d2a (zori) [attr="class","TheoTableContent"]theodore james rutherford, jr.
[attr="class","TheoTableInterior"]It is not difficult to tell that this was once a campsite.
A rack of branches and twigs forms the roof of a shelter between a clump of trees. The verdant forest serves to hide it from view even scant yards away; it is merely by sheer luck that I stumbled upon this place. A pile of ashes is nestled inside a ring of rocks nearby. The grass has yet to grow on the remains of the campfire, signifying that this place must have been abandoned recently.
There are far more abandoned campsites like these than I had once imagined. I have never heard of people like me - people like us, rather - before I left District Three. The Capitol, of course, stands to gain by never admitting that it is possible to live without their governance, but I can hardly remember that life anymore. I can barely recall what it was like to think that I was alone, to think that I was only a child playing at explorer and would grow out of it when I tried hard enough to be an adult, to have only frustration and no words for what I wanted whenever I was confronted with the prospect of settling into the sort of life one was supposed to live in Three. It all seems so far away now, thousands of miles and hundreds of days.
I think of us as Wanderers, those who have chosen to reject the divisions of Panem we have always known. The Capitol engraves in us that there are only thirteen ways to exist, from the explicit propaganda speeches to the math problems assuming every human being is a member of exactly one district or the Capitol. They tell us that this is the only landmass and there is nothing beyond the vast ocean we see on maps. Perhaps that is false as well.
Some have even scrawled pages of notes, left behind a rock or pinned to a tarp to protect it from rain. They speak of many of the same feelings I have discovered within myself, yet are written by those far more eloquent than I am.
I needed them, I think. Although I left Three to be alone, it is only after discovering these traces other people left behind that I am beginning to find peace.
The sun is setting, its rays glowing like fire as the sky turns orange with dusk. I set my battered rucksack down in the shelter and slip down to the cold water of the stream nearby, refilling my supply of water before washing away the grime of the past few days.
Here, the stream is crystal clear, and I can see tiny silver fish darting away from my legs as I dip my toes in the water. Last week's water ran dark and acrid with the smell of chlorine, all life absent - too polluted to use. Too close to what must have been District Seven.
A few golden yellow leaves float down from above and join the forest floor. I could live here, I think. There's enough water, wood, shelter, food, enough even to shore up and last a winter.
Dinner is more of the dried venison, as well as a handful of the last wild berries of the season; the clustered droplets of the berries' flesh are reminiscent of fruit tarts Father sometimes served to important businessmen.
Less sweet, though. It's not the luxury food he'd promised me once long ago, but it fills the belly better than the cold noodles and stale bread of bankruptcy.
The moon is full as it peeks out from the tips of the towering evergreens, casting a soft light, almost twinkling like frost, into the shelter. I sleep soundly, dreaming of District Three - not the old nightmares of failed exams and mocking people, but of trees beginning to peacefully grow in the town square. It's easier, without the endless hum of factories in the background.
I awake to the soft scuffling of leaves. Peeking out from between the thick tree trunks, I spot several figures in the distance, gradually drawing closer.
Oops. Maybe this wasn't an abandoned campsite after all.
A rack of branches and twigs forms the roof of a shelter between a clump of trees. The verdant forest serves to hide it from view even scant yards away; it is merely by sheer luck that I stumbled upon this place. A pile of ashes is nestled inside a ring of rocks nearby. The grass has yet to grow on the remains of the campfire, signifying that this place must have been abandoned recently.
There are far more abandoned campsites like these than I had once imagined. I have never heard of people like me - people like us, rather - before I left District Three. The Capitol, of course, stands to gain by never admitting that it is possible to live without their governance, but I can hardly remember that life anymore. I can barely recall what it was like to think that I was alone, to think that I was only a child playing at explorer and would grow out of it when I tried hard enough to be an adult, to have only frustration and no words for what I wanted whenever I was confronted with the prospect of settling into the sort of life one was supposed to live in Three. It all seems so far away now, thousands of miles and hundreds of days.
I think of us as Wanderers, those who have chosen to reject the divisions of Panem we have always known. The Capitol engraves in us that there are only thirteen ways to exist, from the explicit propaganda speeches to the math problems assuming every human being is a member of exactly one district or the Capitol. They tell us that this is the only landmass and there is nothing beyond the vast ocean we see on maps. Perhaps that is false as well.
Some have even scrawled pages of notes, left behind a rock or pinned to a tarp to protect it from rain. They speak of many of the same feelings I have discovered within myself, yet are written by those far more eloquent than I am.
I needed them, I think. Although I left Three to be alone, it is only after discovering these traces other people left behind that I am beginning to find peace.
The sun is setting, its rays glowing like fire as the sky turns orange with dusk. I set my battered rucksack down in the shelter and slip down to the cold water of the stream nearby, refilling my supply of water before washing away the grime of the past few days.
Here, the stream is crystal clear, and I can see tiny silver fish darting away from my legs as I dip my toes in the water. Last week's water ran dark and acrid with the smell of chlorine, all life absent - too polluted to use. Too close to what must have been District Seven.
A few golden yellow leaves float down from above and join the forest floor. I could live here, I think. There's enough water, wood, shelter, food, enough even to shore up and last a winter.
Dinner is more of the dried venison, as well as a handful of the last wild berries of the season; the clustered droplets of the berries' flesh are reminiscent of fruit tarts Father sometimes served to important businessmen.
Less sweet, though. It's not the luxury food he'd promised me once long ago, but it fills the belly better than the cold noodles and stale bread of bankruptcy.
The moon is full as it peeks out from the tips of the towering evergreens, casting a soft light, almost twinkling like frost, into the shelter. I sleep soundly, dreaming of District Three - not the old nightmares of failed exams and mocking people, but of trees beginning to peacefully grow in the town square. It's easier, without the endless hum of factories in the background.
I awake to the soft scuffling of leaves. Peeking out from between the thick tree trunks, I spot several figures in the distance, gradually drawing closer.
Oops. Maybe this wasn't an abandoned campsite after all.
