things we've buried || fuzzy

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

I don’t know about an afterlife, but with my hands in the earth I can feel Ma and Daddy are still living. We’ll never feel them hold us again when we’re crying, or listen to their stories, or hear their laughter again in anything but our own minds. But here they are, their bodies in the roots, their atoms struggling up through the dirt just like the rest of us do every day, towards the light. They’ll never take care of us like they used to, but they still feed our bodies, give us everything they have.

The garden is a promise to be kept and I keep it every morning from spring to fall, listening to the worries of the plants and giving them what they need to grow. Ripred knows we need them to grow too, and from late fall til the warmth creeps back into the soil you can hear all our bellies rumbling in the night together like distant thunder.

Others must need these vegetables too, people or animals, because some mornings I used to come out and find less food than I had counted. That was before I made the barbed wire fence that now curls up around my tomatoes and squash, twisted the barbs together with my own hands and cut them into points. Maybe I’d share if this were a different place, or even a different time; but this is a poor end of a poor district, and when hunger threatens it’s my family against the thieves of winter and the world.

I’ve gathered up the daily harvest in a basket and covered it in muslin to keep the crows off. The late afternoon sun beats against my neck and forehead and I wipe the sweat from each with my hand. My hair’s wrapped up in a bandanna the way mom used to keep it when she worked. Each time I do it myself I can hear her directions just like she taught me as a little girl, tying my hair in a knot and then swaddling it in the square of linen she’d died pink with beet juice and vinegar. Now it’s faded to a blushing beige, but it’s not like I’ll ever get rid of it.

All that’s left of today’s work in the garden is to plant the lettuce and spinach seeds, but I’m not quite ready to leave for the morning squalor that’s sure to greet me back in the house. Fingers wrapping around the roots of a dandelion, I start to pull weeds just to keep myself busy. The District gives us these peaceful mornings, full of promises it rarely keeps. But it doesn’t hurt a girl to daydream, at least when no one’s looking.

[♛ scandal]

s a c a e d a

The warm arms of my father are absent, a coldness lingering where his arms used to be. I can feel him watching me from above, maybe he has his stupid grin on his face that I long to see once more. My legs guide me through the small hallways of my house, leading me to the screen door that heads off into my garden. The vines and leaves of my plants are the only thing that gives me joy anymore. My father was the one who taught me how to care for them when I was younger, it brought us closer together. Now that he is gone, plants are one of the only things I have left of him. 

I keep his special tree alive, he probably sits by it everyday, his ghost I mean. I can hold on to him with the tree, and I won't let go. I wrap my hand around the handle of the screen door and pull, the scent of the afternoon breeze of district eleven filling my nose. The sun beats down on the land, sweat starts to bead on my forehead only minutes of standing outside. Crunch.. Crunch. Crunch. The sound of dirt and rocks being kicked and stepped on brings my attention to a girl across from my house.  Vegetables and other plants in a basket, hmm another gardener like me. 

My father and I were probably the only ones who really liked to plant and garden, most tired of doing it already in the fields. So it is nice to see some like the craft of gardening. I head over to her, maybe I can finally find a friend to talk to instead of the plants. 

"Hey, nice to see someone else practice the art of gardening."

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

At the sound of another’s footsteps I instinctively curl inward towards my harvest basket, perched on my heels in the loamy dirt, automatic to suspect everyone of bad intentions. Ma would correct me, tell me not to be so jumpy and to be cordial but I can’t help it—every fruit and vegetable out of this little plot of land will be needed for the winter, and there have been too many thieves already.

A girl stands on the other side of the barbed wire, and I recognize her as the girl who lives next door. Sacaeda, I remember; and I know I’ve seen her planting something out in her little garden, too, but I don’t think there were vegetables in there. You can’t sustain a family on herbs and spices—is she coming over to scope out my harvest? I quickly cover up my basket with its linen cloth, swaddling the pile as if it were my baby.

“Hey, nice to see someone else practice the art of gardening.”

My head tilts onto my shoulder as I squint up at her in the sun. In my head I can hear my mama, like she used to tell me when I was little, Nori, be nice. Go play. Things are so different now that I hardly ever feel like that little girl anymore. But with a sigh I stand to brush off my knees and I find myself walking to greet her, one foot after the other, my brown flip-flops printing bean shapes in the dirt.

”Well I guess that makes me the starving artist,” I joke across the barbed wire, with a laugh that says it’s too true. I’m hesitant to let her in, but if you can’t trust your neighbors, who can you trust? Besides, I’ll be watching her the whole time.

”I’m a little busy, but if you want to help with the weeding you can come in.” The offer falls to the ground as I begin to twist open the barbed wire fence and for a moment I feel embarrassed. This is no way to think about a neighbor and I know it; I guess the fear just got to me for a minute. What are we, animals? Thinking about our next meal and that's it? Inside I know my neighbors are all trying to make ends meet just like me, and maybe if I got to know this girl better we could help each other out. It's the way my parents would have wanted it. 

"Sorry," I sigh, looking her in the eye. "Didn't mean to be rude. People've been stealing my crop lately and it's making me crazy. I'm Nori by the way, and aren't you Sacaeda?" I finish untangling the fence and push it aside so she won't get cut on it.