parlor tricks | {devika/mackenzie} blitz

[dars]

welcome to the panic room
where all your darkest
fears are gonna
come for you

Mackenzie still didn't understand why he needed to showcase any kind of talent to these people. Week after week, District after District, he was standing on a stage made of corpses while the memories of the dead were reflected back in his through their loved ones' eyes. He was a murderer; all he'd done was outlive everyone else. That shouldn't have ever been grounds for fortune or fame, nor should it have ever meant that he would be taking magic classes, of all things, to prepare for a tour of victory. He'd been such a good killer, they wanted the entire nation to stand face-to-face with him and listen to prewritten speeches and then, yes, perform tricks of the eye with a deck of cards or a pair of loaded dice. He pulled rabbits out of hats and coins out of people's ears and they were supposed to applaud and pretend they had somehow forgotten why he was there in the first place.

He felt ridiculous every time they wheeled that stupid cart full of supplies onto the stage, but there were a few perks to the embarrassment this time around. Namely, that he'd killed the girl from here and then watched as the boy went up in flames, so his red cheeks and precise hand movements were a well received distraction to him.

As he finished his last trick, he bowed. The curtain closed, and he was immediately dragged into a changing room to put on another suit, and then to yet another ball which was being thrown in his honor. Mackenzie wasn't stupid. He bet every person holding a steak knife, sitting at their cloth-draped tables, had the thought of stabbing him if he came near enough. His food could've been poisoned, hell, a child could've pulled a gun from beneath their coat and shot him right then and there for all he knew.

But he was me with plastic smiles, rough handshakes, polite nods.

As soon as he was able, he sneaked his way to the back of the room with intention of hiding out for the rest of the night. These people did not care about celebrating him; they hated him for living. He took a vacant seat at a vacant table and tried to keep his head down until Jacquelyn found him and told him it was time to go.

still waiting, hands shaking
maybe the coast will clear
but these voices, these strange noises
they followed me in here

song: panic room

[Lyn𝛿is]

∴∴∴
the distance between you and me:
the scale of my emotionality
my heart ain't rich enough
to suffer your reality
∵∵∵

The posters began showing up shortly after Mackenzie's victory.

Productive citizens are happy citizens, they'd say. Show your support for our glorious Capitol by working to make our latest Victory Tour a success! First and foremost, we were all one big District Eight community working together, they'd tell us. From the manual labor of lifting steel beams and constructing platforms, to the designers who worked directly with the mayor to set up everything just so before Mackenzie's arrival. Remember, your diligence reflects on District Eight. Make us proud.

What a load of shit.

It always seemed funny to me, how quickly people made peace each year with whoever it was ended up the victor. Sure, there had been several riots, when Ezero was killed in the 72nd so close to the crown, but even those had settled down by the time the Victory Tour rolled around. And as for the Rasoios - well, they had their own reputation muddying the waters, I suppose.

One morning we'd woken up to find that our family store had been broken into, shortly after the 72nd Games. The mob that came through smashed all the windows, and took the measly handful of bills they found in the cash register. There wasn't much inventory stolen - we didn't sell much that seemed valuable to potential thieves - but they'd set a trash can on fire right in front of the broken windows, and the smoke damage from that fire had made our entire front display of thread and yarn unsalvageable.

It took a week, for the new panes of glass to arrive, a week of windows boarded up with particle-board and no income, a week where my mom and dad fretted and worried, knowing that for all the money we made in an average week, it wouldn't take much for our livelihood to come crumbling down.

And it took far more time, for the lingering acrid odor of burnt garbage to disappear from the store, even after we'd pulled up the carpet, after we'd scrubbed and repainted the soot-stained walls. More time than it took, for the district to forget their anger at Atticus Manor. More time than it took for some of the same boys I'd seen shouting in the square to start fawning over him and making puppy-dog eyes whenever he appeared on the TV.

It seems so pointless for them to be angry, if all it took to make that anger go away was for them to run around for a bit smashing things that had nothing to do with the Victor or the Capitol at all.

So how would I go about doing things differently?

Well, first of all, we had to have a plan. And hope is not a plan; at best it could be a useful tool, for getting people to listen. But just because we're trying to bring something down instead of building something up doesn't mean we can just show up and figure that if we're outraged enough everything will work for us.

And if so many tributes could manage to come up with things that impressed their Gamemakers in just a couple days, we could certainly make a splash given a couple weeks.

We were model citizens, in their eyes, when we picked up extra working hours just as the posters urged us to. We'd set out the chairs, in front of the stage that was to be the showcase for Mackenzie's talent, and fix colorful tablecloths over the fancy tables in the ballroom until they sat in just the right way, with matching centerpieces on top and hundreds of sets of silverware arranged in just the proper order alongside dozens of table runners.

Until one of the designers walks in, and demands that we take off all the silverware, and all the centerpieces, because they'd changed their minds and decided the tablecloths ought to be baby blue instead of white. And just when we'd finished re-setting everything the way they'd wanted them, another designer shows up to tell us that they'd actually miscounted, and we now needed to take down the tables entirely and swap them out for bigger ones.

Ripred, I never realized that Victory Tours were such a poorly-run mess until now. Not that it surprises me, precisely - I'd long suspected that the clean precision we'd see at a cursory glance was merely the same sort of tight control the Capitol liked to have over its image, while its insides festered.

We ought to have chafed, at how they treated us as mindless drones, at how they made us stay later than we'd agreed to, redoing pointless work that they'd generated out of their own incompetence. But it was better for us that way. The designers thought to lord themselves over us because they were the ones in charge of having grand visions of how the Tour ought to go.

But they didn't care to understand the details, and that's where we hid our little secrets - cloth that would look different hung up than when it lay flat, but for a trick in the warp and weft threads; thread that was exceptionally sturdy, or thread weakened by sun and age that would snap before any others; machines that would fail at just the right time and just the right way, if you knew where to look.

I look just as innocent and unobtrusive as any of the others the day of the event, as I find a seat somewhere in the middle of the crowd, not close enough up front for Mackenzie to see me, but not too far in the back. It isn't long before Mackenzie shows up, with a cart full of cards and dice and whatnot, and starts spinning tricks at the front.

And I find myself rather unimpressed. Well - I'm sure there's some sort of skill involved, to flip a card just right or make it look like there's been a rabbit in a hat or a ball in a handkerchief or whatnot, but his tricks are just that - simple, cheap tricks. Worthless in the grand scheme of things, just like Mackenzie himself ought to be.

I watch him carefully, surrounded by his escorts as he steps off that stage, as he plays the part of victor with a smile as seamless and unimpressive as his card tricks. And I must be just as seamless, when I slip into my shift as one of the food servers. Refilling the punch bowls, setting out new trays of chips and appetizers before anyone can complain about the empty ones, keeping everything running smoothly until the right time -

They won't understand the cord, hidden between the ballroom and the kitchen, or the gentle tug my hand gives it as I brush past with an armful of dirty dishes.

Three, two, one -

There's a shuddering crash, when the beam comes tumbling down and the room dims. As a hush falls over the crowd, the beam of spotlights directed toward the front wall emblazons a single symbol: The Capitol's seal, ripped apart and on fire.

How's that for a parlor trick, Mackenzie?

lyrics: no tears for strangers - falconer

dars
OOC: I may have gotten inspired by all the PTSes flying around