myopia of the heart — francisco. & exover.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

Francisco should be dreadful. He should curl up against the throw pillows, arms flaccid, and flood his head with somber thoughts — each one as grim as the next. But, the child within him who thrives in the summer-heat and eats sunflower seeds refuses to sulk at a corner.

It's a strange planet he's been sent to: a world strung together by neon and dark and shadows and wealth. If the capitol's neon exterior could be cracked open, it would bleed gold like Francisco's would bleed sap.

The giant's castle is supposed to enchant and be brimmed with beautiful distractions; it makes his prey unknowingly feel at ease. And, of course Francis is under the enchantment. He knows of its presence, but feigns oblivion. It's much better to be enchanted than to be made afraid. He doesn't want to quiver like a thunderstorm. He wants to gaze up at the sky as lightning paints it a dark navy and thunder sings as clarions would.

Beautiful sights and vistas, Francisco muses, should be the most treasured ones.

His hands are stained – across the palm, across the curvature, down the intervals – because he has been plucking any sort of fruit he sees from the silver platters and having a taste contest of his own. As of now, the furred fruit with the khaki-colored outsides and emerald-hued insides is taking lead. A kiwi, someone clarifies.

Strange name, but exquisite taste.

He licks away the sweet remnants of it on the fingertips. Smelling of red petunias and all the wildflowers that the plant station nurtures, Francisco enters the dining hall for a hot meal that does not have fruits this time.

It's almost close to being deserted here, if a boy doesn't loiter around the food trays. Francis tries his best to ignore him. It's better not to speak to other tribute. Anonymity lessens the guilt and a nameless countenance is better than a named one. If he wants to be heartless, he needs to start acting like he is — like there lies a gaping hole where the blood-red was ripped out from.

But, it's hard. It becomes even harder when he notices the other's robust movements and the uneasy gait he walks with. Something does not feel intact about this boy, and Francis is curious, all gleaming eyes and stolen glimpses. 

He's compelled to bite the cotton in his mouth and speak out when the other's swaying hand misses the soup ladle. “Hey there,” The timbre of his voice is delicate, like flowers in warm spring, and roborant. “The ladle's here.”

He leans in, close enough to memorize the other's scent as he would a flower's, handing him the ladle. “Did something get into your eye?” Francisco makes sure the other hears the genuineness. He doesn't want the query to bristle with anything else other than concern. He should be dreadful of someone who could well be his murderer, but he isn't.

The myopia of Francisco's heart is a curse.

[cameron]

Three hours he waited in the corner of the dining hall, sulking in the leaves of some small decorative tree. Seconds. Minutes. What seemed like days. Single tributes and groups, never leaving a large enough gap between for him to slip out from the foliage and pour himself a bowl of that tomato basil soup he couldn’t get out of his nose. All the while Exover stood like stone. Since the reaping, everything proved harder and harder than what he was prepared to handle, and the whole talking to his future murderers thing simply didn’t appeal to his wilted organs. Plus, there was an air vent opening in the corner of the room, probably for the plant (how did they keep one alive indoors? He could hardly keep himself alive indoors), so he was cold and content. Anywhere else in the training center and his skin seared under the light of fluorescents. Even in his bedroom, protected by the throw pillows and sheets, he felt the burn of the glow.

Everything was too hot in the capitol. Especially for him. The hallways, the people, the weather, even the food. And all he’d eaten at that point was some fucking fruit. The Gamemakers were kind enough to include braille descriptions along with the fruit trays laid out in the mornings, but who the shit learned braille. The best guess he had for the sickled, seedy thing was what he overheard a staff member say: “chili.” Whatever that was. Either way, fruit shouldn’t be hot, and he should not have to put his face in a vat of whipped cream to stop from screaming out in agony before nine in the morning. He made a mental note to sleep in the next day. Then he made another note to not.

His favorite dreams were painted in pastels and neutrals, shades of memories easy to the touch. Soft on the sight. Colors that relaxed and reawakened. Each capitol dream stampeded through him like neon horses, unnatural and proud. They were loud, unabashed in their rampage. Hues so manmade they stung the eyes, even through the glass.

He didn’t want to sleep in and suffer through the heat of his dreams. His insides were dried like an old river bed. So was his mouth. He had to get to that dining table. He needed soup and a large jar of water, and no more chilis ever again.

Finally the last two girls left the area, mumbling something about sunflowers on their way out. Sounded like his district partner, the one who helped with his hair, but he couldn’t be sure just as much as he didn’t want to be sure. (He was sure. It was her.) Pushing that away and controlling the guilt he already carried, Exover left the confines of his tree hideaway.

Making it to the table was relatively easy, with nothing really separating him from the buffet besides a few dropped crumbs. Once there, however, something terrible happened. A boy walked into the room, and in a rush of competing scents Exover had his breath stolen and regurgitated. Vines stretched themselves around his calves and rooted him where he stood. Stone again, but weathered, weary, worn. A monument to the grasslands and the fields and the forests. His organs sprouted and grew, no longer wilted, no longer seedless.

The seconds, minutes, what seemed like days passed by in excruciating detail, as each breath slowly rose through his branches and left through the leaves. And with the words “the ladle’s here,” his petals fell bare. It took a moment for all the growth to shrivel away and die, but his heat returned and his ears warmed like torches.

Whiffs of fruit and petunias and sweat and tulips took turns sprinting past him, an overwhelming sensation despite the wake-up call-out. He hadn’t realized he was reaching for the spoon for a while, didn’t know that from the moment the boy stepped into his vicinity his whole system shut down and allowed a full-fledged commandeering, and definitely didn’t care that something about his warmth hadn’t sent Exover behind the corner plant. He stood planted. He stood like a tree. The boy leaned in, his aroma so extreme, so many flowers all at once mashing together in a nauseating swirl of something he couldn't pinpoint behind his confusion.

Something happened between the two, both silent as they took in the other. The boy slid a ladle into his hand, and he was happy and relieved and somehow not embarrassed anymore and - “did something get into your eye?”

His tree burned down in an instant.

“I thought…” He started, biting his lip. The boy was like the others his age, the ones who found joy in his loss. The ones who could call out names from across the street and know they were safe. Boys with no heart. “Fuck me, yeah? Fuck the blind kid, yeah?” He turned toward the begonia boy and his stinky, smelly face. “You tell me, then. Anything in my eyes?” He should’ve waited another hour to get his soup. Hell, he should’ve never bothered in the first place. He was going to die, and from the looks of it without a shred of dignity. Without a single bloom to his name. He was going to die alone.

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

He has never idled around much with those of his own age. Francisco was bred within circles of flowers, intricate orchards, and the wet-mossed smell of forests – so, it was no surprise when those became his companions instead of his peers. He’d watched the latter though, silently, from the blue-fogged window of his bedroom as a drizzle pattered overhead.

They were tiptoeing on a low concrete wall, a motley of them, rain-soaked with unkempt hair and dirtied clothes when Francisco was hurdled in blankets and embraced by an earth-brown sweater his mother had knitted. When one of them, out of the blue, trampled a wildflower with no excusable reasoning, Francisco looked away.

He prefers to muse that since then, he’s never looked back. But, he looks at this boy – a curious gaze studying the scruffy countenance, the thin line where a smile should be, and the glass eyes. He could see an echo of himself splattered upon its cruelly glistening surface.

A pang of shock bloomed in Francisco’s chest, and despite his best efforts to suppress it, a sharp – loud – intake of breath is made.

It is akin to stumbling upon a wild flower with strange characteristics; he yearns to learn more, to unravel this boy and study him to meticulous extents as a dedicated scholar would. This, is the gift Mia Bloom left her son with: the gift of curiosity and inquisition.

He wonders if it is truly a gift or not for sometimes, it doesn’t feel as one should. But, Francis probes the surface, keen to reach the depths. “I apologize,” he articulates the words with shame and soft regret. “I didn’t see—” The realization of the sentence’s clear irony dawns too late, and Francisco wordlessly curses himself. Words are not his forte. He wants sparse moments to choose them, seeking for the apropos, but the tides of time wait for no soul and no carefully-chosen words.

“I didn’t mean to put it the way I put it.”

If he’s ever sighted a harsh train wreck,
it would not hold much contrast to this.

Francisco longs for the soft and the quiet of the bed on the training centre’s fifth floor, the erratic dance of the capitol lights that bleached his windowsills neon, and the warm bathtub he always overflows.

He tries to slow his own heartbeat by envisaging peonies caught askew in a soft wind. “Here – let me just get you the soup instead.” Hands gently seize the ladle from the other boy’s hand, its steel head vanishing only to resurface filled with golden broth. He pours it into the other’s bowl, its warm contents reminiscent of his mother’s cooking. Francis smiles at the memory, because he knows the other cannot see it and because he cannot withhold it.

“Careful, it’s hot.” The bowl is settled back near him, and only then, Francis becomes more tongue-tied, unsure of what to say next, unsure of words and unsure of his own choices of words.

With fingers crossed like vines behind his back, Francisco drops a query – hoping it is the seed to a lovely conversation instead of a volatile one. He doesn’t know what to except, heart caught in the throat.

“So, is chicken soup as comforting to you as it is to me? Does it taste like home?”

Then, he is reminded of another question, which galvanizes another & another: a nervous loop of nervous queries, rising from untamed curiosity.

“What is your home, by the way? Which district? What is your name?”

[cameron]

Memories from before being sightless were scarce, but he could make out a time the Endor family pantry wasn’t always teetering on the edge of empty and just enough, could feel the shelves filled with apples and onions, jarred cucumbers and candied peaches, the heavy bag of rice on the baseboard before the fog rotted it all to hell, before Mother holed up in her room and left him to fend for himself in a world that rotted him faster than the fog. When there was nothing but dust left in the bottom of that burlap bag of rice, when the thought of what about the couch cushion was shaken out of his mind, he did both the bravest and dumbest thing he had ever done: he went outside. He left his house and went down the street in everyday clothes, doing his best to picture the paths and stay near the wall like the doctors instructed. Naive as he was, Exover truly thought he was doing everything right and that it all just might be fine and that maybe he had been nervous for nothing, when he heard the first sharp intake of air.

Instinct turned his head toward the sound, hoping to see why that woman gasped so loudly. Nothing but gray. The hole in his chest dug deeper, a sinking feeling that reduced him to a puddle, that spurred rains inside his muddied heart, but he was brought out of that hollowness when more gasps, more shocked “oh!”s rang like bells around him, and he turned to each sound to be greeted with more pain. But he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t not want to see - he couldn’t look away and he couldn’t look at all. The doctors also warned him of FOMO, but they didn’t warn him how much fear could hurt.

With a THUD his face was bloodied, a rock falling away and bouncing on the ground beside him, and he froze. Snickers began mixing with the gasps, a clear crowd forming around him in a semi-circle that locked him against the wall with nowhere to hide, nowhere to hide when more rocks were hurled his way, when kids and adults alike joined in casting stones, and his head exploded with a hundred questions that could never be answered. He finally lifted his arms after the sixth strike to the face, still screaming in his head, screaming empty, hollow silence as loud as he could, and he stood there till the rains turned to thunder, till the puddle fell into the earth and a sea opened up and swallowed him in its mass. He drowned in himself, sinking into the dark depths just to escape the judgment he couldn’t control, the judgment that continued to pound his flesh to purple and brown and green. His own court deemed him guilty regardless, guilty of whatever crimes they threw at him, whatever made them afraid. Fear hurt even more than he thought. Especially their fear, the collective ‘others’ that saw him and thought monster or disgusting or half-wit or anything beyond person.

When tulip boy recreated that sound, he told Exover more than he needed to know.

He was ready to lay down the ladle and give up on his soup ventures after that, after being stabbed by a tribute before entering the arena, but then the boy spoke softly with words sweeter than candied peaches, and he let the anger subside for a moment, let the “see” go unsaid, let the boy have a chance. Unusual enough behavior for him, but the gentle reaction was even more unusual. No one saw him and apologized for themselves; they apologized for his eyes. They felt bad for him, they pitied him, before ever seeing their own words, their own reaction as what was wrong. He was wrong to them and always would be, but the boy pouring him soup didn’t deem him such. His daisy breath was fresh and his kindness was welcoming and sunny in a way that didn’t turn Exover’s skin inside out, in a way that was natural even in the presence of his unnatural features. The boy handed the bowl back and he felt as normal as he ever could.

Then the boy asked about the chicken soup, and he almost couldn’t stop himself from laughing. He wanted tomato basil. Hours of waiting, hours of hiding behind a tree and smelling the savory, peppery broth and he was hand-poured chicken noodle. Even as things went more right than he expected or hoped, there had to be some wrench in the plans. He held composure though, a tiny smile dancing across his face for a split second, and nodded along with tulip boy’s talk of his fondness for home, along with the many follow-up questions he spurted after. Dipping his toes in the realm of the alien, for nobody but Reggie had ever bothered getting to know him, he picked up a spoonful and blew it to cool. “Home isn’t something I want to taste.” With a loud slurp of soup, he craved tomato basil even more. “This is great.”

In a grand gesture of reciprocated kindness, he pushed the bowl toward the boy. But as the words “want some?” slipped from his mouth so did a steaming chunk of chicken meat. Shit! He dove down to pick up the fallen breast and sloshed a fair bit of broth onto the floor on his way. Exover stood straight up and grimaced hard. His mouth sucked into itself, as flat and thin as fishing line. He ruined everything. Always.  “I’m Exover from ten, or bloodbath victim number one. Take your pick.” Knuckles whitened around the soup bowl, and his other hand held tightly to the wad of hair in his pocket. He was rotten. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Sorry.” He let go of the hair and extended his hand. “I’m sorry.”

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

Francisco remembers the very first flower he was tasked to nurture. It was a verbena, periwinkle in the daylight and cool purple when the moon kissed it. A verbena flower is a cluster of thirty-something flowers that amalgamate to a single bloom and is worshiped by healers and apothecaries alike for its medicinal benefits.

And, a verbena flower also happens to be one of the hardest to take care of. Mia Bloom wanted to see if her son had more of her blood in his veins, it seemed, and of course, Francisco arose to the occasion and conquered it.

Now, they sit on the windowsill of a bedroom he isn’t sure he is returning to, nearly losing their battle with the wilt. The accursed thought of his bright token of conquest – and a testament to his mother –losing color and petals agitates him.

He should have brought the clay pot with him.

His father wouldn’t bother to water them – that fact Francisco is sure about, for once. His eyelids flicker heavily, worn and used, and he isn’t sure, again, about how he’s become caught inside the web of daytime reveries.

But, the answer glows in the other boy’s face.

He is like the verbena, Francisco muses, a cluster of elements he cannot isolate that comes together as a single entity – as pale flesh, clumsy bones and glassed eyes. And, as evident from the puzzling way Francis could recognize his fury without his eyes resonating it, this boy would be hard to nurture too. Francisco’s green fingertips ache daringly at the challenge, so he buries them as fists down his pockets.

He isn’t here for a plant-growing contest.

Despite himself, he wonders what sort of flower this boy would blossom into. Perhaps one that spreads across elegant trellises with all its intricate vines, or one which matures only on a forest’s good soil – and matures ardently.

He lets his gaze plummet to the floor below, albeit the other’s unawareness to his long stares. Francisco makes a false cough, ears spinning back to the conversation at hand instead of his own, disordered thoughts. He catches a stray “this is great,” and breathes out a chuckle. But, that breath is seized back to the lungs as hot broth soars – a sea of golden chicken soup postponed mid-air – before it splashes on the floor and Francisco’s trousers.

Acting on startled instincts and startled nerves, he rises to his feet. It seems nearly scripted when Exover does the same.

“I’m Exover from ten, or bloodbath victim number one. Take your pick.” Francisco wrinkles up his dark eyebrows at that and translates the action to a strident breath, aural enough for the other to perceive. “Don’t say that. I’ll pick Exover, not the other thing. And don’t ever wish that.”

He refers it harshly as the ‘other thing’, because an omen articulated by the tongue and pushed through ivory teeth can make it a near truth. Omens and incantations are akin to each other. Give the words a tongue and conjure a mystic effect. Though whether this effect is benign or ruinous, is not the speaker’s discretion.

Francisco grimaces at the vexation etched onto Exover’s features and reaches out for his hand. It fits like a glove would – his calloused, chicken-breast-kissed hand. “It’s just spilled soup, Exover.” He releases his grasp to move away, ushering himself towards the soup cauldrons after taking the boy’s emptied bowl. “I’ll refill it. I wasn’t very eager for chicken soup anyways – the tomato basil beats chicken soup in a battle of overwhelming flavors.”

As he settles the bowl back in front of Exover, overflown to its metallic lips with the red of tomato but scented heavily like fresh basils, Francisco says, “My name is Francisco Bloom. I am from District Five, and I want to grow an orchard someday so – I am planning on not being the first bloodbath victim.”

[cameron]

“I’ll pick Exover, not the other thing.” Tulip boy’s wildflower words painted his cheeks rosy, warmth spreading through him as the seeds pressed into his skin. He stood for a moment more, fertilizing. Breathing. Taking in the sun he’d hidden from for so long - and he felt alive, a timid bird shoved out its nest taking flight against the odds, spreading its wings and sailing on the winds of change.

The Endors had a bird nest in their yard before, when he was young and unafraid. When he went out with arms wide, calling for the sun to swallow him whole. Exover tasted its rays brush his lips, kiss his skin, and he opened his eyes even though Mother said not to, warned it was bad for a growing boy to look directly at the great, hot star, and the light blinded him enough that he flinched away to peak through vine-woven fingers. Now he opened his eyes to nothing, to the empty gray room he alone occupied, and he still couldn’t look at the sun without flinching. Couldn’t help but feel like the baby bird, the real one from his yard that was nudged out its nest far too soon and fell straight to the earth. The baby bird that died in his tiny hands. Its survival was never meant to be; neither was his. The idealistic bird flew on while his lived not in fantasy but cold, hard truth, the kind that turned breath to crystal and froze faith by the feathers.

His cheeks faded pale. Even with good intentions, the other tribute couldn’t save him now. He wasn’t a fresh-picked bouquet for Exover’s olfactory to overload on, but a reminder that it was too late for humanity to matter, that his chance to stop and smell the roses died when his name was drawn from that ball. There was a warrant out for his death, and letting this boy trick him into false hope was not written in the dots. Yet a fire started with the strike of his matchstick tongue. The boy pleaded, “don’t ever wish that,” and he only wished it harder. Sooner or later he would be dead, his seedlings stamped out, his fire reduced to ash and wood charred in his throat. His fingers were crossed for sooner. He wished he was that bird, that his suffering was long-over and he didn’t have to fight through the world with broken wings, but the boy took his hand and his body spit out bones to make room for flames.

Smoke filled his lungs. He wheezed out an “I’m sorry” that probably seemed misplaced, but it couldn’t have fit more. He was sorry. The boy’s kindness was a breeze, and flight felt easier upon it. It seemed right to fly in the boy’s orbit. Wafts of petals and stamens and leaves whirled overhead. Soup was poured, and it was the right soup, and rose bushes were overgrown across his face, across his chest, across his fingertips. “My name is Francisco Bloom. I am from District Five, and I want to grow an orchard someday so – I am planning on not being the first bloodbath victim.” Francisco. The name dripped sophistication, a smoothness and savvy unable to be inspired by a clumsy name like “Exover.” Francisco was honeysuckle in his heart that sweetened his blood. His chest tightened, tangled up in the pendulum of contradictions he felt for the Bloom boy. Bloom who smelled so strongly of gardens before he entered the room, who dreamed of a life after games, who allowed time for reflection before reaction. “Have you always had such a green thumb, then?” He asked, equal parts curious and hoping he’d picked a gold-mine for Tulip Boy to gush about. That way they could talk for hours, just him and Francisco. That way, he could keep nourishing the jungle inside with his water-can words, could keep the bird safe and happy until the proper time to fall.