aging out of the 20th century // pinnochio & perry

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

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i feel like i haven't changed.

i swore i could feel calcified life being pearled in my skeleton when spring came. hot summer rays made my head spin, then came autumn, i fell out of trees with the leaves, like if a wind could just blow me away from here.

it's winter. almost my birthday.

will i ever feel like i'm my age.

when i turned seventeen, i counted the candles of stuff i'd missed; i've never learned how to use an axe or kiss or live. there's scars on my palms, on my elbow from when i broke my arm -- when the seasons change, insects go through metamorphosis -- when will i shed my skin from all the cuts made not so accidentally?

when i turned six, i learned how to climb a tree. or was it because i could climb trees, i was six?

i dust off the books underneath my bed. there's A History of Panem pre-revision, The Vanquished, Moonrise, People of the Mounds, the spine is still tight. my dad used to read this one to us. modern literature antiquated by the capitol when the author became anti-games. there were fairies and restless dead in the woodlands, our district the image of a midsummer forest in the book.

it's one a.m. and i haven't changed -- dealing with boredom with dealing with contraband. i'm neither here or there, i guess, someone between birthdays, between childhood, adulthood, adulthood and old enough to live a life without the reaping. transitory, but unchanging. somehow, i've grown less than a fly on the wall. somehow, i've lived less.

i open my window, slide down the drain pipe with People of the Mounds bouncing in my bag. i light a cigarette at the bottom.

the trees are white and blue behind me, untouched by symmetrical formations for lumber. somewhere there are fairies making shoes in the roots and trunks, a harbinger of death screeching with the crows that didn’t migrate in the fall, my dad, taken to the realm of the west.

maybe i want to keep this book.

the wool of my coat feels scratchy on winter skin when the bar envelopes the air. drunk men clink glasses, start fights, settle down, underpaid staff drink in the bathroom, diluting vodka with tap water. i flip the coins in my pocket, asking will i. will i not. i have some juice in the basement of the bar.

shit, how many books were lost to people like me.

i play quarters with my empty glass. it's two a.m.

i didn't learn business the way mom wanted me to. i learned how to play with coins at cocktail parties, bouncing them off black wood tables into gold-rimmed cups imported from district one itself. i learned how to tune out banal euphemisms to be nice to the other kids, feed boredom with bizarre daydreams of ancient animals uprooting themselves and shaking the earth. i think about all the times i pictured the redcap with a scythe from the pages of this book.

tails, i'll leave.

before the coin lands, someone slides into the seat across from me.

[d4 Panda Scope [Gayton]]

P I N O C C H I O

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For someone as terrified of consequence as I am, I sure do a lot of stupid shit.

I hear through a friend, that a friend of a friend knows someone who has a book. So what?

An illegal book. Something I would never hear of, much less read. But I'm cursed with curiosity. To know that there are pages in this district no one has ever seen isn't enough. I have to know what they say.

Before I know it, I'm meeting shady adults in the forest, learning more than I ever thought possible.

A library. Well, of sorts. Books, banned by the Capitol, being traded amongst historians of District 7.

I don't learn anyone's names, but they set me up a meeting. A bar, at night.

Show up, find who I'm looking for. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that. 

But here I am, amazed by how fast all this happened, sneaking out of my house. My grandfather, would kill me. He wouldn't even ask where I was going, he'd just react.

Luckily, he just fixed the squeak in the door last week, so I slip out silently.

I don't remember the walk. I was too busy thinking.

I don't remember what I was thinking. I was too busy panicking.

The bar was grimy, too say the least. Men whose partners are waiting angrily at home while their children don't know where they are. I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of attention I got.

I didn't belong. I'm sixteen. I wore brighter clothes. But everyone in there was too drunk to notice, including the staff.

But there is someone here. Sitting alone at a table. They're nearly as young as me, and seemingly disinterested in the music and patrons. Oddly, though, with a sense of belonging.

I tuck my hands into my pockets. My nails begin to claw deep into my legs. The pain distracts me from the panic. I take a breath and I approach. 

They don't seem to notice me standing there. They're playing with a coin. I sit, and they look up at me. They don't say anything.

My nails go further into my legs. I force myself to take one long breath instead of several short ones. 

"Um, uh, I- I'm Pinocchio."

There, I did it. I introduced myself. Oh wait, fuck.

"You didn't want to know that, did you?"

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

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the coin lands on tails.

it reads like a joke.

pinocchio gives up his name and i don't tell him mine yet -- the bartender comes to our booth and asks what we'll have.

"i got it," i tell him, my coat clinking with spare change, infinite games of will i or will i not lining the pockets in changing fortunes. a staff member places down a tray of the drinks. the fruit syrup sinks to the bottom of the glass; it tastes like sweet cough medicine when i get there, burning like an outlying sun.

he looks kind of scared to be here.

i pull another cigarette from a brand new pack still wrapped in cellophane, flick on the cheap plastic lighter i hid from mom for the millionth time and i'm starting to think she's given up confiscating them. the embers fall around the orange end, winter clouds heavy with lightning parting when i inhale. lungs feeling tight, this is starting to bore me too, i guess.

the book sits between us in a paper bag i put on the table and i exhale, resting my chin in my hands.

finally, i flip a coin for pinocchio.

i guess this is how i'm neither here or there -- now in the coda of being something else, of being between the years, of being seventeen. life is blur of alcoholics at worn bars and people huffing glue in basements and things that were meant for burning. and maybe i'll have to admit to myself eventually that getting older means living longer like this, means living at all really. my palm comes down on the coin when it lands, holding it against the table.

i offer him a smoke with my free hand, shaking the box and it rattles like a tin of lemon drops until a cigarette slides out halfway. "wanna try your luck?"

feigning interest in life, i look at him, eyes meeting his and ask "heads or tails? if you get it right, i'll give you another book too. if not, then you gotta give me something instead."