A LIVING DEATH // SELF-PARA
The flashbacks don’t take long to start. For a person who’s been transplanted into a new body, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t. He isn’t real because he can’t be real. The laws of possibility state strictly that the dead remain dead, and yet, here he is. The dead, walking through an empty home.
His new house is for him and him only. His parents and several siblings meet him at the train station when he gets home but he refuses to speak to any of them.
He can’t listen to what they have to say. He doesn’t want to hear it, whatever empty words they might have for him, or worse, if they have love.
No one is allowed in. Maverick is not allowed in, not even allowed to talk to him. He walks past Agatha’s empty house, the lights darkened. He often finds himself in Orpheus’s bed, discovering his new body, discovering that the only thing approaching pleasure is in the carnal. Nights slip by. His old weed dealer is happy to see him.
The first flashback is in his cavernous bedroom, which he learns is cold in the winters. It feels like the bitter mountaintop, and suddenly the covers are not simply cotton, but rather, a blanket of snow, and before him is Seraphina: Take care of yourself Everett, and I’ll catch you in the next lifetime, okay?
How? His voice is an echo and is begging. It is raw, he is raw. He’s not sure if he’s speaking aloud or not, but no one is here to confirm. How do I take care of myself, Sera, how?
She is trapped and so is he. She beneath the boulder, he beneath the memory of it. He knows he isn’t here but he doesn’t know how to get out; his heart pounds his ribcage as if begging to escape it.
Sera doesn’t tell him how to take care of himself. She doesn’t tell him how to run away. She doesn’t say anything but tells him, over and over: Even Crash Justice can’t muscle his way through this one.
And what if he can’t?
Hours spent paralyzed beneath the memories. It’s Seraphina, then it’s Marino, falling from the ferris wheel. It’s Margot, torn to shreds by the wolves. It’s Burly, slicing at his face — the scar recreates itself every time he looks at himself in the mirror, not a memory but a present happening. It’s Memphis’s silent begging. It’s Agatha:
You better fucking win.
I did it, he says, on his knees like he’s praying in his room, the bathroom, the living room, the kitchen, I did it. Now what?
No one will tell him. None of the ghosts know the answer because none of them lived.
Sloane and Tommy visit him together and he kills them both again. And again. And again. It becomes more difficult to discern reality from unreality. He tries to write things down: I am here, I am real, I am Everett Lance and I won the Hunger Games.
But it isn’t true.
He is Everett Lance and he lost the Hunger Games.
Both things cannot be true.
They are.
On the outside of the house is latticework up which vines crawl. It’s easy to grip, easier to fall from, and the first time he tries it, escaping the memory of Memphis, who lays dying on the beach in his bedroom, he nearly falls. He catches himself on a pipe, but in the moment where freefall felt certain, Memphis disappears. The sand is gone. Only he is here. Moments later, he’s on the roof.
He knows that he is losing it. The roof doesn’t care. He lays flat and looks at the stars. He looks at the tattoo on his arm and traces the waves with his fingers. This is how he knows he is a person, even if he doesn’t know who that person is.
Maverick leaves for Seven. It’s better this way.
There’s a thunderstorm one afternoon. The lightning sends him in two directions at once: he is in the forest, holding Delta’s body as she dies, and he is in the middle of a town, watching the sky spin.
Whose memories entrap him?
He climbs onto the roof, away from the bodies that pile in his room. The lattice is slippery and he nearly falls twice, three times. The roof is slippery. No one comes to stop him. He doesn’t die. He’s lucky.
The stylist comes and asks if he’s more loyal to the red or blue team, and which he’d like to wear on his Victory Tour.
He tells her to put him in black.
He goes for long runs. He drinks himself to sleep. He lets himself cry. Nothing helps. Only the roof, slippery, steep, his weight and himself clinging to the shingles, can quiet the other tributes and drown out the Arenas.
He goes hiking, blazing his own trail. He finds steep cliffs and sits on the edges. He wonders about falling. He doesn’t. He goes to the shooting range, hits the first target and drops the gun.
Never again.
Life moves both forwards and backwards at a dizzying pace. He ignores texts, calls. The Peacekeeping Academy wants to make a hero of him but he’s read what they said when he died. They dismissed him, said he was a traitor for volunteering.
He is a traitor but he’s not sure to whom.
Spring begins, though he will never again trust the seasons.
The day he leaves for the Victory Tour, District Two is shrouded in cold weather, common for this time of year, but when he arrives in District Twelve, warmth is beginning in the upper reaches of Panem.
It’s an honor to be here today…
In Twelve, no one stands on the podium before Margot’s photo. He doesn’t know who or what to look at and the ringing in his ears is his own panic. He speaks quickly. He doesn’t succumb to the memory of Margot’s death, though he can feel the dirt in his hands as he digs.
I’m so privileged to have been chosen out of so many tributes to come back for the Quell…
In Eleven, the weather is even warmer. Trees blossom but there are no green leaves or pink flowers in the square where the stage is set up. Apple’s face looks at him from the projection, but as in Twelve, no one stands before it. It was only her, the only tribute from her District chosen to return. He had told her he hadn’t wanted to kill. It feels like a lie now.
My love for Panem kept me going through the Arena…
In Eight, there are more faces: Marino, Nikita, Franklin, Jeannie. The four of them stare at him and he tries to avoid eye contact. For a moment he can’t tell if they’re real or not. Or if they were ever real. The cards: he reads from the speech he’s been given. Nikita and Franklin have no family present, but Hunter Twill stands in front of Jeannie’s picture in sunglasses, shooting him a thumbs up. In the recap, he saw Jeannie explode, but couldn’t see her face. He wishes he could have seen it. Could have buried her like he’d buried Delta and Margot. It was a dignity that she deserved but would never get. And Nikita, stronger than him, smarter than him — should she be here right now instead of him? Should they all? 39 Victors rather than him, it feels like more than a fair trade. And Marino’s family, he knows they’re looking at him. He knows that Margot is not the only guilty one. He’s the only one remaining to bear the burden. It’s too heavy. In Eight, he stumbles, stutters, the world tilts and he sees stars — the speech is cut short, he is brought off the stage, excuses are made for him that he doesn’t deserve. His new body is checked over, questioned: are you alright? Do you feel alright? They think it’s because he’s a clone, and he doesn’t know how to say it’s because of everything else they’ve done to him.
Even though it was difficult, the trials that the Gamemakers set us were always fair…
In Seven, Alder and Maverick are there. Maverick tries to talk to him but he doesn’t want to speak. He has been given no cards to tell him how to face his old best friend. Alder leaves him be which feels like more mercy than he deserves. Burly’s family stands tall and proud; they glare at him. He can’t look, he can’t look. He leaves Seven as quickly as he can.
Panem has always been strong through trying times, whether or not the trials we face are fair...
In Six, he walks onto the stage and is immediately in the woods of the Arena. Sloane is on the ground to his left, Tommy to his right. There is blood all over his hands, all over his notecards. Amphora’s family, her smiling face, she looks so happy. How could she be happy here in the Arena? Tommy’s family stands in front of his picture; a wolf, decaying like him, prowls in front of them. Hadn’t he mentioned a mother? He feels sick. He forces himself to look because he doesn’t want to be a coward. He adds one thing into his speech:
I’m sorry.
On the way to Four, he makes a request. As the train rumbles towards the ocean, preparations are made. One wish can be granted, surely, for the Victor of the Quarter Quell, the boy on whom the Capitol is leaning to bring peace. When he gets onstage, Delta’s face is one of four. The Dunes are there, he recognizes them by the family resemblance, and thinks of Mako in the Capitol, happy. The Blues pull his attention, though, and he sees immediately that she gets her red hair from her family. They do not look at him unkindly, and after the speech, for the first time, he lingers. He tells them he thought it would be nice; to remember her. That he wishes she would have been brought back. That she deserved the Victory. She deserves to be remembered. Above him, lightning flashes but he digs fingernails into palms and forces himself to remain here, in the present; it’s what they deserve.
The Blues invite him into their house. It is small and comfortable. They offer to show him her room but he doesn’t want to see, not yet. He says this: Not yet. Maybe I’ll come back. They thank him for protecting her and sticking by her side. In their home for the first time in months he feels like he’s real. He apologizes for not being able to save her and cries.
We are better as a united nation than we are as individual parts, and I was better in the Arena with my allies than I was alone.
In Three, he finds Seraphina’s parents. She’d asked him to tell them she loved him and he won’t break a promise, even if his hands are shaking. Even if his lunch threatens to make a reappearance as he faces, directly, the parents of the girl he killed. The McCabes are kind, though, understanding; they just want to know what he and their daughter spoke about and did. They haven’t seen her in ten years, never expected to get her back. He tells them about swimming in the pool, eating the last cookie and facing her wrath. It feels nice to have a good story to tell.
The relationship between the Districts and the Capitol is one of peace, mutual protection, and balance.
In One, many faces, many families, look back at him from the crowd. He is tired, his body is exhausted and the travel has worn him out. Throughout the trip he has been tested, they’ve taken blood draws and measured his heart rate, had him undergo various physical examinations to be sure that all is well. They want to make sure, they say, that the stress doesn’t wear him out in this new body. He thinks it’s funny and laughs, but they don’t seem to get what’s so humorous about it. Diana’s face; she had offered him mercy, hadn’t hurt him though she could have. In front of Mandi’s face is a crowded podium; she was right about having a big family. There are so many people who love her; his knees threaten to buckle under the weight of all that grief, but he holds it together on the stage. He’s getting good at pretending.
It’s one I am proud to be a part of as your new reigning Victor of the Quarter Quell.
He returns home last, and even though many of the Districts saw warmer temperatures, it’s snowing when he walks onto the stage to give his speech one last time, this time to his home. Before him are the faces of Lionel, Agatha, and Isabela. Only Isa has people standing before hers, her family. The snow falling — he wonders if the Arena is broken, because it’s supposed to be springtime now — doesn’t deter the crowds. The District is proud of their Victor, proud to have brought it home for the Quell and the second time in a year. Cain is there, Orpheus is there, Trixie’s there, he’s the only one who feels like he’s missing. Where is he? Where is this person they’re celebrating?
The speech is not his. It’s bad, cliche, and it feels sour in his mouth. In the other Districts, they hated it; a few people even booed, though they were swiftly punished for it. In Two, though, he sees people nodding. He sees hands over hearts. He feels sick. Sick in this place that made him. Sick with the altitude of the heights they’ve lifted him to.
Afterwards he is only allowed one night at home before he has to go to the Capitol for the ball. In the empty house, they are all speaking. Carlos, Travela, Memphis, Marino, Burly, Sloane, Seraphina, and Tommy. Their fingers press against the wallpaper, they want to get out, but they can’t any more than he can. Agatha is stuck telling him, over and over, to win. He’d better fucking win.
Why? he asks, but she never has a good answer for him.
He climbs up onto the roof. He looks at the stars and tries to place himself in the universe.