CLOCKWORK ━ Hunger Games

- overture [chpt. 1]

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CHAPTER ONE. OVERTURE.

Butterscotch-drizzled memories were a baseline, your laden imprint upon the trekking, muddy soil of the Earth. Your dancing soul, they were free from scrutiny, liberated from sienna-spice doubt and crimson-harsh reality. That was what the elders of district two used to claim. Elder Maria used to say this, ruffling thin, curly hair whilst thoughtfully gazing. A living painting, white as day, she would slather your blank canvas in colours. Using the archaic paints of her melodious words, she'd brush your irises in a haze of aureate, laden you with greenery like a young castle foreground, shower you with ivory-lips and porcelain skin. In your cheeks she'd illuminate little caramel-lichen candles. And this was her imprint upon your world: the concept of value procures identity, makes blueberry bushes out of a vacant, lonesome garden. You would listen to her rainwater, her lessons, her sprinkles of creativity, always trying to better yourself to grow these magnificent berries – it would fill you with ecstasy to see her smile, even more beautiful than she already was; her lovely dress, bouncing like azure-fed clouds, would swish whenever she moved; her arms, whiplashed, would move when she told stories, soaring to the skies to battle Gods and save the common peoples. Your childhood hero, Elder Maria was everything to you, and if sprouting these blueberries would make her happier, then you would absorb all the sun in the universe, drag down others, if only to see the creases of her mouth rise.

You were wrong . . . Elder Maria just wanted to see you succeed. But at that age, blind as a bumblebee, you would nod, happily, running off to play in sugary sand or with plastic swords, dreaming of the games, seldom unaware of consequences. Yet, you would always remember her honeycomb faith. The way her wrinkly, kind skin believed in you, her fantasy-esque belief; she believed you could take on the world, adorning a thousand generations with a silver-tipped blade, a golden tiara, all because of a metaphor about a silly blueberry bush.

And yet your first dazzled butterscotch memory wasn't until age seven or eight.

The first memory that felt truthful, and honest, separated from the Summery happiness and split into smouldering reality, devouring the wild sun from your innocent heart. For hours, you could find yourself lost, trapped in a maze of reverie, in the childhood self-love, the curling mango-smells and rich miasmas. The details are grounding, they feel benign, spellbinding, marching without you like soldiers, unhinged by the fond, smothering blanket that carefully lies across anything earlier, unshackled by the abated bullets of trenches, of forgettable, curious infancy.

Water glistened in an aloof aroma. Lilac heat torched your obtuse skin, replicating itself onto marble-swirled water. Scanty waves shrunk as they washed unto the beach, melted by a curling music of dozy tulips away from the riverway. The fragrance became warped by the wind, following wavelengths to spread, evoking themselves, widespread, through the path of oxygen; sweet words, humid words; warm, hopeful words. You had felt the triumphant childhood feeling, the hero feeling, the 'i will take on the world' sky-high feeling. Above, the sky was a doll-dress blue, soft, fading to a creamed méringue white. A humble breeze tickled your limbs, making you laugh as you paraded the shore, so graceful, flopping like a bird, gaudy, in a lucid illusion of safety. The sand was shallow, a pale-serene crumb, but the water would dampen it with the smear of time, gracing the sand with the properties sponge, darkening its color, overlay it with charcoal ink. Within minutes, the sand would devour the water, absorbing it, lulling it into brusque safety before suffocating it.

There was a boy with you, blonde-haired, stabbing a maple-syrup drizzled stick into the ground, fastening the rope of his own shackled-ended destruction. He had sharpened the end himself, he had proclaimed proudly one afternoon, with a clueless rock, he had announced, skipping a stone into the melodramatic sea. It had skipped many times over, rippling, making blue-turquoise motions, almost echoing his bulge-milked eyes, the awe of one's own craft. On other days, he'd look up to you and smile, smirk, before parading the mighty seas, his feet a tug-boat dividing the infinite waves. Rarely he caught anything – this was district two, after all – but he always seemed content with the day. On occasion, his father would show him how to spear, patiently, telling him to shush and to quiet his mind, guiding the pointy stick, encouraging eagle-eyed stalking. It would be on these days where he caught fish. He would look up to you, whenever this happened, his eyes twinkling, his face sizzling with laughter as his father looked on proud.