Our Love Could Be Lethal Act I Re-Write

Act I: Nothing Left to Lose

The funeral ends up being a far grander affair than Gran ever would have liked. The Capitol makes the event so pompous, I think she would have chosen to go back into the arena rather than be in attendance.  Fallon handed me the speech nearly the minute she got off the train with a sealed envelope from Plutarch to start to memorize, which I recite perfectly if I do say so myself.

It's a rather confusing affair because Capitolian funeral planners, florists, musicians, and some minorly important Capitol officials descend upon our city for a few days. I find it quite interesting because I've never really heard of Capitolians visiting the districts other than escorts and prep teams. Or aside from them visiting one of the villages on the outskirts of 2 where there's a small Capitol run resort for skiing. Whatever that is.

But after the Capitolians clear out, the filming crews pack up their stuff and leave, and the lingering fans from District 2 finish their vigils it's now my turn to go and say goodbye. Properly and like she would have wanted. Even though the cemetery for victors is in the middle of town, for the first time since before even the 69th Hunger Games I finally feel some peace. I finally feel alone. Just me and Gran. The way she would have wanted it.

I pull a crinkled piece of paper out of my coat pocket because it's been sitting there all day and start to read. I tell her how much I love her how much I'm going to miss her and after getting through some of the more sappy stuff I know she would have hated, I get to the jokes and the memories.

I tell her some of my favorite moments I've spent with her, like the time I hid in one of her kitchen cabinets and laughed as I watched her run around the house looking for me in a panic. Or the time when my parents wouldn't let me come home over one of the Academy's breaks, and they told Gran it was because I wanted to stay. She marched right into that building and yelled at one of the trainers until they got me to come speak to her so she could find out if it was true or not. I went home with her 15 minutes later.

Or how could I forget all the jokes we've made at my father's expense, especially all the bald ones. Or the time she called Finnick "Floppy Air" and now every time I see his name, I want to call him Floppy.

But of course, as my speech pulls to a close, the gentle late-night breeze and the whistling between the trees remind me that I'm now utterly alone. I can't think of a single name in District 2 that I want to hang out with or who doesn't hate me.

With my father nowhere to be found after the day of the funeral, disappearing into thin air like he does, I am the only one left to organize and clean out her house. I could let the Peacekeepers do it, but I think I'd rather jump off the roof than do that. I tried to request ownership of the home, to trade my empty one for Gran's much homelier and memory-filled house, but they refuse my request like they do with all things that would make someone in the districts even remotely happy.

Instead, they counter me with the 'request' of collecting two giant boxes worth of things to be sent to the Hunger Games Museum in the Capitol. I consider filling the boxes with her pots and pans and left over rolls of toilet paper until I realize they probably won't find the gesture as funny as I do. Their loss.

I try to sort through everything meticulously, keeping the items I know she wouldn't want in the hands of the Capitol and the especially sentimental ones for myself. That's another thing. The entirety of her estate—the parts she's allowed to give away at least—was passed on to me. My father gets nothing.

The house and any unused portions of her bank account are returned to the possession of the Capitol. Another way of keeping people in the districts from being able to get ahead. From what I understand, wealth and property is passed down Capitolian lines to the point where their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren never have to work a day in their lives. The socialites they called them. I guess they don't want pockets of socialites popping up in the districts.