Chapter Text
The radio keeps crackling. I turned it off three hours ago, maybe 10 minutes. Seven tributes ago. That seems like the only true way to measure time.
There aren’t many of us left. The atmosphere backstage has gone considerably more cold; Tee left to do her interview a while back and left a trail of chocolate wrappers in her wake. I was scared she’d throw up as she left but I suppose that’s not our problem now.
I don’t hear anything, but I know it’s my time because I feel something tug on my right shoulder pad. Don’t you know how long this took to get tailored? I think. I understand why people are divas now. Getting made up is exhausting.
The curtains have not been washed in a while. With every small cross-stage movement they seem to exhale years of dead skin cells over the waiting stagehands and managers. And me. My hearing comes back, if only slightly, to the tinny whine of applause or maybe microphone feedback or maybe the vessels in my ears finally deciding to burst.
Tee leaves, brushes past me clutching her stomach, and I’m not sure if it’s the smell of her vomit or the whiff of Caesar’s perfume that makes me feel more sick.
The man doesn’t age. I’ve thought that as long as I can remember. Being closer to him, now, I can see where he’s been filled in. I’ve seen what they do to the corpses when they get lost down in the mines, how they pat clay and powder into the faces of these men who leave their daughters behind so that they might look presentable before their burning. I’ve always thought it a bit weird. There’s no use in hiding death. It’s natural. Most of the time.
Caesar’s face, I theorise, died a long time ago. He’s filled it in since with all manner of Capitol-exclusive procedures and plastics. How much of it is his original face? Was his smile once an inch shorter? Did his eyes not open as wide? His nostrils once more round? I wonder if he sees himself in the mirror anymore, or just the uncanny version he’s created. Maybe that’s why he dyes his hair so much. It’s yellow now. I could have sworn it was green before.
He’s working his way through the rainbow in reverse, I think. That must be it. There must be some sense to it. I will cling on to any pattern or any reason that I can.
“Not a talkative one, are you?”. Laughter.
The armchairs are also not what they seem to be. They’re plastic. Everything is plastic. They look comfortable and leathery and well-worn, rich and aged and instead they’re hard plastic with fake crease marks. I can’t sit still. I’m on the armchair next to Caesar and I can’t sit still.
“So, Haymitch. Tell me a bit about your training score. What happened there?”
Something catches me straight in the eye — it’s a spotlight or maybe the reflection of Caesar’s teeth or an errant piece of glitter.
Perhaps the dead cells in the curtains are going to work their way in to my brain and kill me before the Games even start.
Would that be rare?
Pre-games deaths have happened before, but usually because people have got into fights.
38th, 31st, 29th, two in the 28th.
There was a violent spate a few years back.
Maybe I can be the first death from natural, parasitic causes. Would that be symbolic of something?
Maybe it’s easier to go this way. Quiet, offstage.
“Folks, what do we think about Haymitch?”
People cheer, I think, or scream, or someone has turned on a very high powered revolving razor which is coming to chop me into tiny pieces and scatter me across the audience.
I catch Maysilee’s face, somewhere.
She mouths something to me,
twists her index finger
in the air. Turn
around. I
suppose I’ll have to talk
eventually.
“Hello, Caesar.”
“He speaks!”
The smell of sweet decay on Caesar’s breath. I want to throw up. I have to keep going.
“Yes, he does.”