I grew up in the fishing markets of District Four. Every day, selling my father's catch, I heard people complain about their lives, spending their days amongst frogs and fish markets, while people in the Capitol supposedly thrived. The populace of the Capitol, I learned in my years there, talked of a simpler life with altruistic tendencies in their tone, spouting claims of jealousy for people in the Districts, over simple, "effortless" lives. The will power it took to let them know that they were being selfish... it's hard to describe. Of course, those complaining in the lesser districts had more credibility to their claims; President Snow found it fit to treat those districts like alley cats. My district was one of the wealthiest, providing Panem with aquatic sea life, the best seafood around, and not to mention, some of the best victors Panem had ever seen. The people in Four, they go on with their lives. My beautiful people who love water, fishing, backyard games... and my people, who also sent their children to train, to volunteer for the games, to behave like animals sent to slaughter. The years I lived in four, my childhood years, I heard shouts of glory and praise when it came to the games, because we were all conditioned that way, to love the Capitol. Don't try to tell me that I formed that opinion myself, because everyone in District four had an open mind when it came to the games, and especially when it came to the Capitol. We may have all been "angry fishermen" to the rest of the districts, but we knew how to thrive better than most. I myself wasn't trained for the games, because luckily my mother had a good head on her shoulders, and I realize that now more than I ever did as a child. My brother, born five years my junior, wasn't trained either, at my father's insistence. He wanted him to be a fisherman. My neighbors trained for the games, and volunteered. My neighbor and my best friend, Alister. I remember him. He was only fifteen, but he had a skill with nets, like many young boys in the fishing district. So naturally his parents decided, from an early age, that he would participate in the games.
I was raised with death all around me, but those doubtful in district twelve, in district eleven and ten, they never believed that anyone with as much comfort as us wealthy fisherman could grow up like them. What with all of their pain… District Four may produce Careers, we may even be wealthy, but I can't remember ever being happy, standing there among friends, waiting for my name to be picked. No matter the district, we are all the same in that moment. Once, I remember it so clearly, when Alister and I were both fourteen, we went to the pier and caught ourselves each a fish. Small fish, nothing to brag about, but we told our parents we were going to cook them ourselves and eat out on the deck, in the middle of the lake. We left the basket outside of my house for ten minutes and came back to find a stray cat, finishing off my fish. He had eaten the meat from Alister's, and was pecking away at mine. Alister's training had begun when he was five years old for the games, so he grabbed the cat and snapped its neck, while I had to close my eyes and listen to it scream. Alister caught new fish for us and I burst out laughing when he pretended to kiss it. I didn't understand much when I was a child.
Alister volunteered and entered the games, after ten years of training. As I watched the Games in my parent's house, at fifteen, I saw my best friend become slaughtered by a girl from District Nine, only two minutes in. Luckily, my name was never called. My mother told me it would have been an honor, in such a sweet voice, and my father decided never to say anything about it. He found more opportunity for conversation with my brother Seamus than with me.
In my later years, when I came to visit the lower districts of eleven and twelve, I understood why they took the Capitol name in vain. As a child, I had looked down on the lower districts, because any child knows how to count. When I was there, I looked in the slums and I saw the men off to work at the mines, their faces dirty, as they coughed the very coal they collected. I saw how empty, how small those houses were when I went into them, how poor the people were in health and possessions. I saw the death in those districts as well as my own. I have been told I'm heartless because of my choices. Because I chose to come to the Capitol of my own accord. And I've been told I'm a coward, for trying to hide those choices. And I keep telling myself that I never should have made that choice at all, because I'll always have the Games surrounding me, no matter where I came from or where I go. Whether they are there or not, they will always make me remember why I never should have left my hearty little fishing town.
There is too much death.
And yet it seems there is not enough to take me away from all of this.