Hallelujah: Kate Voegele
Our Father, who art in Heaven...
I said the prayer every morning and recited it again each evening. Every day was the same since I was ten. I'd wake up in the cold log cabin in a small room surrounded by my sisters. We would start our day with morning chores and then fall into our daily routines.
Daddy spent days at a time out in the forest clearing lumber. Most men did. Mama, my sisters, and I worked in the paper mill with the rest of the women. It was mundane labor, but paying labor nonetheless. The fruits of our labor were few, but somehow we always had enough food to feed five mouths. The quality of our food, however, was also poor. Food was scarce. But we made do...always. There wasn't much to complain about when we had so little.
Riches we were short, but stories and time we were graced with.
Outside of work, Talia and Ruth, my older sisters, spent most of their time gossiping with silly girls that lived within the District. Daddy would usually stay out in the woods until nightfall, he would have his dinner, and then he would go to sleep. Sometimes he would read to Mama, but he stayed out late ever since Sarah died. "Look after them," He would tell me every morning before he left.
After work, I'd prepare dinner and listen to my sisters' chatter. I'd listen to Mama and her wise ramblings while cleaning. Then I'd prepare for my evening plans. Mama would usually sit with me, folding and refolding clean and dirty clothes.
She packed my bag for the next morning. "Johanna, be ready for tomorrow, when you start work." She said before I left the house one night, like she had my very first day. Her days weren't always clear.
"Yes Mama." I said bluntly, finishing up my chores, ignoring her warnings. I drained the water in our metal basin and finished up my sweeping.
"Did you read Psalms?" My mother called, placing the small, shared book on the old uneven table. It was a ratty, tattered thing, full of stupid lies and fairy tales that only the weak believed in, stories my poor mama believed in.
I tied up my long brown hair, pushing it out of my dark eyes. I pulled my jacket over my bony shoulders. "Yes Mama," I lied. I hated reading from that book. Mama was the only religious person in District Seven. No one else saw what she did in the myths of an Almighty God who reigned somewhere in the clouds. I started out the door, my heart raced at the thought of seeing him. Mama's last call held me back for only a second.
"Don't get lost." She told me each time I left.
The birds chirped as the sun started to set.
I laughed quietly, smiling at the ground as the screen door of the little cabin shut. My boots shuffled in the dark dirt at our backdoor. "Never lost Mama, I just wander," I called back in tradition. I turned my back on the shanty home. My mom was the one person who worried about where my wanderings led, and she was the one person always rescuing me when I did get lost. That's probably why I worried so much about her lately. She deserved better daughters. She deserved to have my sister back. We never protected her like we should have. My convictions weighed on my heart, heavier each day, especially when I mourned over my poor mama.
Mama was what they called pure of heart, or thoughtless. "The Lord is good to us…you remember that." She told me as I walked to the edge of the woods. I shook my head in bitterness. I always wondered when the best times were for her to remember how good her god was to us. When we lived in poverty? When my eldest sister was sold to peacekeepers, and then slaughtered? When they called my mother crazy? When she lost her mind? When we watched twenty-three other kids murdered each year because of a cruel government? Her god wasn't here. Her god didn't care for us.
No one did. Not even my father who was so consumed in grief he ignored justice and followed rules ignorantly. "For protection" my sisters would tell me. But who could protect us? If they wanted us dead, they'd have the chance...they have the power to end us. We were the ones who had to gain that power back. There was only one person in District Seven who agreed.
I ran out to the woods, the sun was still shinning an orange glow. Shadows stretched across the forest floor. My heart drummed loudly as I picked up speed. I would see him soon.