Based heavily off of a picture I saw while skimming my Facebook (because that's how you know I'm really and truly bored) and it stirred some desire in me to write again.
Pristine
(alternately: Tainted)
"Mom," he looks up, a pretty face, distinctive and defined by his father's jaw and my steel irises.
I find his eyes, find his gaze resting on my right cheekbone while I stir, slow and steady, the broth and groosling that will be my family's supper. And mine if I can stomach it. Though some nights this proves difficult, Peeta can usually coax a few tears of meat into me.
His sister sits steadily in front of our television set where nothing but propaganda for the mockingjay—the new national bird of Panem—and updates on upcoming elections play. On occasion we are overpowered by a showing of clips from the rebellion or old Games horror but Peeta quickly shuts off the T.V. and dismisses the children to get themselves ready for bed.
She looks over at me just as I focus on her and her face tells me that she is interested in what her brother has to say. This worries me briefly. When I look to Peeta, his attention has not left the bread he's kneading.
I turn back to him and raise my brows in question, like my mother had done to me a thousand times as a little girl. There is no preparing me for what he asks.
"What are the Hunger Games?"
There is no response. I do not, cannot, answer.
My eyes fall to the floor as I silently sink back into a place so abandoned to the night I began to believe it would never see the day.
What are the Hunger Games? What are…?
How's does one begin to answer that question? They are what they appear to be on television.
The Hunger Games mean death. Loss and fragility. Blood and roses. Red roses grasped in your hand as you pass a cheering crowd before that very group of imbeciles sends you into what could and should be your imminent death. White roses placed in the ruins of a home that those very people destroyed. Roses that bloom in every color and coat a man so caked in evil that it is palpable.
His hands aren't sugarcoated but branded by the blood he has shed. They are masked. Red and metallic drips sliding down his extended palms, the promise of no hope, staining and burning into his skin, seeping into the folds and burying what had been clean and white in crimson and foul.
The Hunger Games are the destruction of families, proof of power, pinnacle of tyranny. They are the defining moment in a youth's life, live or die, become a hero of shallow quidnuncs or no. They are the final moment when a tribute becomes a victor. They are the destruction of youth and life and value and morals and hope and peace and compassion.
How can all of this and so much more, so much that has no means to take shape in words, be relayed to such young ears, such lovely children, my children? How can I ever bear to look them in the eye and tell them it is the murder of friends and the face-off of foes? It is the apex of total chaos converted into organized sporting and entertainment?
How can I utter the words murder?
And then what? I tell them of Rue and Finnick? Of Clove and Cato, who were not all bad, just mutilated by a handful of Capitol people? Of dear sweet Mags and precious Wiress, so dizzy and innocent?
How does a parent tell her child that it is the end of life and the beginning of greed, the very personification of what people dread every waking moment, lying in their warm beds cringing and fearing for tomorrow?
I can't bring myself to tell my children, but they have no fear of facing such terror. My parents told me and I was left with no choice but to face my fears and then live with them. Still breathe them, those fears, those nightmares.
I feel Peeta hovering near me, maybe afraid to reach out or just waiting for the right moment.
He whispers, "Go to bed, kids."
And we are alone.