Life Through the Bench

by Michele Evans

"I am sitting on my regular bench across the Town Square, watching her..." Haymitch has been watching her all those years. Follow his journey as he sees Katniss change from an innocent child to a survivor, all through the bench. One shot.

Life through the bench:

I am sitting on my regular bench across the Town Square, watching her.

I have been sitting here for years, watching the people walk by, living their lives. But there was one family that always caught my eye. I kept following this family, or to be more exact-the family's eldest child- through the bench.

I remember when I first saw her….

I watched them as they walked.

It has been about five years since the townie healer girl married the Seam coal worker, and after so long, they finally managed to get pregnant. He was holding the baby, no older than eight or nine months. She was laughing at the faces her father made, her laugher echoes in the wind.

I never really got it. How could people have children in a world like this? Why have kids just so you can lose them for the games? I will never do this to a child, especially not my own. And yet, here I am, looking at this baby girl with her dark hair waving around her head, her happy little face looking at her hunter father's face as if he is the sun itself, a knight protecting her from this dark world, her shelter. And I knew, by the look on the hunter's face, the same hunter I used to be friends with, the same man I pushed away when I got back from the games; I knew that no harm will come to her as long as he is around.

They walked past me; the hunter nods his head towards me and, as they kept walking, the little girl turned her head around to see what caught her father's attention. She looked at me with her big grey eyes, gave me a child's smile, an innocent smile, and I finally understood why.

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On the day their second child is born, I find myself sitting on my bench with the not so little girl. She is around the age of four now, and she is wise enough to understand. As her father drops her off in front of me, telling her to sit here for a couple of minutes, with his friend, it takes me long enough to realize that he's talking about me.

"Can you watch over her while I'm gone? I have to…." He says, while sending desperate looks to the midwife's house. His townie wife got in there a few hours ago. With her big belly I'm surprised she could even walk.

"Sure" I say without thinking. After all, he already set the girl on my bench, and according to the noises from the midwife's house, I knew it wouldn't take long before he calls her to meet the newest addition to the family.

After making sure the girl sits properly and wouldn't fall, he rushes into the house. I turn my head to my left and I find myself face to face with grey eyes, and then she starts talking;

"My name is Katniss. I already know your name. I saw you here a couple of times already. Why do you always sit here?" she asks me. I'm not very surprised that she knows who I am. I saw her too, walking down here with her father. I noticed the curious looks she gives me. What am I suppose to say? I'm here because I don't want to be alone, don't want to face my fears, my nightmares that haunt me even while I'm awake?

"I like the view." I say shortly, don't want to be rude or harsh on the little girl. It seems as if she doesn't believe me one bit. Once again she opens her mouth to ask another question but before she has a chance to, we can hear her mother yell in pain in the midwife's house. The little girl shifts uncomfortably at the sound. And then she talks again; this time so quietly I have to lean over to hear what she says;

"I'm going to love her deeply; I'll protect her and make sure nothing bad happens to her. I won't let anyone hurt her, and if someone does then I'll….Then I'll hurt them back!" she said to me. This girl would grow up to be just like her father.

"How do you know it's a 'she'?" was all I could ask her. Talking about little brothers and sisters did me no good, so I tried to lead it someplace else, ignoring a little boy's image that kept fleshing in my mind.

"I don't. I hope so, though. So I can sing to her, and dance with her and braid her hair." She answers, going on and on about the games they would play together. And then her father came out from the midwife's house, the door was still a bit open behind him as he called his eldest. There was a baby cry coming from the house.

"Hey Katniss, come meet your baby sister" he calls for her, and the girl almost sprints into him. I stood up as they closed the door behind them, and as I walked over to my house I let the little boy's image come to my mind and this time I didn't try to push it away.

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She walked with her father to the sick bay. Her nose was red and her body - despite being covered with at least three long sleeves shirts - was still shaking. I heard the rumors about the sickness that had hit the seam. I was too busy preparing myself for the death of another two children on my hands to really understand the situation; but I hoped that she, who has a healer mother, won't catch it.

Her father walked in to the sick bay, probably to buy some medicine that will help while she stood outside, and then she heard the screaming from the screen on top of the justice hall. She turned her body towards the screen and watched, just watched. There were two tributes on the screen. One had a knife and the other didn't. The guy with the knife manage to knock the other tribute to the ground and was about to sly his neck. And suddenly I turned my full attention to the girl, who kept watching the screen. I wanted to see her reaction, to see the disbelief on her face, the disgust on it. But it never came. Instead she looked straight at the screen, just looking. She didn't even blink as the canon was shot. Her only reaction to the death on the screen in front of her was the fist she made with her right hand. And then her father came back and took her hand, not even knowing that his eight year old just saw somebody die cruelly.

As they walked past me I met her eyes. She still had innocence in them, but she also had understanding. She already knew that this world was cruel, unfair. But she also realizes that there is nothing to do about it.

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It's raining the next time I see her. After the mine accident that killed her father, it was hard to notice her. She got really thin, and hardly ever came to the square. She is selling some of her mothers' Jewelry on the sidewalk, with no use. The people seemed to walk past her, ignoring the way her hands shook. But I saw it.

I saw the way she ground her teeth every time someone walked past her. I saw the way her eyes filled with nothing but pain and rage. Maybe angry at her mother who didn't seem to find a job to support her daughters, or maybe at her father who died so suddenly without even saying goodbye.

Maybe, she was angry at the world. But this girl already knew how cruel the world is, already seen the way this world works, the way it kills, and hurts, and destroys.

I wanted to go to her, to give her my money, my house, and to give her hope. But in this world there is no place for hope. Only fear and pain. So I stood up from my bench, and walked past her, tried not to look back, to see the way her shoulders fell down, the big Frown that covered her face. The hope that ran out of her eyes.

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They are walking together through the square, on their way to the hob. The boy in tall, with similar features, definitely a seam boy. The girl looks better but not enough, she is still very thin, but not like she used to be.

The boy and she are very similar; both lost a parent to the mines. I wander if this is how they met, why they bond so well. The girl walks first and the boy walks after her, they are carrying bags, probably their catch for today. I heard the rumors about them-her-going into the woods and hunt; I should have known that at some point she'd remember what her father had taught her. It's a good thing she remembered otherwise she and the youngest child, that baby sister she has, would have starved to dead.

She still wears a big frown on her face, but her eyes seem less hollowed, which is good. As she and the boy walked past me, I notice the look of disgust on her face as she takes a glance at the bottle in my hand. I take a sip, if only to annoy her and her frown grows even more.

I smile to myself as they get out of the square, satisfied at my actions. As I turn to look at them walking away, I notice a shadow in front of the bakery. It's the Mellark youngest child, who, to my surprise, is also watching them walk away, before hurrying back inside.

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It has been a quiet day until they showed up. Two peacekeepers each hold Mrs. Everdeen by the elbow, dragging her to their station. She doesn't fight them, doesn't yell, and in the beginning I can't understand who does, not until I sees her eldest daughter chasing them into the square.

She manages to reach them right in front of my bench. She rips her mother out of their hold and stands in front of her, as if she can hide her from the peacekeepers. I can hear everything she says. Behind her I see the boy, that hunter friend of her, running into the distance, holding a little girl as he goes. Later I realize that it is the youngest Everdeen, and the big sister must have asked her friend to get the little girl away from the mess.

By the time I turn my attention back to the girl, some of the stores owners went out to see what was going on outside, between them the baker boy. She yells at the peacekeepers that her mother did nothing wrong so they have no right to arrest her. One of the peacekeepers, a redheaded one, the one who spends a lot of time at the Hob, explains to her that one of the neighbors complained about her mother sitting in the front yard, staring at nothing in particularly, and thought she was crazy, and so, he told them to come get her. It's no secret that the Everdeens' family is being run by their eldest, but no one knew why. I feel bad for her. How can she justify that? It is obvious that her mother can't take care of the family, so the girls will be sent to the kids' shelter.

She starts explaining that her mother isn't crazy, she is just really sick. When they don't seem much convinced, she then pulls the redhead peacekeeper to the side. She asks, she begs him to let her mother go. She digs in her pockets; taking out a big sack of what looks like coins and pushes it to his hand. The peacekeeper seems to realize what she is doing and play along. He goes back to the other peacekeeper and they exchange a few words. The redhead man pushes her mother towards her. She grabs her mother and quickly leaves the square. The rest of the afternoon she spends trying to earn the money she promised the peacekeepers. I see her going into the jewelry store and sell her mother's jewels. I see her going into the Hob and selling anything she can spare. By the early evening she seems to collect all the money. She walks toward the peacekeepers station and meets the redhead peacekeeper at the front. She gives him the money and thanks him again; he gives her a warning and let her go to her way.

She leaves and I know she won't be eating well enough in the months to come. And if by the next morning, the people in the Seam wake up and see the Everdeens' neighbor's face full of bruises, no one says a word.

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I see her walking toward her house. It's weird to have neighbors. Her younger sister sometimes knocks at my door at the early afternoon. Sometimes I let her in, and we play card games together. Most of the times I just watch her knock, and after a few minutes she walks away, and I open another bottle.

She wears her brown jacket, and it looks like she rolled in a file of snow. I see her glance toward the other house. Trying to see if the boy was already home or decided to spend the day at his family's bakery. Apparently he chose to stay home, because she takes one look at the house's front and walks faster. She reaches her house and closes the door after her. As soon as her door is closed the boy opens his door, looks outside and into the street and quickly leaves his house. I will never understand those two. I think about the months to come, the victory tour is to happen in a couple of months. It will be interesting to see them ignore each other then. I take another sip of my bottle and step away from the window.

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I am on my way to get another bottle when I hear her screaming. I know she has nightmares about her days at the arena. We all do. Sometimes I catch the boy walking through the halls during the night to avoid his. I turn around and start walking towards her room. The screaming has stopped, and instead there is a muffled noise of crying. Full of curiosity I go toward her room and notice that the door is open, so I peek inside and freeze. I look at the bed to find not one body but two. They are both sitting on the bed; she is twisted in the sheets while he sits on them. Apparently he got here before I did. Probably heard her screaming and thought his nightmares have woken up to life. The boy comforts her, holds her close to his chest as he whispers words of comfort and rubs her back in small circles to calm her crying down. It seems to work because her crying stops slowly, and she seems to realize where she is. But she doesn't let the boy go. If anything, she clutches him closer to her. And as the boy tries to lay her back on the bed, she panics and he has no choice but to lie next to her, and wait until she falls asleep so he could sneak out. So I close the door, knowing the girl is in good hands. And so the next week, when Effie mentions their sleeping arrangement, I can only laugh, realizing that what I saw probably wasn't the first time, nor would it be the last.

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It is quite funny, I think to myself. They sit on the same table, and although the girl does everything she can not to look up at him, she does it every few seconds. The boy on the other hand, does not take his eyes off of her. He is looking at her as if she would grow a second head any minute now. But there is another thing in his look, curiosity, as if he doesn't get why everyone says he loved her, as if he is trying to understand why. And then it happens. The girl looks up, only to meet yet again his heated gaze, and knocks her fork to the floor. She bends over to pick it up and goes back up with a hiss of pain, hands on her sides fixing her shirt that had gone up. But it's too late- all the table members got a full view of her bruised ribs, and the boy's hands are twisting again, as if to touch her tender skin. Finnick picks the fork up for her. He must have made some joke because they all start laughing. The boy tenses even more and seems to calm down a little bit only when she releases a small smile. She then glances up again, and they stare at each other for a few seconds. And then her so called cousin gets her attention, she looks away, and the boy's hands resumed their twisting.

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I am sitting on my regular bench across the Town Square, watching her. She is sitting on her father's shoulders, helping him hang the sign for their new bakery. Ever since she was only a baby she smiles a lot, so different from her mother yet so much like her father. Her brother is different. He smiles a lot too, but sometimes he gets this serious look on his young face, similar to the look his mother gets sometimes. For example, when he learns about a new plant his mother brings him from her hunting trips. The girl is different, gentler, likes to bake and paint, just like her father. Reminds me a lot of a different girl I knew, with a pair of blonde braids, and healing hands. The little girl comes to sit next to me. She is struggling a little because she is so small and the bench is too tall for her, so her mother, who happens to walk past us, while she is running after the boy, who-once again-got flour all over his clothes, gives her a little push in the right direction. The little girl smiles in victory and puts her small hands on my arm.

"Do you like the new sign, grandpa?" she asks me. She and the boy call me grandpa. Even though they know I am not their real grandpa. It started as a joke, when she was only a few months old, her mother cried out that she will have no other family but her parents. Her husband gently smiled at her, wiped away her tears, and glanced at me. 'She will have Haymitch as a part of her family. Can you imagine it? Our little baby will call Haymitch grandpa. I will make sure of that.' And even though I didn't like it at first, that's exactly what he did. And so months later, her fifth word was my name, or the way they taught her to call me, 'grapa'. For me, it was close enough.

"Yes, it's a very nice sign." I tell her. She smiles at me, gets off of the bench and runs after her mother, to hear her opinion about the sign.

I have been sitting here for years, watching the people walk by, living their lives. But there was one girl that has always caught my eye. I kept following her life, until one day, in only one second, I became a part of her life. And although I will forever be sorry for the way we have met, I will never be sorry for meeting her.

I will keep watching her, as she starts a family of her own, as she loves and heals, as she lives her life, peacefully, the way she deserves. And I will get a great view of her life. This time; I won't be watching her life through the bench.

The End.

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