A little something that came to mind on ANZAC day. Written fairly quickly, so I hope it is coherent.
They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.
He finds it in an old book, the history of some nation far across the other side of the world, part of an old stash from a library they unearthed in the out-districts between Three and the Capitol. The poem is surrounded by photos of men in uniform and strange flags flying at half height, of trumpeters and red flowers.
Soldiers that look like any others he has known: Proud and fierce, yet tired around the eyes. Willing to lay down their lives for their cause, all the while wishing that there was no cause they were needed to fight for. The older ones have that all too familiar shadow in their face, men who have seen things they never wanted to see, who did things, lived through things that changed them.
For so many years in his district he was one of only a few who knew that shadow. Now they are all around, survivors of the war. The rebellion that successfully overthrew the Capitol over three years ago. He can hardly remember how he fills his days or how they have gone past so fast, though he supposes he is productive enough judging by his finished products and successful resolutions to various technological problems.
Still always slower than he was before, when she was here. In charge of research and innovation for all of District Three with eight offices and labs full of the brightest and best thinkers, and he still can't balance the loss of one brilliant, creative and wholly unique woman.
It's four years to the day, he realizes as he sits back in his chair, the book propped open on his lap with a scarred finger. Four years since the most important person in his life had her throat opened with a knife, bleeding out all that intuitive brilliance in under a minute while he lay helpless on the sand. Her death and the others had helped allow them to build a better nation, a true home without the Games or the slave-labour work conditions. A place where children were safe to grow old and shine as bright as they could without having to fear fighting brutal trained warriors.
They had both known that there was a good chance of them dying during the Quell, and he kept going day to day because he knew that had their positions been reversed she would have compartmentalized her grief the same way she did her fear or anger or conscience and got on with doing what needed to be done.
With the whole country at war it was easy to focus on the present, be it hacking the Capitol's broadcast system, plotting contingencies and clever plans to take held ground or simple designing and producing new weapons to give them the edge in the fight. It wasn't until he got back to District Three, back to his house in the Village, alone, that all that grief came pouring out. He made sure his public face was as composed as ever, but it took him weeks to put himself back together inside. With no-one else around in the other eleven lonely houses her absence was even more noticeable.
He felt her missing presence every time he set foot (or wheel, more commonly) in the shared lab that joined their houses. It took several weeks and some local tradesmen to help re-design and renovate his house so that he could use his chair to get about, replacing stairs with ramps and lifts, adjusting the heights of all the counters so that he could work easily while sitting.
At first he didn't touch her side. Her benches remained high (she was taller than him and preferred to work standing), and the stairs leading from the lab up to her lounge room prevented him from wandering her empty house on the nights when the nightmares won.
Over time he got more practical and slowly his work crept into her spaces. It was strange coming down in the morning and not finding all of his bits neatly piled just on his side of the invisible line through the middle. Strange not to hear her humming under her breath as she tinkered with some new bit of machinery (he was always better at electronics and small fiddly tinkering, but no-one could best her knack with working machines). Strange not to have those easy conversations where one of them would start a sentence and the other would finish it, their minds perfectly in synch.
As the months, then years went past it became less strange. About a year after his return he woke to the sound of singing. A soft voice, male, echoing up from the lab that should have been empty. He knew the tune of course, one of her favourites, that she would often start singing without realizing when she was concentrating too hard.
He forwent the chair, leaning heavily on the banisters, his weak legs and back trembling as he hurried downstairs. He wavered at the bottom, blinking at the sight—thick dark curly hair bent over a bench, screwdriver in hand. But the shoulders were too broad and the voice too low, and when the figure turned he immediately recognized the young man and cursed at himself for not thinking of the lad sooner.
His new assistant took up residence in her old house (the young man's old house too for thirteen years until he went to work in the factories of their district) and quickly made himself useful in a hundred small ways. Malcon had the same habit of dropping his sentences, and of singing under his breath when he needed to concentrate combined with clever fingers and an unyielding work ethic. Always a little odd from birth, the boy was at home in a quiet, isolated lab, following whatever instructions were given.
It took months to get any sort of story out of him, though he finally pieced it together: Malcon had been living with his other sister until she died from a sickness, and lacking any other close family the boy had come back to the only other home he could remember. Growing up, Malcon and Wiress had been quite close. She often joked that they were both a bit broken in their heads, so they made sense to each other when no-one else did. It wasn't strange to have young Malcy in his lab, he quickly found. In fact it felt like what had been missing was finally replaced.
And now, on the four year anniversary of her death he makes himself do what she used to do every week. Something he was never brave enough to do himself, but with her brother at his side steadying his chair over the bumpy ground and carrying the basket of red flowers he finds the strength.
Some of the graves in the long miles of cemetery are crumbled and faded, some still show the blackened marks from when the Capitol rained fire on their district, wiping out nearly a third of the city. His parents, long dead probably from hard work and bitterness. Their stones still stand, relatively unharmed. He'd never visited them, not since they disowned him after his brother's death. His little brother Ayjay who died as a lesson because he mistakenly thought being a victor offered him some provision to refuse powerful Capitol citizens.
Ezra and Laney Ling, and their oldest daughter Baliss, executed as rebel leaders after that uprising before the Quell. He thinks the other three children are still alive somewhere, but never really knew them well. Pella Ling, the older sister whose grave Malcon leads him to. Too shiny and new.
Old school friends, mostly forgotten but for a partially remembered name, teachers, colleagues. One by one they leave the flowers behind and he feels some weight that he didn't know was sitting on his heart lift.
They leave the tribute cemetery next to the Village for last. He decides not to linger amongst the silent rows of the dead, only pausing beside the 50th Games tombstones to shed another flower and a great deal of Malcon's tears.
The victors have their own separate section surrounded by bright white marble. Cupros Glint, the sour old grump who mentored him through his Games. They had all had a soft spot in their hearts for him and had been genuinely sad when he'd died just after the 53rd Games (Blight's Games his memory helpfully supplies, yet another dead name to remember).
Her grave is plain and mud stained. He's never visited it before, never felt the need (or had the courage). It must have been interred after the war, probably by some nameless District Thirteen workers who would have prided themselves on the efficiency and blandness.
Wiress Ling
Born 31DD
Died 75DD
Nothing more about the Games or the Quell or the rebellion. No quotes, no decorations. He decides to put changing that on his priority list. They empty out the last of the flowers and all the fallen petals over the dark earth. Malcon crouches down and arranges them all in neat orderly rows then looks up.
"What now?"
"We carry on I suppose," he replies. "And we come back next week and do this again."
Malcon nods and stands, helping to turn the chair back towards the house.
Lest we forget.