Chapter Three: Mathematics

Point Of View: Collin Heart: Thoughts after The Reaping

Up until today, I thought I had a future.

I thought I had a future in Mathematics, and logic. I wanted to teach the children of this city how to properly do math. I wanted to bring hope to this city of people, who just walk through their daily lives as if they feel nothing.

This city is like a city of zombies. The adults are unfeeling, and roam the streets like lost souls, just looking for some form of feeling. They walk as if they are in a daze. Their eyes are dead, and their mood is aimless, and impatient. They argue among each other, and blame it on the fact that they are just: "Trying to get by". Muttering an only half-true apology, they then continue walking on, as if the encounter with a stranger never really happened.

The men walk from place to place. The once callow smiles from their boyhood have since danced away from their lips. The unfeeling expression of numbness, now reminds them that their childhood abandoned them long ago. The unfeeling men roam the city streets, and walls. Looking for something. Something that will remind them how to feel emotion, once again. They want to know how to start caring about things, and feel whole again. They tither about like lost soul, who've since forgotten what the purpose of their life truly was

The women of this city, try, try, and try again. But, they just can't make the baby stop crying. They alone cannot fix the fact that their child is flunking out of school. Because of their poor grades. When they find that they are unable, to serve enough food upon their family table. They put on a fake smile, and sing their children lies. They tell them never to cry. "Be strong!" they say, "Get along!" they cry. The women feel bad when they lie to their children, but they feel as if there is no other way. They swallow these lies, and feel them rolling around in their empty stomachs, as they feed their children broken pieces of bread. Bread that is filled with the broken promises, and lies, that the women know they cannot keep.

But, my mother never lied to me.

She flat out refused to become like the other adults in this city. My Mother didn't haunt, nor search upon the streets at night. She refused to become like one of the stalking zombies. Though yes, my mother did want a lot more from this life. She refused to make herself cry while looking for it. Instead, she'd paint a beautiful smile upon her face. And remind me that right now, was the time to stop crying. She'd tell me: "Collin, there's a world the hallowed out walls of this city. And that world's bigger than this city. It's so, so, so much bigger. There's more to this life than just our little house, which is forced to lie in between these dusty walls." She'd whisper that to me when I was a child, lying my head down on my pillow to go to sleep.

My father, he also clung to his emotions, and held on tight. He refused to become like one of the zombie-people. Searching throughout the night, for just some kind of feeling, that they've forgotten how to use.

My father refused to become one of the Zombies. He was never a roaming man. Whenever all three of us were home- him, my mother, and me. He'd always make sure that the three of us all say down together for dinner. Even if we had little to no food, he always insisted that we all just sit together, and talk. He always said that talking, and just being with one another was what kept families together. He'd always add at the end: "Even in the most Difficult Of Difficult times."

But, my family is not together anymore.

My parents haven't spoken to each other since I was twelve. Since that fateful day six years ago, they have become like the zombies.

My mother is a crying woman. Who is frustrated, and angry. My father is a roaming man, who walks across the edges of town, getting into fights with strangers. My parents are zombies. They haunt, and roam the whirling city streets at just looking, and waiting for something more. Some sort of long-forgotten feeling. that could make them feel some sort of emotion. Some sort of non-negative emotion.

But their efforts are yet wasted. For there is nothing in this dried up land anymore. The happiest fruits have since gone rotten. And the field workers have sucked this place up dry, and clean long ago.

Sometimes I blame it all on myself. Everything that happened to wreck this family. A year or so ago, I finally just got sick of the silence and told my parents everything. My father cried, and my mother's face twisted itself up into this sad expression that just made me want to cry.

They told me that it wasn't my fault that their marriage was ruined. They told me again, and again. That they were sorry. And I told them that I was sorry too, even though I didn't know what they told me that I had never done anything wrong. That I have nothing to be sorry for.

But, for some reason I still want to make everything right.
I want to fix my family, and I want to fix this old town.

I study hard every day. I do math in my head during work, and chores. I pay attention in school. And once I get out of all this school, I want to talk to the Government. I want to beg them to let me teach the children of this town. More specifically I want to teach the middle school. I want to be the first teacher this town has seen, that is not a part of the Government.

I like math because every problem has a solution. And if every math problem, has a solution. Then maybe every problem in this city has one too. I want to fix this city. I want to cure the zombies that walk the street at night, and I want to motivate it's children to be something more than just "those kids that could get reaped".

Every problem in math has a solution. And maybe the problems in this town have one too? I wanted to know weather or not, they could be solved. And if I, perhaps could help to solve them?

But, now I know that I will never get that chance.

Because, my name is Collin Zane Heart. I'm eighteen-years-old. And live in Panem's center city. I live in this little special part of the city, reserved for those of us who had ancestors who were part of the old Hunger Games, or were in the old Government.

And today, I just got reaped to play in The Hunger Games.

My heart is not beating. My mind is not thinking. I am listening to the escort, but I can hear her. I am speaking, but no words come out. I am a living, breathing, thinking, speaking, feeling Zombie.

The escort forces me to shake hands with the tribute drawn before me. This year, it is a female. She is somehow related to the old President Snow. She is twelve-years-old, and has long curly blonde hair. Her name is Lacey. There are tears running down her cheeks. As we shake hands.

As I am being rushed away, by the escort. I take one last look at the sea of Zombies beneath me. For just a second, they come alive. As they frantically stare at us, as we walk away. They feel, they breathe. And for a minute do they feel...sorrow for us? Is sorrow a feeling that a Zombie is capable of knowing?

I guess I'll never know that either. Because, in a flash they go back to being Zombies. I am led away, into an automobile. That Automobile will take twelve-year-old Lacey, and I away to the Justice building. Our families and friends will be given rides there. And that is where we will say good-bye to them.

Good-bye to them, and the town of Zombies.