Sylvester Holloway, District Six male (18)
People sometimes said I had a charmed life. I had a job I liked and my friends were my coworkers. I was always smiling when people saw me. I looked like a friendly happy kid and I was a friendly happy kid. Everything always seemed to go right for me. I even won the Games.
The people who said that were right. I had a charmed life. Right up until the Hunger Games.
When I came back home I went back to the railroads. A lot of people asked me why I'd want to go back to my job when I was fabulously wealthy and never needed to work again. I usually told them I was bored and wanted to get out of the house. Really I worked because I didn't like to remember I was fabulously wealthy. The house and the money and the fame were the worst things in my life. Every time I thought of them I had to remember what I did to get them. All throughout the Games I never thought about the prize. I only thought about staying alive. In the end I got what I wanted. But the things I had to do to get it… I didn't like to think about them. So I went back to work and passed the days with my friends and whenever they mentioned the Games I left the room. Soon they didn't mention them.
It was nice, being back on the rails again. I'd felt almost like a sailor in the Arena. It was so strange that the ground never moved and I didn't feel the sway of the car under me. Part of why I had always been so happy was how lovely my job was. I got to see Six moving past me every day in a blur of neon lights and flashing street lamps and cityscapes all running together in streams when rain lined the windows. Sometimes it felt like I could ride the rails forever and not get off until I was somewhere far, far away with no Hunger Games.
"It's so funny how you still take this all so seriously," Helena said as I was patrolling the length of the train even though nothing ever happened. I stopped in the laundry car to chat with her and we sat squished in between two industrial-sized washing machines. "It's not like you have to worry about getting fired."
"I just really like my job," I shrugged.
"I wasn't teasing," Helena said. "It's nice. It's good to see some things never change. In a lot of ways you're a lot different than you used to be." She thought about how I might take that and hastily added, "Not in a bad way. You just seem sadder."
"I'm not exactly sadder," I said. The car rumbled around me as I looked out at the sun setting behind two cobalt-blue skyscrapers. It was hard to put my thoughts into words that could be understood by someone who would never be where I'd gone. "I just feel… a lot older."
Later that night I snuck up onto the roof and lay between the railings watching the buildings and the thin strips of stars that showed between them. It was just like Helena said. Some things were always the same. Before I went to the Games, the trains ran on the tracks. While I was in the Arena they ran on the tracks. Now I was back and the same trains ran on the same tracks. They went along their way not knowing that time had passed or that the people riding them had changed. In my house in the Victor's Village I was someone who had been to the Games and done things he couldn't undo. In my little cabin on the train I was just Sylvester the conductor. As far as the train knew I'd never even left. I could talk to my friends and make the same silly jokes and the same old traditions like things had never changed. Like I'd never changed. Like I still had a charmed life.