Author Games: Return To Seasons

Task Six: Keep The Home Fires Burning/QF - ☀ Summer Entries ☀

District 6 Male - JESTER 'JEZ' BLUME

I've never been one for symbolism, but even I can't miss this. Even if it wasn't obvious, the voice of my stylist still rings in my mind, distant echoes from another era. She'd dressed me as a candle and not just because it's District Six's second biggest export.

I know. There's no way to say that without making us sound pathetic and useless.

Anyway. She'd dressed me as a candle, in a clinging bodysuit that actually I quite liked, and as an added touch I'd been wearing a headdress. It was only made of paper but it was heavy enough to feel as though my neck was going to crick with the effort of holding it up. Flames should never have been that heavy.

"Flames," she'd said, giving me a glossy smile. "For hope. Nice, isn't it?"

So the symbolism here smacks me straight in the face. Keep the fire going. Keep hope going. Whose hope? Not my own. I don't know what I've got to hope for anymore, now that I'm not sure what's a hallucination and what isn't. Which of my memories are real and which aren't. Every time I close my eyes I see my own ragged pupils staring back at me, taunting, accusing. If I'm lucky it ends there. If I'm not, they're followed by the eyes of the girl Maylee. Wide and desperate and filled with a sort of fire that's starting to go out.

So many fires. So many hopes. My mind can't keep track and right now that's a problem, because the battle for the flames is already well underway. Half of the scene is hidden by smoke that forces itself into my mouth and clogs my lungs, making me splutter and choke. My eyes water. I have to wipe away the stinging tears before I can see at all.

Actually, forget that. I still can't see. What's not smoke is flame. Orange, red, blue at heart, the searing heat that I have to protect. So you'd think they'd have given me more than a glorified stick and a shield that's hardly big enough to protect my private parts.

"Jester! How's about you actually do something useful, hey?"

The voice comes from somewhere to my left but by the time my befuddled mind has registered this and I've turned around, whoever made the noise has already gone. Shadows flicker around but I don't know how to tell the friends from the enemies - not sure who is which anyway - and the noise is unbelievable. Shouting. Screaming. Crackling. My senses are under attack. I crouch and clamp my hands over my ears.

"Jester!"

Something punches me under the ribs. I let out a breath and tumble backwards, ending up staring up at the stars twinkling through the smoke. Something is sticking out of my torso. Something part wood and part shiny and which reflects the firelight around me. I can feel it inside me, pinning me down.

Everything dulls. Or rather, the heat and the noise recedes to make room for the exquisite pain that seeps from the blade and through my nerves like cold water.

And it almost feels like a relief. 

I choose a star and focus on it until it goes out.

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