you do not see that I see inside
WHO: Peeta Mellark (unrealize) and OPEN.
WHERE: Some park somewhere.
WHEN: This afternoon.
WARNINGS: Peeta's trauma (violence, including to children), if it comes up.
SUMMARY: One of the less stable of the imPort population discovers his nightmare-painting powers.
FORMAT: Prose to begin with; pick your poison after that.
It hasn't been easy to keep track of the past few weeks. Normally that wouldn't stop Peeta--he's done a lot of things that haven't been easy. But around here, it doesn't quite seem to matter as much. Especially since he still isn't convinced anything much is real. He's hungry a lot: real. Katniss isn't here: not real, can't be real. So he wanders, and he doesn't remember all of it.
Today, something new is real. A child left a box of chalk on the pavement in a park. He found it, and he rolled the dusty, colorful pieces between his fingers. Memory stirred. But when he starts to rub the chalk along the sidewalk, reality sort of disintegrates a little again, becomes tattered at the edges. He's not sure what's going on anymore. He certainly doesn't know what he's drawing, but at least it's something he can feel. At least his fingers cramp up a bit and his knees ache through tattered jeans someone gave him last week.
But to anyone wandering by, this is all there is to be seen: a young man, a teenager, crouched on the ground just outside the playground in a park, drawing on the pavement in chalk. His expression is far away, his clothes ragged, and he doesn't appear to have showered recently. His work of art, though, is arresting. It's done in the broad strokes of someone more used to paint than the fine lines of a pencil, but an image jumps out more and more as he works on it all the same. In it a half-huddled figure races down a narrowing hall as the ground crumbles away behind them and shadows converge upon them.
WHERE: Some park somewhere.
WHEN: This afternoon.
WARNINGS: Peeta's trauma (violence, including to children), if it comes up.
SUMMARY: One of the less stable of the imPort population discovers his nightmare-painting powers.
FORMAT: Prose to begin with; pick your poison after that.
It hasn't been easy to keep track of the past few weeks. Normally that wouldn't stop Peeta--he's done a lot of things that haven't been easy. But around here, it doesn't quite seem to matter as much. Especially since he still isn't convinced anything much is real. He's hungry a lot: real. Katniss isn't here: not real, can't be real. So he wanders, and he doesn't remember all of it.
Today, something new is real. A child left a box of chalk on the pavement in a park. He found it, and he rolled the dusty, colorful pieces between his fingers. Memory stirred. But when he starts to rub the chalk along the sidewalk, reality sort of disintegrates a little again, becomes tattered at the edges. He's not sure what's going on anymore. He certainly doesn't know what he's drawing, but at least it's something he can feel. At least his fingers cramp up a bit and his knees ache through tattered jeans someone gave him last week.
But to anyone wandering by, this is all there is to be seen: a young man, a teenager, crouched on the ground just outside the playground in a park, drawing on the pavement in chalk. His expression is far away, his clothes ragged, and he doesn't appear to have showered recently. His work of art, though, is arresting. It's done in the broad strokes of someone more used to paint than the fine lines of a pencil, but an image jumps out more and more as he works on it all the same. In it a half-huddled figure races down a narrowing hall as the ground crumbles away behind them and shadows converge upon them.