Post by Jax Funen on Mar 22, 2020 0:40:48 GMT -7
Jax walked among the neatly manicured rows of plants at his father’s side, loosely holding to the large, calloused hand hanging above him. The cold December wind bit through all the layers of clothing Jax’s mother insisted on wrapping around him before he’d left his home. The white morning sunlight cut across the field, casting shadows from the plants’ stakes. ”The grapes are sleeping now, but we have to make sure that we keep everything neat for them here. When they wake up in the spring, they’ll have lots of room to grow.”
Jax pulled out the small, red-handled pair of clippers from the large pocket in his outermost jacket. He watched his father as he carefully and lovingly trimmed back the small, dead branches at the top of the plant. Jax mirrored his father, taking his place at the few branches he could reach, nipping off the smallest bits growing from the larger branches. Jax’s father looked down, his green eyes glinting as he smiled with approval. ”Just like that.”
On the black board at the front of the room, a short, stout woman stood and spoke loudly as she drew the ideal cutting angles in white chalk. Jax drummed his fingers across his knee as he counted the number of dark bricks that constituted the wall. ”Mr. Funen?” Jax turned his eyes to the teacher’s pinched face that spelled her dissatisfaction and disappointment plainly. ”Could you reiterate for the class the critical angle for diamond?”
Jax paused for a moment, trying to run his mind through everything he’d too successfully blocked out. ”Twenty four degrees” Ebony hissed from behind him. Jax shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t like the angles mattered for him anyway. Jax wouldn’t sit in the room for a single day longer as soon as he turned 16. He just had to suffer through until then.
The longer Jax looked at his clock, the slower it seemed to go. The hands ticked by in extra slow motion, taking what felt like an entire year to finally reach the time he’d been waiting for. It was 1 AM now, too late for anyone to be awake. Jax, already dressed and ready, slid open his window and slipped outside. He kept low to the ground as he quickly crept towards the vineyard, finally standing up a little straighter when the trellises gave him some cover. Jax navigated straight to the old wooden building behind the field. Jax grinned, seeing that its door was already slightly ajar.
A dozen of his friends were already waiting in the cellar when he arrived, one barrel already opened. Rose approached first, wrapping a hand around Jax’s waist as she kissed him, alcohol already on her breath. She grinned up at him, offering the bottle she held in her other hand. ”Happy birthday. I snuck this from the distillery.”
The night was filled with bad jokes, uproarious laughter, and more alcohol than anyone knew how to handle. The partygoers trickled out one by one, finally leaving only Jax and Jasper. They drunkenly cleaned the cellar together as impeccably as possible, so in the morning when their families went to the cellar to move barrels, they would never notice anything had happened. Jax and Jasper walked side by side through the vineyard, too inebriated to worry enough about getting caught to duck and run. As Jax and Jasper approached their nearly identical houses that stood side by side, Jasper looked back into the field for a moment. ”Think all of this will still be here after the war?”
Lily Funen sat with tear stained cheeks at the table. ”You don’t have to go. We could go to the Justice Building first thing in the morning and file the papers. They’ve let Carissa keep Jasper here, you know,” she said breathlessly, like she was whispering a prayer. Lily sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a mostly soaked tissue. ”We just need to say you’re essential for the business, that’s all.” let her tears flow freely.
Jax sighed and hugged her. ”There’s no actual fighting, yet, mom. This is just to train and prepare. They’ll send me right back in a month’s time.” This wasn’t the first time the pair had this exact conversation, but this time would be the last. Jax had already made up his mind, and it was time to go. ”I love you, mom. I’ll see you in a month,” Jax promised, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
Jax took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped outside toward the rest of his life. He heard the door open again behind him and stopped. His father, Rasmus, was standing just outside the door, a sad smile on his face. ”At least let your old man walk you to the train station, son,” he said.
Jax felt the smile seep onto his face and nodded. ”Yeah, I’d love that,”
The pair walked in silence as they crossed through the vineyard. Jax thought about the countless times they had made this journey together. Everyone joked that Jax had been Rasmus’s shadow since he was old enough to walk. Jax remembered those early, lazy summer days when he’d follow his father to the train station to drop off some delivery for the Capitol. By the time they were making their way back home, Jax’s small legs would have gotten tired, so his dad would carry him the rest of the way. As they crossed the field, Rasmus would always pick a small handful of the swollen red grapes from a bush for Jax.
Once the train station was within sight, Rasmus looked to his son. ”I’ve heard the rumors about District 13, Jax. It’s just - I,” Rasmus sighed deeply. In the last year, he’d physically aged a decade. ”Those rebels out there, Jax, they’re crazy. No matter what happens in this, you make damn sure to stay alive. And when this is all over, son, come home to us.” Jax pulled his dad into a tight hug, tears burning at the corners of his eye. This is why he had to go. This was his reason to keep Panem safe.
”I promise, Dad.”
Just after Jax boarded the train, he felt something in the pocket of his shirt. Confused, Jax reach inside, not remembering putting anything there that morning. Jax smiled a shaky, sad smile as he produced three perfect red grapes from the pocket.
Jax kept his hands firmly on his gun and his eyes fixed straight ahead at the wall in front of him as the hovercraft lifted from the ground. This particular transit housed the unlucky crew that was selected to fly into one of the first assaults on District 13. As the producer of weapons for the Capitol, no one knew what the District might be hoarding and what was waiting for them on the ground. Jax closed his eyes, counted to ten. He thought about the late summer nights spent picking the vines bare, of those early mornings picking through the previous night’s harvest. In training, the generals said that the easiest way to die in a battle was to go in nervous. Flight wasn’t an option on an active battlefield with hundreds of soldiers. If Jax wanted to survive, he was told, he had to remember that he was going in to do a job, to save Panem. These rebels were here to split apart the country, to ruin the balance they’d found. Those rebels in District 13 wanted to wipe out Panem and start over, taking the ruling order themselves. But Jax had a family and a country to protect, and more importantly than that, he had a promise to keep.
After the bombs fell, igniting the ground beneath them, the hovercraft landed to let the troops storm in. The objective was simple: lay out as many of the soldiers as possible. Jax clung tightly to the gun that he’d been so accustomed to firing. As he ran in towards a line of rebels waiting behind a barricade, he heard the first few shots whizzing past his face. The generals said it was just like training. Jax stopped beside a building. He raised the gun to his shoulder, found his target in the sights, fired, reentered, fired again. This time - not like in training - Jax watched the man who caught the bullets fall to the ground. Jax kept running towards the line. Just like training he promised himself.
The ride to the building was a quiet one. Jax was just outside the Capitol’s border, waiting with his fellow troops to stomp out what they anticipated to be a radical last push on the rebel’s part. Jax, like the others who had been fighting for the Capitol for over a year, had started to take those things presented as strict rules to the soldiers to be mere suggestions. Technically, it was forbidden to engage in sexual contact with other soldiers - a pregnant one just would’t do, after all. Still, most everyone who could manage did, and those who couldn’t tried their damndest anyways. It was one small comfort to help pass the time. Jax worried that somehow the leadership had caught wind of his reputation for breaking that specific rule - or, at least, he did after hearing many jokes thrown around about that being the reason. Still, he doubted that was of any concern to the leadership when there was an entire war to be one.
The car finally arrived at a small, unmarked cinderblock building. Jax followed his general inside. The cold, gray building housed what seemed to be a few crudely assembled. The door to one of these rooms was open, and waiting inside it was a man Jax had never met before. ”Jax Funen?” the man asked.
”Yes, sir.” he confirmed.
”Your general here tells me that you were the one that suggested something about the rebels scaling the Rockies. Is that right?” The man asked.
”Yes, sir.” he said again.
”And how exactly did you come to that conclusion?” the man asked.
”Well, sir, I heard one of them say something about a climb of some sort before they died. And I thought about it, sir, and it makes sense that they might try that way. It’s crazy, of course, but maybe that’s why they would try it - a last ditch, radical effort of something we would never see coming.”
The man at the table sat staring at Jax for a long moment quietly. Finally, he turned his eyes to the general. ”I know you said he’s good with that gun, but you’ll find another that can shoot straight, I’m sure.” The man finally turned to face Jax. ”Well, Funen, what do you say to getting the hell off that battlefield? We have somewhere else we want to put people like you.”
”I’m sorry, sir, but where’s that?” Jax asked, still confused.
The man laughed. ”Well, as soon as we finish this thing, right in the Districts with those leftover rebels,” Jax thought about those three grapes he’d found in his pocket on the train that day as he sat, considering it quietly for a moment. ”I’m sorry,” the man added, ”But to be clear - I’m not really asking. We need you there, and it’ll be a hell of a lot better than going back to those front lines. You’ll see.”
Jax nodded. Everyone would be there when he got back. His work would ensure that. ”Okay,” Jax said, nodding. ”Where to first, sir?”
The man wrote something down on the paper in front of him at his desk. ”District 10. Tomorrow morning.”
Jax pulled out the small, red-handled pair of clippers from the large pocket in his outermost jacket. He watched his father as he carefully and lovingly trimmed back the small, dead branches at the top of the plant. Jax mirrored his father, taking his place at the few branches he could reach, nipping off the smallest bits growing from the larger branches. Jax’s father looked down, his green eyes glinting as he smiled with approval. ”Just like that.”
On the black board at the front of the room, a short, stout woman stood and spoke loudly as she drew the ideal cutting angles in white chalk. Jax drummed his fingers across his knee as he counted the number of dark bricks that constituted the wall. ”Mr. Funen?” Jax turned his eyes to the teacher’s pinched face that spelled her dissatisfaction and disappointment plainly. ”Could you reiterate for the class the critical angle for diamond?”
Jax paused for a moment, trying to run his mind through everything he’d too successfully blocked out. ”Twenty four degrees” Ebony hissed from behind him. Jax shrugged his shoulders. It wasn’t like the angles mattered for him anyway. Jax wouldn’t sit in the room for a single day longer as soon as he turned 16. He just had to suffer through until then.
The longer Jax looked at his clock, the slower it seemed to go. The hands ticked by in extra slow motion, taking what felt like an entire year to finally reach the time he’d been waiting for. It was 1 AM now, too late for anyone to be awake. Jax, already dressed and ready, slid open his window and slipped outside. He kept low to the ground as he quickly crept towards the vineyard, finally standing up a little straighter when the trellises gave him some cover. Jax navigated straight to the old wooden building behind the field. Jax grinned, seeing that its door was already slightly ajar.
A dozen of his friends were already waiting in the cellar when he arrived, one barrel already opened. Rose approached first, wrapping a hand around Jax’s waist as she kissed him, alcohol already on her breath. She grinned up at him, offering the bottle she held in her other hand. ”Happy birthday. I snuck this from the distillery.”
The night was filled with bad jokes, uproarious laughter, and more alcohol than anyone knew how to handle. The partygoers trickled out one by one, finally leaving only Jax and Jasper. They drunkenly cleaned the cellar together as impeccably as possible, so in the morning when their families went to the cellar to move barrels, they would never notice anything had happened. Jax and Jasper walked side by side through the vineyard, too inebriated to worry enough about getting caught to duck and run. As Jax and Jasper approached their nearly identical houses that stood side by side, Jasper looked back into the field for a moment. ”Think all of this will still be here after the war?”
Lily Funen sat with tear stained cheeks at the table. ”You don’t have to go. We could go to the Justice Building first thing in the morning and file the papers. They’ve let Carissa keep Jasper here, you know,” she said breathlessly, like she was whispering a prayer. Lily sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a mostly soaked tissue. ”We just need to say you’re essential for the business, that’s all.” let her tears flow freely.
Jax sighed and hugged her. ”There’s no actual fighting, yet, mom. This is just to train and prepare. They’ll send me right back in a month’s time.” This wasn’t the first time the pair had this exact conversation, but this time would be the last. Jax had already made up his mind, and it was time to go. ”I love you, mom. I’ll see you in a month,” Jax promised, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
Jax took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped outside toward the rest of his life. He heard the door open again behind him and stopped. His father, Rasmus, was standing just outside the door, a sad smile on his face. ”At least let your old man walk you to the train station, son,” he said.
Jax felt the smile seep onto his face and nodded. ”Yeah, I’d love that,”
The pair walked in silence as they crossed through the vineyard. Jax thought about the countless times they had made this journey together. Everyone joked that Jax had been Rasmus’s shadow since he was old enough to walk. Jax remembered those early, lazy summer days when he’d follow his father to the train station to drop off some delivery for the Capitol. By the time they were making their way back home, Jax’s small legs would have gotten tired, so his dad would carry him the rest of the way. As they crossed the field, Rasmus would always pick a small handful of the swollen red grapes from a bush for Jax.
Once the train station was within sight, Rasmus looked to his son. ”I’ve heard the rumors about District 13, Jax. It’s just - I,” Rasmus sighed deeply. In the last year, he’d physically aged a decade. ”Those rebels out there, Jax, they’re crazy. No matter what happens in this, you make damn sure to stay alive. And when this is all over, son, come home to us.” Jax pulled his dad into a tight hug, tears burning at the corners of his eye. This is why he had to go. This was his reason to keep Panem safe.
”I promise, Dad.”
Just after Jax boarded the train, he felt something in the pocket of his shirt. Confused, Jax reach inside, not remembering putting anything there that morning. Jax smiled a shaky, sad smile as he produced three perfect red grapes from the pocket.
Jax kept his hands firmly on his gun and his eyes fixed straight ahead at the wall in front of him as the hovercraft lifted from the ground. This particular transit housed the unlucky crew that was selected to fly into one of the first assaults on District 13. As the producer of weapons for the Capitol, no one knew what the District might be hoarding and what was waiting for them on the ground. Jax closed his eyes, counted to ten. He thought about the late summer nights spent picking the vines bare, of those early mornings picking through the previous night’s harvest. In training, the generals said that the easiest way to die in a battle was to go in nervous. Flight wasn’t an option on an active battlefield with hundreds of soldiers. If Jax wanted to survive, he was told, he had to remember that he was going in to do a job, to save Panem. These rebels were here to split apart the country, to ruin the balance they’d found. Those rebels in District 13 wanted to wipe out Panem and start over, taking the ruling order themselves. But Jax had a family and a country to protect, and more importantly than that, he had a promise to keep.
After the bombs fell, igniting the ground beneath them, the hovercraft landed to let the troops storm in. The objective was simple: lay out as many of the soldiers as possible. Jax clung tightly to the gun that he’d been so accustomed to firing. As he ran in towards a line of rebels waiting behind a barricade, he heard the first few shots whizzing past his face. The generals said it was just like training. Jax stopped beside a building. He raised the gun to his shoulder, found his target in the sights, fired, reentered, fired again. This time - not like in training - Jax watched the man who caught the bullets fall to the ground. Jax kept running towards the line. Just like training he promised himself.
The ride to the building was a quiet one. Jax was just outside the Capitol’s border, waiting with his fellow troops to stomp out what they anticipated to be a radical last push on the rebel’s part. Jax, like the others who had been fighting for the Capitol for over a year, had started to take those things presented as strict rules to the soldiers to be mere suggestions. Technically, it was forbidden to engage in sexual contact with other soldiers - a pregnant one just would’t do, after all. Still, most everyone who could manage did, and those who couldn’t tried their damndest anyways. It was one small comfort to help pass the time. Jax worried that somehow the leadership had caught wind of his reputation for breaking that specific rule - or, at least, he did after hearing many jokes thrown around about that being the reason. Still, he doubted that was of any concern to the leadership when there was an entire war to be one.
The car finally arrived at a small, unmarked cinderblock building. Jax followed his general inside. The cold, gray building housed what seemed to be a few crudely assembled. The door to one of these rooms was open, and waiting inside it was a man Jax had never met before. ”Jax Funen?” the man asked.
”Yes, sir.” he confirmed.
”Your general here tells me that you were the one that suggested something about the rebels scaling the Rockies. Is that right?” The man asked.
”Yes, sir.” he said again.
”And how exactly did you come to that conclusion?” the man asked.
”Well, sir, I heard one of them say something about a climb of some sort before they died. And I thought about it, sir, and it makes sense that they might try that way. It’s crazy, of course, but maybe that’s why they would try it - a last ditch, radical effort of something we would never see coming.”
The man at the table sat staring at Jax for a long moment quietly. Finally, he turned his eyes to the general. ”I know you said he’s good with that gun, but you’ll find another that can shoot straight, I’m sure.” The man finally turned to face Jax. ”Well, Funen, what do you say to getting the hell off that battlefield? We have somewhere else we want to put people like you.”
”I’m sorry, sir, but where’s that?” Jax asked, still confused.
The man laughed. ”Well, as soon as we finish this thing, right in the Districts with those leftover rebels,” Jax thought about those three grapes he’d found in his pocket on the train that day as he sat, considering it quietly for a moment. ”I’m sorry,” the man added, ”But to be clear - I’m not really asking. We need you there, and it’ll be a hell of a lot better than going back to those front lines. You’ll see.”
Jax nodded. Everyone would be there when he got back. His work would ensure that. ”Okay,” Jax said, nodding. ”Where to first, sir?”
The man wrote something down on the paper in front of him at his desk. ”District 10. Tomorrow morning.”