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Sejanus Plinth remembered his first night in the Capitol, as clear as the day that preceded it. How could he not? It was the day his life, as he knew it, had ended. But with even starker clarity, he remembered how Ma had cried once they’d arrived in their new apartment. His father had told him that it was because she was so grateful; they were safe now, in the Capitol. He now knows neither of those things to be true.
The sky outside the window was a cool grey, clouded over. The rhythmic clanging of the train on the tracks provided Sejanus with a pleasant distraction from his thoughts, if only for a while. Around midday, they stopped in District 8 to refuel.
Ma had held onto him so tightly before he left, as if she could’ve kept him with her by the sheer power of her will, then changed her mind. She knew better than anyone else that Sejanus wanted to leave. Not just the Capitol; he’d had it all planned out, razor blades and vials of morphling hidden underneath his mattress. He’d had it planned out for a long time but each time he’d considered doing it before, a tiny nagging voice in the back of his mind reminded him of his Ma and somehow, it had always stopped him. However, the Hunger Games had been the final straw. Marcus. Coriolanus coming into the Arena to save him and now expelled from the Academy, condemned to a life he never would’ve chosen for himself. It would be better for everyone if he wasn’t constantly endangering all who cared about him.
And then his father’s bank balance entered the equation. Research facilities for Dr Gaul, and a one-way ticket to 12 for his son. Surely, his father was glad to be rid of him, after all the trouble Sejanus had caused him. Yet there was sadness in his eyes, underneath the disappointed look he gave his son as he left the apartment. I failed him, part of Sejanus thinks. The other part retorts, I was doing the right thing. Strabo Plinth could open up his wallet as wide as he wanted, but all anyone in the Capitol would ever see was District scum.
He’d come from nothing, thrown away all that he could’ve had until it, too, became nothing, and would surely return to nothingness once this new life settled in. He would never see Ma again; at least, not for a long time. Even though the both of them knew his leaving was necessary, her absence still stung, like a hangnail or a gash in his side, oscillating continuously. The sky mirrored his agony; clouds cleared, swapped for a bloody, red sea as the sun set. Sejanus himself would never go out in such a blaze of glory, nor return the next day, carefree and just about good as new.
But right then, in that moment, he felt delirious, like when he was little and in bed with a fever. He felt like anything could be possible, as if he were in a semi-lucid dream. He would and could never go home again to District 2, but he had accepted that long ago, ingrained as deeply as the insults of Capitol children in his mind. Perhaps he could finally build a new one in District 12. He could help people.
He could make a difference. He’d been consigned. He’d been liberated.
Somehow, this newfound feeling followed Sejanus as he walked off the train. It was at his heels as he was lead into the Peacekeepers’ base. As the nurse perfomed a health check on him and declared him fit to serve. As he entered the sleeping quarters, slung his bag on the floor and asked, “Is this bunk taken?”
***
“I am homesick, free, in love
with the way my mother speaks.”
— The Way my Mother Speaks, Carol Ann Duffy