Cirrus's Parade - A Crown of Leaves and Flowers

Instructions

When the door swung open, Cirrus was expecting a plaza. Grand, stocky parade floats adorned with ribbons and fabrics, even swarms of Capitol cats showering him with confetti. //Alright, maybe not confetti,// he thought to himself, //but that would be pretty cool, right?// But the only sound he heard was the redundant /thunk/ of tapping somewhere to his right. The sound reminded him of the woodpeckers back home, which he’d leap at to watch them scatter into the air with indignant squawks. Sometimes, though, he’d linger by his window, watching them bang their beaks against the trunks for hours. Snapping back to the present, Cirrus tugged at his sleeves. He wore a suit made from bark cloth as an homage to his lumber district. A boutonniere, holding sage and fern clippings, was tucked with a teal ribbon into his pocket. And, of course, the signature leaf bundle he tucked behind his ears made its way in– but instead of actual leaves, his designer fastened it on as an earring. “Don’t want to risk anything falling off,” they’d muttered earlier. Cirrus had winced when they pierced his left ear. When he was little, his older sister had pierced his right one with a needle and an ice cube. “It’s not gonna hurt after an hour,” she’d sworn in response to his yelps; but Cirrus’s ear became infected for a week. Yet somehow, the Capitol’s stapling tool made him more upset than the infection had. The heavy shuffle of curtains against the ground caught his attention. But instead of the grand scene his mind had conjured, he was faced with something more uncomfortable. Dozens of Capitol cats, pacing up and down wide glass panes, pointed and muttered and snapped pictures. //Wait, am I missing something?// He spun around, but only saw a bland image of a forest tacked to the walls. And that’s when he realized– //They’re taking photos of me.// The morbid intrigue in the audience’s eyes soured his mood. //This is… really cool for them, isn’t it?// He remembered watching the games on TV with Specter– wide eyes pasted to the screen, microwaved popcorn sitting absently on the table while they whispered bets over who’d make it to sunrise. Cirrus recoiled, knowing that if he hadn’t been reaped, he would’ve just as easily watched from the other side of the glass. Cirrus absently swept a paw through the fake flowers. The gravel’s texture was similar to styrofoam, and the so-called plants felt coarse and papery. He stamped a paw down onto a leaf, and it creased neatly. //They don’t even make crunchy leaf sounds. What a scam.// His eyes darted around the box. All the other cats were performing; whether it be dancing, scowling, or smiling, everyone was doing /something/ aside from messing with the decorations. But Cirrus couldn’t think of anything impressive to do. //I could try to dance,// he thought, but cringed when remembering the less-than-passing grade he’d received during his school’s dance unit. //In my defense, square dancing is outdated anyways,// he thought with a sigh. He picked up a pitiful replication of a geranium, twisting it into an ‘o’ form. A thick leaf, which looked like an odd cross between oak and birch– //clearly whoever works in the fake plant industry does /not/ know their leaf species–// wound its way into Cirrus’s paws too. The snaps and flashes of cameras faded into a distant whine while he wove pieces of fake flowers together. A wobbly coil of leaves took shape between his paws. “There we go,” he mumbled to himself; splashes of teal and green spiraled together into a haphazard flower crown. Smiling in distracted satisfaction, Cirrus tipped his chin up. A bored-looking cat, probably a couple years younger than Cirrus himself, dug paper clips from her bag and twisted them into a deformed chain. “Ooh, is that a crown too?” he called. Pacing up to the glass, he advised, “You kinda have to loop the ends together in a curve. It’s tricky, but that’s how it fits on your head, see?” Cirrus set the wreath atop his head; the cheap plastic dug into his ears, but the gleam in the other cat’s eyes made him smile. Cautiously, she looped her paper clips together too. “Thanks,” she mumbled, and Cirrus’s face lit up. “Of course! It’s really fun once you get the hang of it– my siblings and I made these /all/ the time back home.” Cirrus’s eyes followed her as she ambled over to a group of cats. She whispered to them, and Cirrus glimpsed a flash of gold jump from her paws to theirs. //What in the world?// As they jabbed their paws at him, sliding silver coins across the tiles, he pieced it together. //Oh. They’re placing bets on us.// Because at the end of the day, that’s who he was now– not a real, living cat, but an object. An item for Capitol cats to gossip about and gamble on. A leaf slipped from his crown onto the floor. Cirrus pasted a wide grin onto his face, and when he stepped forwards, the leaf tore underneath his paw. But he kept on smiling. //After all, it’s just a leaf.// //And I’m just a tribute.//