Kanlaon

Take out the names Katniss and Peeta and this could be anything: a fairy tale that adheres to its magical conventions but has such a complexity of description and symbol that it seems to be operating on a level that is completely meta. Maybe this is a hallucination: there is no large wooden house by a lake, there is no lone victor who dresses himself in bearskin when he comes to fetch Katniss from her childhood home and brings her to his house as a servant. It’s all a dream. It’s like Memento, all jagged pieces. It’s about fragmentation. Literally.

The author updates about once a year.

Yes.

Every year we have a chapter that tells us what happens when Katniss wakes up each morning: the mysterious companion of her night-time disappears. She doesn’t know if it’s Peeta or someone else. If it’s Peeta, why the heck doesn’t he just tell Katniss, Yes it’s me that comes and sleeps next to you every night? For the reader it’s been five years (Admittedly, in the story it’s only five nights, but anyhoo) of tension, confusion and speculation. (Who is Mejhiren? She has a tumblr called Porchwood. That’s all self knows)

If this is serialization, it’s also torture. All the author is willing to give are crumbs, carefully doled out. You must be a masochist.

Yes, yes, self will admit, she is a masochist. So are hundreds of thousands of other fan fiction enthusiasts. We’re all masochists, we all exist in a state of suspended animation. Thank you, Mejhiren, for updating right after the news broke of George Michael’s death.

Anyhoo, this chapter begins with Katniss waking up in bed alone (naturally). Nothing is different. She keeps trying to piece together clues. And this morning there is a new one: a feather.

What does this mean?

Scooting out of bed, I press a kiss to the feather and tuck it away in my drawer of precious things alongside the wintergreen sprig and the orange, which I decide to split with my companion tonight, peel and all. Perhaps my visitor is a bird himself, I think, a little madly, wooed by my newfound gentleness in the woods, and the feather is his own. Oranges are very precious, of course, but many birds love fruit, peels and rinds and all, and I resolve to ask Peeta if he’s found one that prefers oranges yet. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s tried it already.

“We’d make a fine pair,” I tell my absent companion as I collect the nest from his pillow and carry it to my dresser-top to await this evening’s treat.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.