Espoir and Hope

The rhythm of my pencil tapping on the page isn’t helping; my mind is still blank. Why is it I have so many ideas for a great drawing, yet as soon as I sit down to put my ideas into images they disappear? Just as swiftly as she did, without the smallest hint of a good bye.

Perhaps that’s why; the only person in my head, the only image I wanted to create, was her. Ever since she appeared at my window, she was all I could think about. She was my escape from the endless torments my school provided, from the endless shouting of my parents downstairs, of the endless darkness that is my life. All I want is to see her again.

She was short. And grinning. And completely normal. That is, if you didn’t count the fact that she had wings. Gorgeous white wings that stretched out gloriously behind her, each feather rustling slightly in the breeze that blew through the smashed window.

The first time we met, I saved her. Well, that’s what I like to think. She was flying out in a torrent of wind of a power she wasn’t used to. It blew her off course, smashing her into walls and trees, until she crashed through my window and landed, bleeding and weak, on my bedroom floor. The least I could do was hide her from my curious parents and heal her until she was fit to fly again; at least, that was my plan.

You see, contrary to my expectations, this sudden occurrence caused me to yelp and hide behind my bed, quivering with fright, praying that the figure staggering to its feet wasn’t someone who wanted to batter me.

Whether that was her intention or not, she was not who I expected to see.

She was short, and grinning, and completely normal. Until I spotted her wings.

Our encounter was brief, though I highly doubt I shall forget it anytime soon. Once on her feet, she brushed herself off and I bravely peeked out from my hiding place, and was spotted immediately by those massive golden eyes. Trying to ignore the way each cut disfiguring her skin was healing up without leaving a single scar, I stood up, straightened up, cleared my throat and cursed. My parents were arguing again, their angry shouts getting louder as they climbing the stairs.

I beckoned to the stranger and she hid behind my bed.

“Hope!” my mother screeched, almost blasting the door off its hinges. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.” I mumbled. “Someone threw a ball through my window.”

“It wasn’t those Bouncer lads again, was it?” my father rasped; he’d been smoking again - he had ash on his hand and a hole burnt through his shirt. He was meant to quit a week earlier; no doubt that was one thing he and mother had been arguing about. “I swear, if it was, I’ll bloody batter them until they’re nothing but a pile of bloody -”

“It wasn’t the Bouncer lads, father.” I said. I could see the stranger peering over the top of my bed, her expression horrified. I widened my eyes at her and she ducked back down. “At least, I don’t think it was. Why don’t you go check?”

“Yeah, I will.” he said, striding from the room.

“You sure you’re OK, honey?” my mother asked, placing a hand on my shoulder. I forced a smile.

“Yes.” I said. “I’m fine.”

“OK.” She sighed with her hands on her hips, glaring at the floor. “I had better get this hoovered up then -”

“No!” I cried, louder than necessary. “I mean, no. I’ll do it. Later. You get back to your work. You were saying yesterday that you were behind ...”

She sighed again. “OK. Well, you be a good girl and finish your homework as soon as you’ve cleaned up, OK?”

“OK.”

“That’s my girl.” and she went, shutting the door behind her.

I turned to my bed. “OK, you can come out now.” No reply. “Erm, excuse me? You can come out -” but the stranger wasn’t there. The only trace she’d left was the faint sensation of a promising smile.

I have lost count of the number of smiles I have drawn since then; all of them hers. I drew her everywhere - all over my exercise books, in my diary, on random pieces of paper I found around the house. Everywhere. I just can’t get her out of my head. Why? Probably because she was the first person, other than my parents, who has actually smiled at me like I’m not the fat ugly freak everyone says I am.

From the moment she left, I had a nagging thought at the back of my head that she would return - the only thing that stopped me driving the knife into my wrists again and again. But still, the thought has been growing dimmer and dimmer as each day passes.

It has been five years, eight months and eleven days since she disappeared. I am now fifteen. I have lost a lot of weight and I have six fresh scars on my wrists. And now I sit at my desk, trying my best to ignore the taunts that still echo around my mind from earlier today.

I stop tapping and rest my forehead on the cool wood of the desk, the cuckoo of my clock telling me it is exactly one o’clock. An hour since I foolishly thought that she would appear again like my own fairy godmother.

Tapping.

My head snaps up and I stare out of the window, but there is nothing - only the blackness of the infinite sky and the grey of the city. I shake my head - just wishful thinking - and look back to the blank sheet of paper in front of me -

More tapping. Now I get up and open the window wide, looking left then right. But still nothing. Then a hand grabs mine and I scream as I am pulled over my windowsill and into the freezing night air.

Torrents of wind rush past my ears, blocking out the sound of my own screaming as I plummet closer and closer to the ground - oh, why do we have to live in the top apartment?! Legs and arms flailing, I forget which way is up and which way is down as I spin around and dive to my death -

Then my screams are cut short by arms wrapping around my waist and letting my feet touch down gently on the ground of the empty street coming off the city centre. They immediately give way, but a hand stops me from falling.

“Easy, easy.” a voice says; a voice tinted with a French lilt, a voice like velvet, the voice of an -

“Angel?” I stare. And I stare some more. I don’t stop staring until the slightly taller, grinning angel laughs.

“You look really stupid you know.” she says. I open and close my mouth, trying to speak, possibly making myself look like a fish. “You’re making it worse. I must say, you reacted better to my abrupt appearance last time.”

“You’re - You’re here.” I manage to say. The angel laughs again, wings ruffling in the breeze.

“Indeed I am.”

“You’re ... French.”

“Not really, I just like their accent.”

“Where have you been all these years?” I ask, immediately regretting my accusing tone.

“Oh you know, everywhere.” the angel says, shrugging. “But I got bored and I missed your adorable face so I came back to find you. It took me a while.”

“How long?”

“Three years.”

“The city’s not that big.” I say, whilst the thought she missed me she called me adorable she came back to find me SHE WANTS TO BE WITH ME ran continuously through my head and I did my very best to force my cheeks to stay the same colour without any traces of red.

“I know it’s not, but I forgot which world you lived in -”

“Wait, what?” I ask, stopping her short.

“I forgot you lived -”

“There are different worlds?!”

The angel shrugs. “Well, yeah. Loads. Have you never been?”

I only stare with my mouth hanging open.

“Wait, you’ve never been to another world?” I shake my head. “Oh, hun, you’re missing out! There are loads out there and some of them are the prettiest places you’ll ever lay eyes on - definitely better than here ... Would you like me to show you?”

I clamp my hand over my mouth and stare some more, only removing it to whisper, “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

Then I scream again.

“Hey, hey, hey!” the angel laughs. “Shut it! People here aren’t used to seeing an angel. I learnt that the hard way ...”

“Sorry.”

“Come on.” the angel says, holding out her hand. I hesitate. “It’s fine.”

“But,” I say. “I don’t even know your name. How do I know you won’t just leave me in another world?”

“If I wanted to kill you I would have left you to fall to your death five minutes ago.” the angel says. “But I didn’t. And my name is Espoir. Happy now?”

I pause, chewing my lip.

“Oh, come on, my arm’s getting tired.”

Espoir smiles and I can’t help but smile back. I take her hand, and she envelopes mine with her soft, warm touch. I feel a strange tingling in my fingertips, and suddenly my body is alive with energy, surging through my veins and tickling my skin, so much so, I feel like my feet are lifting off the ground.

Oh wait, they are lifting off the ground.

“What the hell?” I cry, flailing my arms out again. Espoir laughs, her wings opening and moving gracefully, bringing her up into the air next to me; she reaches out and holds my hand tighter.

“Calm down, it’s OK.” she says. I look at her face - her beautiful, beautiful face - and take a deep breath. “See? It’s not that hard, really.”

“I - I’m flying.” I state, staring at my feet suspended in mid-air. Espoir nods but I don’t take any notice of her. I only laugh, then laugh harder, and Espoir joins in as she flings me through the air. I scream as I spin wildly, hitting a billboard advertising - get this - angel costumes for little girls from Toys ‘R’ Us. I groan and slide down the board, but Espoir catches me, and before long the throbbing in my nose has died down and we are soaring into the black sky littered with stars.

I can barely conceal my excitement; I am flying to another world with an angel - a real life angel - giggling beside me, an angel who missed me, who met me once and who has been thinking about me ever since, and angel who came back to find me. I can’t believe it - my first friend I have ever had is an angel.

“What are you grinning at?” Espoir asks; oddly enough, she doesn’t have to shout for me to hear her voice above the rushing wind. I begin to question it, but then decide to leave it; I’m talking to an angel for Pete’s sake.

“Oh, nothing. You know, just the fact that I’m flying and it’s the best thing in the world!” I laugh, adding a little twirl for effect. I’m really starting to get the hang of this thing.

“Oh, flying might be the best thing in this world - seeing as this world is really rather mundane and I feel ever so sorry for you because you have to live here - but there are so many better things in the world I’m about to show you.”

I squeal with excitement. “How far away is it?”

“Just a couple of light years, nothing too far.”

I stop in my tracks, hovering kilometres above a giant forest. “A couple of light years?” I repeat.

“It’s not that far.” Espoir shrugs. “You’ve already travelled a fair distance in a few minutes.”

Turning back to where we’ve just come, I scrutinise the horizon, realising that the forest was the only thing coating the landscape. My city has completely disappeared.

“Told you.” says a voice in my ear, and I turn to see Espoir smiling at me. She holds out her hand and I take it, grinning back. She turns to face the horizon behind us, exhaling heavily. “You ready?”

“What for?”

“Flying past the end of the world.”

“But the world is rou-”

I am cut short by a laugh from Espoir and a burst of speed that makes my head snap back, and my words evolve rapidly into an endless scream. Espoir’s hand grips mine tighter, and I concentrate on not letting go or I might forget how to fly and fall to my death and never see Espoir again -

Suddenly all breath is stripped away from me, and everything is black. And just as suddenly, it returns. And I am in a different world.

Everything is glittering. There is colour - nothing but colour. There are hopping creatures, flying creatures, whistling creatures, chirping creatures of so many shapes and sizes that if I was to describe them all I would run out of words. We touch down onto a soft, moss-like ground, of a colour somewhere in between purple, blue and yellow. Everything smells sweet and fresh. I gaze around, taking in the sights of the twisting tree-like plants that reach up towards the mauve, sky-like expanse above us, then curl back round again, the branches meeting with each other and burying back into the purpley, bluey, yellowy moss.

I giggle as an animal that looked something like a winged shrew flutters past my cheek and lands on my shoulder. “Hey little guy.” I murmur, but at my voice it flies away. I turn to look at Espoir, who looks away quickly. I try to avert my mind from the idea that she has been watching me all this time and instead grin and say, “This is incredible.”

“It is, isn’t it?” she responds, digging her hands into the pockets sewn into her orange, shapeless dress. Suddenly she looks shocked, then stares down at her hands. “OhmyGodthisdresshaspockets!” she cries, then she looks up at me with her mouth open. I raise my eyebrows and smirk at her. She laughs. Then she snorts, and stops, and we laugh again.

Now we run; we pound through the twisting forest of magic and push each other over into the puddles of sloppy, pink goo; we climb the branches of the tree-like plants and scream with glee as they fling us through the air and we land in fields ridden with cotton-like plants that squeak cutely whenever the seeds are blown off them.

All of a sudden, there is music; we turn to see the vines on the trees swaying gently as the moonlight runs its glowing fingers through them, a whisper of a note shimmering in the air as each of them swing from left to right. Each note is in perfect harmony, and each make a completely different sound to the next.

Espoir looks at me as I mutter a small, “Wow.”

“They want us to dance, you know.” she said, half glaring at the vines. “The little blighters. They say they won’t stop following us until they do.”

“You can talk to them?” I exclaim, still unused to the many unusual happenings sprouting up everywhere.

“Nope. I just want to dance with you.” Espoir gets to her feet and holds out her hand for the third time tonight.

“But I can’t dance.” I say, staying sat.

“Oh, bull.” she says, ignoring my raised eyebrow and grabbing my hand. I groan as she pulls me to my feet.

“But I seriously can’t dance.” I whine, but still, I let her take my other hand.
“I don’t care.” she says.

Espoir begins to move my hands backwards and forwards, and I try - but fail - to resist a grin. She begins moving around and I follow her in a circle, laughing as she trips over her own dress. The music intensifies and I begin to wonder if Espoir could indeed talk to the plants, but I bring my concentration back to making sure I didn’t trod on her feet, or mine for that matter.

“I think I’m getting the hang of it.” I mutter.

“You sure are.” Espoir says, and suddenly she brings me closer and hooks her arms under mine. “You’re a natural.”

Without any warning, her wings propel us both into the air, and we are twirling and laughing and spinning with the purple clouds shimmering around us. Never before, in my whole damned life, have I felt so free. No, forget that, never before have I felt like I belong. I never belonged with the other spot-ridden kids who are so much cooler and smarter than I am and who never fail to point that out. I never belonged with two rage-filled adults who were constantly on each others’ case, constantly looking for a reason to argue and to get me mixed up in the middle of it. I don’t belong anywhere on Earth.

I belong at the side of my friend - my only friend - Espoir; laughing with her, dancing with her, living with her. Even without her wings, she’s an angel. My angel.

Before long, the music dies down and our smiles fade as we realise that this moment couldn’t have lasted forever. “I - I need to get back. My parents will be worrying about me ...” I mumble, wishing the opposite was true.

Espoir sighs. “Do you really have to go back?” she asks, looking at her hands as she picked at her nails. “Can’t you just ... not go back?”

“I can’t. They’ll be worried sick. I - I can’t just walk out of my life.” I step towards her and lift her chin so she looks at me. “Besides, you don’t have to go anywhere. You can stay at home with me. Hide in my room?”

She looks down again. “I won’t be able to cope with staying in one room for the rest of my life.” she mumbles, and I nod. There is a long silence, one broken by Espoir’s sigh. “I’ll take you home then.”

Within half an hour, we are stepping silently back through my open bedroom window, the oblivious snores of my parents coming from the other room. I turn to Espoir and smile a sad smile. “Well, I ... I guess this is goodbye.”

“Yeah.”

A pause.

“You will come and visit me, right?” I ask.

“Of course! You won’t be able to get rid of me!” Espoir laughs, punching my shoulder playfully. Her smile is short-lived, however, and she grabs my shoulder and pulls me into a tight hug. We stay like that for what felt like hours, neither of us wanting to let go. But she does, as I yawn.

“Good night, Espoir.” I say, allowing her to tuck the blanket up to my chin. My eyes flutter shut, and the last thing I see is Espoir’s lips forming the words “sweet dreams” and planting a gentle kiss on the end of my nose.

*

It has been eight months since that night, and I have drawn a grand total of one hundred and forty pictures of everything that happened. One hundred and forty pictures of her perfect face. One hundred and forty pictures of her beautiful wings. One hundred and forty pictures of the magnificent world she introduced to me. I have to say, she’s helped me a lot with my progress in Art, with the teacher’s comments being things like ‘heavenly’ and ‘elegant’ which are another two things that she is.

I can still feel that kiss on my nose. I touch it lightly and smile, remembering how she shut her eyes and how her silver hair fell in front of her face and how she stroked my cheek.

I slide another sketch of a girl dancing with an angel in my sketchbook and swivel around in my new swivelly chair. I do like my swivelly chair. I like to look up at my lilac ceiling and spin around on the spot, pretending I was dancing again in that glittering, alien world.

Tapping.

My head snaps up. I stare at the window.

Golden eyes and a beautiful, perfect face grins through the glass.