Burning for Hope

Trigger Warning: Mentions of suicide, self-harm, and severe panic attacks.

The first two times I died, death was nothing. Hope asks what death was like, the answer causing a flicker: a sudden bleed that consumes her with fear as I describe what I see. A blank slate within unyielding endless darkness, in other words it was nothing.  

The third had me yearning to turn back the clock. Nothing was the bridge and how I wish to still be blind. Now a blue eyed vaguely familiar child stares down at me from where she kneels, “Where am I?”

The child's mouth does not move yet the words invade me, Death. No time. Brace yourself.

A question frozen upon my lips, as my vision gets assaulted, blurring into crispness to watch my father screaming with blood rushing down his arms from bypassing the locks. It takes me a moment to realize what my father is doing. Vision splitting, body tearing between my boyfriend in the hall, and my father relentlessly pumping a stiff chest. 

“I didn’t mean to!” I find myself screaming at him, understanding beginning to dawn in a horror that one cannot be expected to comprehend, nineteen is too young. 

Reality fraying, jagged pieces raining in between echoes of cracked time. The familiar heart electrifying natural law defying crackle unable to pull a pulse. 

Time of death 15:03. 

Edges blackening, I lock my eyes upon my boyfriend who stares in muted shock, unbelievably assuming. I’ll come back. I came back the first two times. I’ll come back. Bending calmly he scoops a rock from the edge of the sidewalk. 

Darkness. 

Somewhere glass shatters. 

My father’s stunned lifeless eyes upon the ground as a covered gurney wheels away. 

My boyfriend being encased upon the ground by medics, red pressed upon the asphalt in imprinted impressions of his knuckles. 

High pitched siren sound turns my brain into mush causing a freeze frame, skin prickling in static function. 

In what feels like muted plastic film, I state, “I’m dead.” The child wide eyed in abject detachment witnesses me rocking upon the meadow ground in what my addled mind can only describe as fluffy Wonka grass. 

Shockingly, the child takes my hand, You will bear witness. They will call and you will go until you learn to control. 

Strange, it’s as if the sensation of a hummingbird is trying to escape from a chest that I know will never beat again as I think of Hope. “If you die, I will find a way to break you free.” It was a promise my sister had uttered with such ferocity. “Don’t you dare make me have to bring you back again."

The meadow with the child explodes in a bleeding array of color. No volume or words could ever pierce the veil or prepare for the agony of being condemned to watch. 

“No. She is not dead.” Hope paces her bedroom, eyes wide. “You texted me. Who just texts that? You’re joking, this is a joke. My. Little. Sister. Is. Not. Dead.” 

How can I be dead and feel as if I am on fire? 

Jumbled. 

Aunt. Uncle. Best friend. Sister. Mom. Dad. Uncle. Sister. Mom. Dad. Brother. Sister. Grandma. Grandpa. Friend. Again, again, again, until there is no sense of anything other than the cascading grating of screams, crying, rage, suffocation. 

“I can’t believe this.” 

Flames igniting within. Ashes in a bag. 

Sifting through all my belongings. Friends taking things. 

“When I took this photo I didn’t think it would be her funeral photo.”

Hope begging our father to get the ashes. 

Our mother arguing with our grandmother. 

Best friend cutting her own hair. 

“B. R. I. N. G. H. E. R. B. A. C. K.”

“Please get out of bed.”

“It’s not your fault.” 

“Drown me.”

“I need a break.” I plead with the child. “How do I make it stop? I just flash around and around. Sometimes it’s not even a full second.”

“Drown me.” The shout crashes through the clearing, the sky churning an angry purple. 

This is unexpected. The meadow shears itself apart. The grass decays. The river boils. The animals run. The birds soar. A wind slams me into an abyss. 

Spinning in darkness, my feet brushing the undisturbed ground. I turn, squinting along the cobbled path to the river near our farm. Nothing could have prepared me for the horror of what I now see. My older sister next to the river edge standing before my boyfriend. “Drown me.” 

I move through my boyfriend, he shivers, an eerie feeling for us all. I cannot dwell. I must reach my sister. This must stop. 

My boyfriend states, entirely rationally if not hinged with hysteria between chattering teeth, “I will not drown you.” 

Hope grips his arms in a vise, “You let her die. Let me die too. I promised I’d bring her back. I promised.” 

That isn’t fair, it's not his fault either. How does one communicate? 

“All you have to do is hold me under, or at the very least cover my mouth and nose. Then give me CPR. I have to know.” He gently tries to pry her hands from his arms. 

Swatting, moving, breathing, screaming I try to do anything to get Hope’s attention. For all my worth I have the effectiveness of a house fly trying to bulldoze. This is a terrible plan. 

“I’m okay. You don’t need to do this.” I fervently utter in dismay.  

He finally gets her hands off as he holds them. My boyfriend with his aching gold eyes pleads. His voice raw as he slightly shakes her. “You think she would forgive me if I did this? You were her hope. I will not harm the person she loves most. Remember a fire like that cannot be put out, but we cannot get her back.” 

It’s as if all the air and energy leaves Hope as she drops to the ground, her knees splashing in the bank of the water. “I would pay any price to have her back, you know? Even if it meant trading my own soul. Even if it meant that I could never see her. To just know her heart is beating once more and she’s walking within this world I could endure.”

“As would I. I’m going to get your dad.” He pats the top of Hope’s head, disappearing into the darkness. 

I kneel down with her trying to make the water ripple. Watching the reflection of the moon within my sister’s eyes. Hope follows the flicker of light upon the water out to the horizon lifting to the gaze of the full moon. 

“Bring her back. I demand it. I swear on all the existences, on every cell. I will tear the world of the Gods down if they exist.” She looks down at the dew dropped water, her voice cracking, “Why did she leave?”

Left. 

A friend dies. 

Another funeral. 

Ashes finally brought home. 

Father fired, six months a new job. 

Hope researches what happens in death. 

My mother begins gardening, searching for life. 

My grandfather has a stroke, I beg him to hold on. 

The family brings him home, sobbing, why couldn’t I come too?

Hope cycles through relationship, after relationship. None understand. 

Our father suggests grief groups. Our mother begs her to stop searching. 

Silence, in the wake. Flicker. Hope begins to numb. Learning to stay tethered. 

“Come.” The word cracks through the mountainside like thunder as I lounge by the wayside. 

I furrow my brows, watching as I allow a bridge to open. Hope pounds at the foundations. Her fury heightened but her fear ignited. 

 A dark form appears at the edge of my vision. “Every once in a while a soul comes along that makes me dread the day it reaches my domain.” 

“Then you must fear any love.” 

I dive over the edge into the present. 

Hope’s eyes dart widely in the dark of the stables. She continues stroking Honey’s mane. Our prized horse. 

“Come. Please. You have to come. Promise me. Promise me. Promise me.” Hope’s throat is raw, grated in sand. “You have to get her.” 

Hope forces her tone back into a soothing calm sound as she begins to sing to Honey. The time is nearly done, a few more drops. “You’ll be okay, Honey. I promise. You’re going to see her again, isn’t that exciting? She’ll take the bestest care of you. You’ll see all our other friends. Don’t worry, it’s not the end.” 

I can feel as if she believes it herself. I dread the moment of the last breath. 

I try to brush the hair back from Hope’s face. 

Honey nudges my hand instead and I resist the urge to burn the world. Looking up, wind blows through the barn rustling the straw, the dust, prickling the skin of Hope. 

“Hello Honey,” I smile, hugging her to me. “I need to take care of Hope, then I will come for you.” I wave my hand opening the veil, Honey snorts mournfully, eye on Hope.

 “I’ll watch her, you go.” I soothe. 

Honey sighs but goes through. 

Turning, I brace myself, Hope moves robotically, her face devoid of any emotion as she stumbles out of the stall closest to the door to the front of the barn. Blank slate. Ashen. She jerks herself a step away from Honey next to me who she cannot see. Hope’s head suddenly whips cracking. She gasps, my sister’s eyes search the air. Pupils focusing in and out until they latch for a moment on what feels like my face. Before unfocusing, Hope turns unsteadily, avoiding looking at Honey’s corpse. 

“Oh, bunny. I’m sorry I didn’t make it here in time.” Our dad rushes through the door nearly colliding with her, searching Hope’s face. 

Hope forces a small smile. “It’s okay. I’m sorry about Honey.” Her voice contains a trace of warmth. 

“You shouldn’t have had to be alone for this.” He peers closely at her. 

“No problem, I’ll catch up with you and mom for dinner in a bit.” She sidesteps him, walking as casually as she can past him. 

Racing after her, something feels off. Something is wrong. Go back. Go back. To him. Stay with dad. Hope shudders but pulls the front door open too harshly then releases so it closes silently. I follow her up the staircase.

Hope shoves the bathroom door shut, in her desperation she nearly rips the shower handle off. 

Her eyes lock with her own in the mirror and air is no longer air. 

Hope claws at her own throat bending as her forehead snaps against the glass. I frantically try to pierce the veil with my words, “Breathe, please breathe. Just go find daddy.”

I begin frantically flash snapping back and forth between my sister and father. 

“Dad, go to Hope. You have to go to Hope.” He drops his phone, frowning, and glances around the barn to continue his conversation about Honey. 

Hope’s face tinges purple, blood vessels popping around her eyes. 

“Know or no.” 

A word I cannot differentiate between as it repeats in the cacophony of the ragged attempt of oxygen. Hope collapses finally forcing a breath fully in that does not immediately hitch. 

The stable hand is apologizing to my dad for not being here when Honey passed. My mom with red rimmed eyes leans over Honey. I channel every fiber of whatever this miserable shell of a being is that I still contain and rage, “Dad. Hope hasn’t had a panic attack in five years. Please. Go to her.” Straw tumbles as my Dad freezes and my mom looks up. 

My dad reaches for my mom who takes his hand. “Go check on Hope. I have a strange feeling. I’ll be there in a moment.” 

If the panic attack felt bad, the exhale of Hope’s breath is a high pitched nearly soundless scream that sounds as if glass is shattering quietly within. As if the whistle of a wind storm rages outside. Taking the saying, ‘the cries of the ghosts’ to a new level. I lay next to my sister trying to see through Hope’s golden hair to the scrunched twisted red of her nose bunched to the floor as she kneels, her hands pressed to her head as if she’s trying to collapse her own skull.  

“Hope.” I whimper. “I’m sorry.”

Suddenly Hope jerks upright, “Why did you leave?” 

The words carry an echo as if they are within my own head, startling me back against the bathroom door then through, as I am not corporeal. 

I scramble back through the door as Hope bargains with the air. 

“Tell me you got her. Did you get Honey? Why can’t I know? Why don’t I know? I need to know. I just need to know. Tell me please. Are you okay? Is she okay? Is any of this real? Is it real? Am I real? I do not wish to partake within this reality any more.” 

Hope crumbles back to the ground as she exhales the most soul crushing sound escapes. 

“Hope.” Our mother slams open the bathroom door, breaking the latch, her golden curls loose from their bun. 

Hope flinches so hard she slams her head into the wall. Wincing, she frantically wipes her face and forces a smile. “I’m fine.”

 Our mother takes in the bruising around Hope’s eyes. “Bunny, it's time you stopped pretending. We don’t expect you to be perfect. Please accept help. I should have told you something long ago.” Her mother reaches into the purse and hands Hope a photo. 

Our dad skids into the doorframe and covers his mouth, tears instantly forming in his eyes when he sees Hope. 

…

Do you know how long it’s been? The child blinks innocently, tossing a feather in the air. 

I cock my head, “Why are you the one for me?”

I am your mother’s sister. I jerk upright staring at the blonde curls of the girl. It’s been over a year. I fear something is amiss. This family is not keen on forgetting.

“Hope hasn’t forgotten.” 

Then one may wish for Hope to not be suppressed.

The sky cracks brilliantly blue in muted gray. “Sister.”

You don’t have to go every time she calls you know? 

“I know.”

Hope stares at the moon once more, her hair is shorter now as her stomach swells.

 “I’m trying. He doesn’t know about you but I’ll be due soon and I can’t imagine any of this. He doesn’t understand why I so desperately want to name this child Spark.”

“You need a spark to start a fire that can keep hope alive.” I whisper back, sitting down next to Hope. 

Hope pulls a rock out on a string, “Mom gave this to me, she said it helped her with her sister. Did you know she had a sister?”

I stare at the rock trying to make sense of what it is or if I’m supposed to do something. “Yes.”

The string circles. Hope gasps, then laughs softly on a sob, “Are you here?” The circle gets bigger. She sucks in a breath, “If I live, am I letting you go?”

“No.” The string jerks to swing back and forth. 

“Is this real?” 

“Yes.” Circle. 

Hope drops the rock back into her palm, muttering, “I’ll never know for sure. I keep asking why you left?” Hope cocks her head in my direction. “Or did you never leave?”

“I never left.”