This short story is in response to the Five Minute Friday prompt: Work. The rules are: write for 5 minutes and no editing (although I can’t stop myself a little. I am an editor after all). I’ll see you on the other side. Hope you enjoy it.
********************************
Her name is Hope, and she sits bowed in the corner, pouring herself into a painting. A cord sprouts from the base of her enormous earphones and tethers her still…at least for the moment.
Voices leak through the music, and she swats them away.
Not real. Right? They’re not real.
She glances from the angel emerging from her canvas to the community room, expecting it to be empty. Instead, a woman glances up from her sketchpad, breaks in a sunrise smile, and then returns to her sketch.
Hope knows what most everyone sees when they look at her—crooked glasses, hair so bleached it’s broken, uneven, sharp uncontrollable movements that make even the most compassionate volunteer nervous.
But this woman smiled. Continue reading “The Story of Hope: A Short Story”