It’s not often you find hope in a strange corner. It normally creeps up on you in moments of despair or sits upon your mantelpiece, beaming, in times of plenty. But to find it in a strange corner is rare.
This piece of hope was not self generated. I wasn’t looking for hope at the time and I wasn’t aware that I needed it but when it’s found, it’s found and it shouldn’t be ignored.
I’ve always possessed fortitude and I’m very good at managing persistence but sometimes, it is true, I do lose hope. I look around and I see what’s what and I just lose it. That, of course, weakens the defences and allows despair, misery and sloth into life.
Today, though, I wasn’t aware that I was losing hope. I was, as the Americans might says, chipper. I prefer top hole or lashed up tight myself but then I’ve always had a thing for 1930s upper class English and not many people understand that these days.
So, there I was, all chipper and lashed up tight and strutting about town like a puffed up trumpleton. I was handing out cheery greetings and dispensing bonhomie like a pharmacist on happy pills. I made a witty quip to a downhearted acquaintance who told me I’d brought a smile to his lips for the first time in an age. I told a fella I know about another fella I know who would definitely do him a turn and both would be pleased by the link. I suppose you could say that I swaggered. I certainly preened. I was a man on top form and the world was my oyster, the pearl my undoubted reward.
That’s when the fall happened. It comes soon after the apex of the puffed up trumpleton stuff and it’s well deserved. It was a woman, it’s often a woman, but she told me in plain and simple terms that I didn’t have what it takes. She didn’t just say it. She spelled it out. She made it very clear that her grounds for these statements had real body – and I found it difficult, nay impossible, to counter her claims. And she did this in the open. Some of the fellas heard and a fair number of the women heard. Disdain was generated and I couldn’t gainsay it, nor did I wish to do so. I was flattened and I deserved my flattening. Like the cartoon wolf under the heavy anvil I was spread thin upon the ground and was available for walking upon by all and sundry. I know when I’m licked, all over.
That was when I looked in the corner. There, seated upon the ground, were a pair of children, snot smeared and knock kneed. Now I am not, by nature, a children person. I am a character, a charmer, a wit and an aesthete. I will wink at a child, I will produce a penny from behind its ear, I will smile and fawn but I will not spend time with the creature. If the child is the route to the mother, or, on occasion, the father then so be it. But God forbid that the purpose of the game is the child itself. That would be too, too vile.
But I am metaphorically flattened. I am down on my uppers. I am cast out and put aside. Time, I am telling myself, is what I need for I cannot utter a cliché about healing.
Then one child starts to blubber. Shaking and sobbing it is. The tears are rolling down its blotched and puffy cheeks. And the other child is head down upon its knees, arms folded round the caps. Then one arm sneaks out and holds the hand of the other child. And the other arm reaches into a pocket in which is probably kept old conkers, an inky handkerchief, an apple core from last week hardened and spongy as it approaches fossilisation, a penknife that is jammed, a foreign coin and a plastic dog keyring with no keys attached from a long gone Christmas cracker. The hand finds a toffee. Dog eared and sticky. The boy hands it to the other who peels back golden paper as strands of sugary brown gloop reach out and stick to inner wrap. He places the paper close to his mouth and scrapes the toffee from its shell with his front teeth. He stops crying, he smiles as he presses the sweetness into his gums with his tongue. His snotty laugh bubbles through and he turns and thanks his pal with smiling, brown tinged dribble. The boys stand and run away, jinking through the crowds.
There went hope revealed in a selfless act, a hand that reaches out, an unequal division of spoils. Nothing is offered in return. Nothing is expected.
And I, with all that I have and all that I can have, cannot give so freely or so easily. Perhaps I should.
Comments
insertponceyfre... | January 20, 2010 - 15:46
I like the PG Wodehouse language - hadn't heard some of the words before, and the contents of the pockets, and it has a nice gentle humour. I hope that's serious enough?
rjnewlyn | January 21, 2010 - 08:38
I liked this - essays our tiresome human condition nicely. And I'm impressed that you've been able to produce something so quickly on this theme. I'm also going to have a go at sending something for the Haiti-related request but 'hope' is proving a tricky one to get my head around. I think my mind works in the opposite direction most of the time.
threeleafshamrock | January 21, 2010 - 08:59
A nicely written piece that carries a message, which should make us - those with a conscience - blush, at least a little.
Many of us aspire to be the child that handed over the sweet...but would also like others to perceive us as such.
I think that this could be dedicated to the hundreds of aid workers, who descend, like selfless angels, on places like Haiti, 'fix things' and then disappear into the camouflage of ordinary life - until the next disaster occurs. They really are, the little guy with the sweet.
Nice work; maybe we could all get together and write a piece each and dedicate it to this latest disaster. Maybe even get it published (in magazine form even) and possibly make some money for that beleaguered land?
Inspiration Point?
tcook | January 21, 2010 - 10:02
threeleaf - that's the whole point of writing these - to get them published to sell and help Haiti. All funds raised will go to the Red Cross.
Take a look here:
http://www.abctales.com/node/592226
They need to be done by Monday though!
threeleafshamrock | January 21, 2010 - 15:55
Sorry, a bit slow in the old grey matter area. Great idea, I'll have a go..
Timothy Poole | February 4, 2010 - 21:51
nice story
Harry Buschman | February 19, 2010 - 19:19
I very much like your analogies, they make your message meaningful and stronger. I also like your frank opinion of yourself and your ability to see both sides of yourself, aware of the good and the bad ... most if us can't do that.
Sooz006 | February 24, 2010 - 16:36
I'm not the sweet giver, I'm the one who thinks of the child as a creature. Can't be doing with little human beings and much prefer animals. I like the language and style of this. It could be yesterday or a hundred years ago. I'm left wondering what the woman said to kneecap so efficiently, but that's just the nosiness of me wanting to know the bits of the story that aren't relevant. Snot... yeuk. A story well deserving of a cherry, can you give yourself one?
Cavalcaderl | March 9, 2010 - 16:02
new Julie
Brilliant story!
But like little boy in "Oliver".
We can have nothing, or step up
the ladder, may hold on to thing's
material.I like the pocket piece,
and poor children, but faces and devastation
of the poor children and all.But some young go abroad
and build toilet's and school's in groups to.Come back.When you think some I know spend £20 £30 X boxes
etc: mine do. priorities are all wrong.Posting £1O for whatever.or Abctales.
Only whole world can put giving "Haiti" right.
Charity,hope,smile come's back in thousand ways.
£2 extra 0.A.P discrase.But you have set the ball
and to set the ball rolling amazing
Definitely deserves a Cherry!***
Come on Read it.Everyone.
Tony "To give" and not to count the cost" for
"Hiati".Beautiful story.I can identify parts with
Nothing, then it comes back ten fold.Even now!
From Editor T.Cook Abctales.
"Alex Burke" x factor only 21 in paper bless her
heart! Can't wait to fly out "Haiti" and help?
julie Abctales.
oldron | April 12, 2010 - 14:00
Well done. This reminds me of the last few lines of The Desiderata: With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
maggyvaneijk | May 7, 2010 - 16:41
this was a beautiful, heartbreakingly so at points. Your style of writing is so neat and carefully constructed, no word is superfluous.
Cavalcaderl | June 4, 2010 - 16:19
new julie
Hi! read how you feel,hope improve.
Life can be exhausting sometimes,never
know what is around the corner,like you say.
I.P This week I am working on one,before posting it.
If too long,or need parts deleted,like you to say when completed please.
Bless you Just posted off "Crocodile-Tears" The Big Issue" if goes in and paid as used to, was down to Kheldar David's help re-arranging it.So money go to AbcTales.as it goes on heading page AbcTales.Thanks to you too,and "Chris Ellison x The Bill.
If you get time read,I think my relaxation it works,I used try it on some,some singing groups get us massge each other's shoulders to tension in us. all can do,true.I know,no loud or speaking music,tranquil.Forget the world.One usually nod off.
All the best
julie AbcTales.
it068 | October 28, 2010 - 14:47
it068
It's a coyote
danrama | October 30, 2010 - 06:54
Ah woman. The ultimate bane of man-ego.
Great read, once I started I could not stop.
My first Seargent spoke just like that...
Dan
danrama | October 30, 2010 - 06:55
Ah woman. The ultimate bane of man-ego.
Great read, once I started I could not stop.
My first Seargent spoke just like that...
Dan
Sooz006 | March 10, 2011 - 17:11
I've just read this again. It really is a lovely piece.I like that a tiny little thing that has absolutely nothing to do with you, can make a difference, if not to your life, then for a day, or at least for the next five minutes. Another comment said that they liked the contents of the pockets. For me that was the only weak part in the piece.He had exactly what you would expect a snotty child of a certain age to have. Putting time by to read stuff on here is just like the looking-in on those kids. You read something and it affects you, maybe not forever, but long enough to mean something.
spiltmilk | June 10, 2011 - 11:00
'Trumpleton' is a most excellent word.
alphadog1 | September 26, 2011 - 09:35
I agree with spiltmilk Trumpleton... is a great word... thanks for this peice. I identify with the loss and gain of hope only too well at the moment, so its lifted my sprit's to read this... thanks for putting a little humour and hope into my day. and thanks for ABC... its keeping me sane... and glued... :S :)
cynthiae77 | November 28, 2011 - 17:29
Very well written. Hope is something we either cling to, or simply deny it's existence (depending on the situation, I suppose). It's the simpler things (or perhaps people) that tend to help us rediscover something within ourselves that may have lost along the way.
I really enjoyed reading this.