50 Word Non-Fiction: Hope – Batch 7

Every week, we publish the latest 50 Word Non-Fiction(this link will open in a new window) stories of Hope. Read this week's pieces below!

*

Peering into the flowerpot, she sighed. Even the past few warm days hadn’t brought any signs of life. Surely it was time to call it a day and buy another packet of seeds. That night, the weather forecast was positive: temperatures in the 20s, some showers. Perhaps tomorrow?

*

Thirty years, I decided, was enough. No more nonsense from those above who know better. So they say. I pressed send on the resignation email. I felt hopeful for the first time in a lifetime.

*

I called the baby Hope. She meant everything that word entails: a new beginning, a fresh start, promise of a future, a life filled with something to cling on to. She was a way forward, after the sea of hurt. She smiled at me like she knew.

*

Painstakingly, I remove long tendrils of ivy from the overgrown shrubs of her neglected garden. My mother departed this realm only ten months ago, I now live in the home where she grew old. There’s a birdfeeder tangled in the thicket. I pour in some seeds and anticipate life’s return.

*

Cowering under rage and shrunken with fear and doubt. Preyed upon, beaten, and broken; kindness used against them. In the height of the battle, when it looks to be ending, something deep inside glistens. The thing that keeps them fighting, even when they’re being destroyed. Hope blooms like fire.

*

I am not a stranded ship, destined for the sabre-tooth of the rocks. When I felt the water crest close to my throat, I found my rippling fins. 'You can swim, little fish.' Turning away from the horizon, onwards to dry land, to the softest sand. I am not alone.

*

Left foot, right hand, left hand, right foot, in coordination, guided by my branch mate's "Robin" mating calls, I climb the huge tree my grandfather planted. Closing my eyes, penetrating the seven skies and, in-between, to talk to him. He never spoke but he always responds, he always consoles.

*

'You have Parkinson’s,' he stated. 'But I’m a surgeon!' I replied. 'I know,' he said. Dreams snuffed oot: bereft. But the thrawn heart-centre, whaur hawp bides, windna gie in. Bittie by bittie I cam back tae life. An noo? I’ve fund sae mony siller linins in thon black clood.

*

Hope. A thing that Ellie lost until she found something to be hopeful about. For as long as she could remember, Ellie had wanted a dog. She didn’t care what kind of dog just as long as it made her happy. One day her mum said, ‘We’re getting a dog.’

*

'It‘s leukaemia,' echoed the doctor on the telephone. Shock! Death all around us. Hope exhausted for so, so many. We were the lucky ones. Hope was on our side. As for Covid? We hope we never see it’s devastating, crippling effects again.