Hope: Short Story

~Zachary Dellinger (A.C.S.)

He had become quite cynical as the years began to wear on his soul. He seemed rather old for a young man of his age; dark crescents of fatigue seemed engrained upon the flesh under his dull, silvery eyes, accenting the weary countenance he sported on a day-to-day basis. His unruly brown hair was long enough to allow him to run his hands thoughtfully through it as he sat upon the bench at the intersection of the two brick paths near the pond on his college campus, but not unruly or long enough for him to justify cutting it.

He looked at his hand, the left one, as he pushed the square frames of his glasses up his nose with his right. A small number of follicles stuck to his hand, taunting him of his scalp’s future. He let out a sigh. Not as if anything else had been going well for him recently, so why should the future look so promising?

Normally, in cases like this, he would pray to God for an answer, for some sort of justification or condolence for current events. Today, however, he sat chuckling at what now seemed like a futile notion.

Hope had abandoned him, his God seemed to have better things to do rather than regard the prayers of some twenty year old college sap that couldn’t seem to get his life on track. After all, why would either bother to assist him in focusing his attention on studying, remembering why the GABA receptor was so important, or anything similar.

No, the ‘powers that be’ seemed to have chucked him aside. Life was spiraling out of control, and there was little he could do to fix it. His whole life was a joke, he thought, and maybe it was time to nip the joke in the butt before it went on any longer.

That was when she sat down next to him on the bench. Her dirty blonde hair contrasted slightly with the bright blue overcoat she wore, which itself was almost blinding in the dull surroundings of the college campus. She focused her brown eyes on him, his hands grasping deep into his hair.

“You ok?”

He scoffed. “Same stuff, different day.”

Silence, and then. “Ah…” She paused, twisting her feet a bit and staring out at the pond. “At least it’s the winter, right? Your favorite season?”

He chuckled. She was right after all. He welcomed the cold weather, the chilly air enveloping his body. It normally helped him clear his thoughts, but today the friendliness had disappeared. The air was just there: cold and unforgiving to those who didn’t understand it.

“True enough,” he said with a sigh, removing his hands from his hair and resting them upon his knees. He looked upon the pond. It was relatively calm, especially considering that the wind had seemed to pick up from yesterday.

She looked over, then smiled. “How’d you do on your test?”

Just what he needed to think about. He scoffed, then placed his hands back in his hair. “Failed. Quite miserably, actually.”

All was silent. They both looked upon the pond as the trees around them rustled their apologies towards him. Then she sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “Everything will work itself out. You’ll see.”

He wanted to say something back to her, to chastise her for having some semblance of faith in him, but he couldn’t pull himself to do it. He never could. She had this odd sense about her that always seemed to put his mind at rest. It was almost supernatural. Little to say, it annoyed the part of him that had grown quite dark and cynical.

Then, the other part of him, the man who still held on to the little bit of hope, the man who still believed that fate had something planned for him, emerged. Everything would work itself out, if he applied himself a little more and found some new way to study the subject he was having difficulty with. After all, it was just college.

And, to be honest, he had something else to look forward to when school finally ended.

He paused for a bit, then nodded ever so slightly. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and held her for a minute, resting his head upon hers, both still looking upon the pond. He hadn’t noticed how late it had become until the streetlights were reflected in the black expanse of liquid, nor the fact that a slight fog had begun to roll in, but he didn’t mind. Dank nights were common in these parts during the winter, and all of these factors along with one other brought the calm back to his mind.

Maybe the hope wasn’t as futile as he thought. Maybe his God had sent him a message a long time ago, and he had failed to recognize it’s significance until only recently. Or maybe he was just making some excuse for random chance. Either way, it bought him some peace of mind.

He lifted his head and smiled. “Want to grab something to eat?”

At that moment, he could have sworn that he had seen a halo above her as she lifted her head from his shoulder, but he blamed the phenomenon on the fog and his earlier insanity.

She smiled and nodded. “Let’s.”

Very good short story. Though I don't bother reading books, I do read short stories. :3

Jakelvin compliments you. x3

I'll be working on a series of short stories here soon.
One of them (that may have several parts) I'm nicknaming 'The Manipulator' series.
Should be fun to write.

Maybe rated a bit higher, but only because the main character is not going to be very friendly.
The build for him is not necessarily likeable, but admirable... or at least that's how it appears at first glance.

*shrugs*
That's if I even bother to put my fingers to the keyboard.