HOPE

Note: A failed exercise in writing for children with learning disabilities. Except I enjoyed writing it and I enjoy reading it. I should never try to write for children.

Hope is the thing with feathers
- - Emily Dickinson

I am lying down. It is dark. I can hear the swishing of a ceiling fan above me. The nurse’s slippers go pad pad pad in the corridor. The crickets are singing a strange song I cannot understand.

It is dark. I am afraid of the dark. The bed sheets are cold. They make a sound like plastic crushing when I press them. I can feel the tubes sticking out from my hand. The doctor says they are good for me, so I don’t say it hurts. It hurts everywhere, anyway.

I am afraid of the dark. In the dark I am alone. It tastes like a piece of green apple stuck in my throat – dry and turning sour. Mummy would feed me some chocolate and I will forget how it feels like. But mummy is at home.

In the dark I am alone. Slowly, the scent of morning glories awakening fills my room. For a while I forget I am filled with pills and tubes. I open my eyes wide and try to remember how the blue, blue sky looked like.

A bird sings. He jumps on the windowsill with a flutter. He chirps hello. “Hello,” I replied. I can still feel him there, waiting. I reach out into the air and feel the sun thaw my frozen fingers. I can smell his feathers, wet from soil and dew.

I stare and imagine his bright eyes looking back. The sound of his wings takes me with him. Across the green fields with red, yellow, pink and purple flowers. Under the blue sky. Over brown mountains and green hills.

I close my eyes and dream of a rainbow.