There is a part of the brain that focuses on hope. Beneath the hippocampus, nestled next to the amygdala. It's composed of neurons of positivity-all sparking of optimism. And one young lady I knew was chock full of it.

 

I passed her while sweeping the glaring white hospital floor.

 

"It's ok, it's ok, it will pass, just have hope," she said to another service user.

 

"Why?" the other sobbed.

 

"Because hope is the thing that should fill us, thrive us, lift us up out of the dark."

 

"But there is no hope, there is no - "

 

 "There is always hope," she said, and they held each other warmly, like sisters. When they saw me standing there they immediately withdrew, afraid.

 

"It's ok, I'm just," I began, then walked on. "The cleaner…"

 

* * *

 

The ward, shiny and bright white as it was, created a feeling of dark oppression regardless of the light, but you never got that impression from her.

Unlike the false light of the ward, hers was always true. Sending good feelings, not just in words but in smiles, and the goodness in her eyes. Eyes that also held pain.

 

"Never give up hope," she said to so many who would come and go, but she would stay far longer, "Hope is with you, let me feed you with it."

 

Her eyes seemed overlarge for her angled, ghostly face at times, which was often overshadowed by her long blonde hair. It hung like loose string down her face. Her age was sometimes hard to tell, she had a youth about her, but some strands of her hair were grey. And she always smiled at me. That I never understood.

 

* * *

 

I remember approaching the fortress of mental rest for one of my night shifts. It wasn't called a fortress for nothing.

 

Beneath a dark blue sky smudged with smog was a black-bricked building that took away any hope that this might be a nice place to rest a broken mind.

It wasn't often a houseworker got a night shift. But I had been working there so long and they always needed to keep it clean. In the same way, I guess a murderer would always want to wash his hands to get the blood out long after it's faded.

 

It was on one of those nights, the lights subdued by the occasional screaming, (the symphony of the mindless,) where I met her on her own. She was sitting on a ledge by one of the windows to the many artificial gardens, humming a song of sweetness.

 

"What's your name?" she asked politely.

 

"Arthur," I said.

 

"What fills you with hope?"

 

 I looked at her, screwing up my eyes. "Nothing."

 

 "Nothing?" She then laughed at me, although it didn't hurt, and I was tempted to join in. "Isn't there something you enjoy?"

 

I looked down. "Painting," I said.

 

"Painting, that's lovely!" she smiled.

 

I smiled.

 

"What kind of stuff do you paint?"

 

"Oh," I said, looking down again, "All sorts,"

 

"You must be painting a lot if you're painting all of the sorts," she smiled.

 

I laughed, and then she did.

 

"Can you show me them?"

 

* * *

 

So the next few days I showed her pictures on my pocket share-square of my art. It filled me with the hope that my art, although maybe never getting sold, was appreciated, maybe even loved. And that's when I realized this is what she was doing. She was spreading hope. All day, every day, even to service users who only spent a few days here, they left with some brighter light in their eyes.

 

Then I thought about why they had to keep her so long, year after year. Then I got angry.

 

* * *

 

"It's because she's so hopeful," said a houseworker to me who had more of an ear on the grapevine.

 

"Sorry, I don't understand," 

 

"Think about it. The only answer to near-absolute poverty and a crappy life on this side of the 22nd century is despair. For someone to be so full of hope, so bloody positive, well clearly she's one of the most bonkers people on this ward." The houseworker left me, as I inwardly screamed at the world we were left in.

 

* * *

 

I sat in my one room, which had a small bed, surrounded by painting equipment and my art. Old psychology books overdue for the library were piled up. 

But, compared to many others I passed dying on the street, I was well off.

 

There was some birthday cake my mum had sent me from the colony with pink cream and coffee innards I enjoyed. I managed a nibble and then gave it to my pet rodent in the cage under my bed as she squeaked with joy. I will miss her one day, I thought.

 

* * *

 

"We will cure the girl soon," said the doctor as I walked past the office, "you could say we are cutting the hope right out of her."

A nurse laughed. I tightened my fist.

 

* * *

 

"Why are you doing this?"

 

The rain bore down hard on the two of us at the back end of the fortress I had slipped us through. For all their security, they didn't think to question such a lowly man and his large cleaning bucket that was fuller than usual. 

 

I said, "Because in this terrible, stinking world, of all the darkness and despair to which people so easily give in, there was one person brave enough, maybe even mad enough, to have hope."

 

She gave me a hug.

 

"Go! I will give you more time."

 

She ran. I got myself arrested. I heard her running in the distance, splashing through the rain. There was still hope.

 

* * *

 

Grant looked at his cellmate, scraping chalk on the corner of the wall. "What do you call that then?"

 

I smiled at him, looking at the etched picture of the smiling girl, "hope."