The Hope Chest

Just published in the Spring 2020 Issue of Birdland Journal, my short story "The Hope Chest."

This story talks about what hope means when the whole concept of hope is almost impossible to imagine, let alone to own.  Hope comes only in radiant small glimpses.

"It isn't hopeless," Jay insisted once more, when he came back.  "Think of the millions of seeds in the desert, dormant until rain; in permafrost, germinating after almost 32,000 years.  The miracles of Arctic lupine, sacred lotus, Judean date palm.  The ancient pollen of red spruce.  Pollen grains and spores in prehistoric sediments.  Pollen can last essentially forever, in the right conditions—360 million years, we know, give or take a couple."

When Jay had gone, she went out to the patio, lay on her back, amazed by the intricate clouds, the light across the sky.  The silhouettes of the old trees, inked on the horizon, the dusk collecting in the dusky hollow where the old grandfather pine had been, there still in memory and heart's ease.

And yet hope does come, in the end . . . 

image:  123RF