Dear friend Hope had settled down in the corner of my mindspace like an unwelcome guest indisposed to leave. With utmost politeness, I tried to raise this subject several times over tea or during one of our late night dialogs until I couldn’t be polite anymore, ‘don’t you think it’s time for you to leave?’ I asked, almost agitated. 

‘But didn’t we have such a lovely day yesterday? So much positivity!’ Hope answers like a child brimming with possibilities. 

‘Look, not that I do not like having you around but this time I truly believe it’s a lost cause.’ 

Hope is quiet for a moment as if carefully choosing her words. 

‘I will, I promise. Tomorrow.’ She replied in her placid voice and that was the end of our conversation. 

Days turned into weeks and weeks into months but Hope was showing no inclination towards leaving. On the contrary, she regularly had a nice little get together with her other friends such as Delusion, Irrationality, Over-optimism and Fantasy.  

‘Oh, come’on! Don’t you see their actions? How blind are you? It’s high time that you leave. Please.’ and that was when I first lost my temper.  

‘Also, Acceptance wants to move in and he can’t until…you are OUT, you know.’

For once, Hope seemed to be embarrassed. ‘Of course, yes, I will,’ she muttered under her breath trying to get her bearings together, ‘I’ll start packing right away.’ 

Hope had such a pleasant face that it made me second guess myself every single time. 

But, I was wrong. Three years passed, maybe four. At some point, I realised that Hope had no intention of leaving at all. Whenever we had a fight she would just disappear for a while and then return saying that the ‘situation’ has changed/progressed and she is, wait for it, ‘hopeful’. So I decided to throw her out of my limited but precious (head)space.

I try to drag Hope outside my head but she refuses to even budge. Unable to contain my anger, I end up punching Hope’s face. For a moment she doesn’t react but then she kicks my guts so hard that blood spills out from my mouth. I am furious now. I leap at hope and pin her against the floor. My hands are closing around her frail neck but she is rapidly moving her limbs trying to break free. In that moment, I know that I want Hope gone forever. I am crying because I haven’t killed many things before. Just some childish dreams here and there. Between my tears, I tell Hope, you must die. I can’t live with you. And then just few minutes later she stops moving. She’s dead. Hope is dead. Yes!  I am exhausted at this point but also giddy with triumph. Look, I got you. Now I can live in peace with Acceptance.

Ah, how lovely. Acceptance indeed is lovely. Healing will join us any day now.

Only a few days have passed, as I lie with my eyes shut on my bed. Or maybe I was walking through the market or was it the office corridor. I was perhaps in the kitchen chopping a perfectly round tomato when I spotted something lingering. The ghost of a lost cause, my dear friend Hope. But at least, I lived in peace for a full week after all. That’s longer than ever. 

Until one fine day, she never returns at all.

//“Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” – Friedrich Nietzsche//