Photography with a story

Hopeless

He awoke from his dreams. He dreamt of his family, or what they would be like...

Someday he would have one. One to call his own.

The warden of his section always told him that he was never getting out. No one wanted a kid his age.

He watched new Borns and toddlers come and go, but teens. Never.

He would yell at them, tell them they are all wrong. His older brother would come for him. He would save him as he had promised.

He knew deep down that it was hopeless but he wanted to have something to hold onto.

It was more than most of the kids had around here.

That was one of the ways he stayed sane. Another was he would go out every morning and look out on the beautiful city of New York.

He watched as everyone had something to do and somewhere to go while he wasted his youth in a household with all the other miscellaneous kids.

He didn't want to feel hopeless, but sometimes it was all he could feel. After he's cried himself numb over his missing family and part of his heart.  He would just think of how hopeless everyone here was.

Well, not everyone... There was one person... There was her.

She knew where she wanted to be and what she wanted to do. Her firey beautiful red hair still stuck in his memory. Her freckles still a vivid memory in his mind.

When she was around he didn't feel hopeless. She would lie on the roof with him and tell him of her dreams all night.

She truly dreamt enough to fill the entire city.

But she knew it was all a lie. She knew she wouldn't make it.

He asked her one day why her parents would drop her off at an orphanage at such a late age. She typically would blow it off and continue on with one of her tall tales.

But this time was different her eyes looked... Sad.

She then explained to him that she was dieing. And no one knew except her parents. They could not afford treatment nor would it help.

She was too far gone she would say. He needed to stay away from her she would say.

Eventually she couldn't even rise out of bed. He stayed in her room always. He would carry her out occasionally when the warden was gone to the rooftop where they would discuss anything and everything.

A month later she was slowly trudging down the stairs when her heart stopped all at once.

There was no funeral. There was only a small house wide memorial.

All it was truly was a bunch of hopeless kids listening to the warden say a bunch of things about her that weren't true.

He wasn't allowed to speak. He just had to endure quietly.

He closed his eyes abruptly the pain of her memory too much at once.

He tried to stop the pain. But he knew his efforts were futile.

He was too far gone as well. He was hopeless.

-A.G.