Victory Is When Hope Prevails Above All Else

Part one

4 March 1998:

I stared out the window, she was gone, gone for good. Never would I see her smiling face looking back at me and telling me she loves me , never again. This goes to prove, you should never believe what doctors tell you, all they ever do is give you false hope. What was I thinking anyway, cancer is incurable, it would've always gotten the better of her in the end. But I can't cry, I'm her oldest son, I need to get things together.

6 March 1998:

Dad beat me up this morning, for the first time ever. He did it because my little brother, Davie wouldn't stop crying and I'm supposed to look after him and my little sister, Saph.
It's hard enough with mom gone, Saph at two years dying of leukemia and looking out of the hole in the metal wall of our shack to see many more shacks surrounding us, giving the sense of complete poverty and hopelessness. They say we live in a beautiful place, the rich flock to take pictures and spend their holidays. I suppose it is perfect, sea just across the road and farmland behind us and if I was rich too I don't think I'd mind spending my holidays here either. Dad expects us to go on as if nothing has happened, I'm trying but the images from those last minutes in hospital just play over and over in my head. While dad was at 'work' I found and took three Panado's to ease the pain. I'm dead tired now.

9 March 1998:

Sorry I didn't write yesterday, I was too busy hiding under the covers from the black skeleton boy, rocking and crying in the corner of our shack. It must've been the weed getting to my head. Yesterday I went to Jason's house. Jason's a sixteen year old drop out. He dropped out of school just two years ago, back when he was my age. I'm thinking of dropping out too, he certainly has a better life than mine. He lives on the richer side of the township and his parents never notice what he does because they're always too busy praying or seeing to the sick or doing some other type of good deed. While we were smoking, Jason told me his parents do all this good shit and get other teenagers off drugs because they're trying to make themselves feel better about him. I guess it was their fault, he was never good enough for them, he could never earn their approval. He has all kinds of stuff hidden under his bed. He told me the weed would help with the nausea and it did. I felt like I was flying, like all was right with the world, like I could touch the sky, do anything I wanted. Well that was until I started seeing the things.

10 March 1998:

After missing many days, I went to school again. My history teacher told me I was going to fail the year and with the marks I get, there's no hope for me. When I stayed quiet she asked me when I was ever going to contribute to the class and say a word. School doesn't suit me. I'm not like the other kids, I'm extremely shy and awkward. I hate talking and I don't see what's so wrong with that either, why can't the world just keep quiet for one day, everyone just sit, thinking, daydreaming, whatever, just not talking and shouting and laughing and screaming and crying. There's clearly something wrong with me, I must be an alien. I need to escape, I need something to help me drift back over the moon...

11 March 1998:

My dad came home at 2:00am. The kids were fast asleep. My eyes were bloodshot and he asked if I had been smoking. I just stared ahead of me at the hole in our wall. The metal wall was moving calmly, like a silver river and I was enjoying it too much to answer. He told me he wished I was dead. That was too much for me to handle so I got up and ran over to Jason's house. After knocking urgently a few times on his bedroom window, his face appeared, glaring at me with a still half asleep expression. I told him I needed something stronger. "What you need is to get away from that mad father of yours." He responded but never the less passed me some 'speed' through the window and told me to be gone because his parents were home. I wanted to enquire further on the remark he'd made about my dad but he'd already disappeared and anyway, I think I already understood. I'm not too sure what happened next, there were too many colours swirling around me and the trees were swaying to a lovely song that put me in a mood to dance. I somehow ended up in the graveyard, dancing with a boy I'd never seen before. We went past my mums grave and I felt my stomach begin to churn, the usual lump form in my throat and the struggle to keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks but then suddenly a warm feeling overcame me and I reached out and kissed the boy.