Echoes

Remonstrance

After a Saturday morning of sipping coffee in the park, Hope strolled cup-in-hand past the downtown shops and restaurants on her way toward her apartment building. As the sun's rays warmed her cheeks, she shook her hair in the cool breeze and smiled for the first time in what felt like a long while.

Then she saw Derrick's Corvette parked at a meter in front of her building.

He burst from the apartment vestibule before she could turn to leave. "Hope," he called, "we need to talk."

Hope froze, torn between emotions. She longed for the good times they'd had, but she kept feeling the sensation of his hands shoving her against his car, kept seeing his wide, angry eyes and snarl.

"I, uh..." Derrick ran his fingers over the back of his head. "I brought the money you lent me... but I was hoping we could try to work things out."

"I appreciate the thought, but--"

Hope paused, taken aback at the weakness and strange vulnerability in Derrick. People screw up. But not everyone is willing to make things right. Do I really want to give up on him?

"Well, it was your travel fund," Derrick said, "not my car repair fund." He smiled, and Hope felt uncertainty and longing well up within her. Maybe this isn't so bad? Everybody goes through tough times. That doesn't mean you throw it all away.

"Do you want to go grab a coffee or something, Derrick? Maybe we can talk some things out."

"You're already holding a cup in your hand."

"It's cold. I could stand drinking another. Especially with the right company."

"Sure, let's go. Am I driving, or--?"

"There's a place a block up the street. We can walk. It'll be nice."

She extended her arm for him to take, but he must have missed the cue. So she caught up to walk alongside him, her heart a mixture of warnings and hope. 

* * *

"I remember it now, O'Waighty," Forsephore said. "I remember seeing her march toward the dais of Alphas, look me in the eye, and repeat the words Hope's mother told her as a petition."

Deep in recollection, O'Waighty said nothing, but nodded her head. "I saw it too. The place shook with the violence of her fury. Each word hit you like a slap across the face or a punch in the gut."

"I fell to my knees and watched my Inspiration pour into the air like steam from a boiling pot until none was left."

"She strode up to the position you occupied, took it all in, and shone like the noonday sun in the middle of the chamber. Who were any of us to argue with an obvious display of so much Inspiration?"

"What happened next?" Forsephore pleaded. "All I remembered for the longest time was lying out here, struggling with madness, fighting the eventual fading away into nothingness."

"She changed things, of course," O'Waighty said. "Small steps here and there. New rules about minimum levels of Inspiration required to gain access. Really enforced the caste system and segregated each rank into different seating areas." She turned to Forsephore. "Kept us scattered and focused on each other so we didn't see how she was stacking the ranks of Alphas with her supporters."