After Hope Dies

by Lilly Haraden

  Macaque stares deep at Yi-Ting. That same stare. Again. The same ferocity of silence before an attack. No…Yi opens her mouth to scream and bellows loud.

  For the Macaque has come to rape her.

  Saviour

  In breaks Macaque through the window, the wall, the fabric and space. Arms tearing away the chunks of reality – off they go like shooting stars into the black void between. The apartment fades away into charcoal and Yi feels the bitter chill of this new place eat through her clothes. Deep and dark like the bottom of the ocean. Where is she? Where are Janelle and Dani? Yi is all alone with the rapist. Here. Double her size. Eyes direct on her throat. Red beams. Teeth dripping with the lust for colour.

  In.

  Slow and steady now: death approaches. Something materialises between them from the shadows – what is that? A tether, a cord, to tie around the neck of Macaque, to feed directly into the heart of Yi. This thread that connects monster to monster. Yi clutches the fibre anchored in her breast but it feels icy and colder than this chamber of nightmares. She cannot pull it free. Macaque smiles and leaks emotion into the void. Dani’s apartment and sky above vomit inky colours and stripes all over the place. Technicolour and psychocolour.

  Yi tries to back away but her legs are simply useless. Sticks.

  Here it comes. Heart turns to overdrive and spits out hot poison into her arteries. Macaque looms and smiles, smiles, as Yi screams. Panic eats her eyes out.

  And she must be daydreaming to see the second apparition explode into being like a conjurer’s flame. A strange black man indeed: counterpart to beast or ally? Who is he with his strange hat and freak-jeans? What is that he holds in his hand? A knife? And who is that beside him, a girl who looks so much like her sister? But it can’t be her sister. No, no, Una shouldn’t be here and so close to the Macaque! Even beside the man in the circle of exclusion to the side, watching, watching. Witnesses.

  A voice from the deep to still and quiet time: Macaque slows his approach as the strange man murmurs to Yi-Ting, ‘You’ll only have one chance, girl. Give me Permission and I’ll cut the Macaque free.’

  Yi flits her eyes between monster, man, knife, lifeline and sister, feeling the words rumble from her throat, ‘I-I can’t do that. Macaque will…’

  Una cries out, ‘Yi! You need to trust me. You need to trust in what you’ve read. Please, listen to Bax. Give him Permission to cut the cord. Please!’ Tears, hands reaching out for her.

  Time skips and Macaque rockets forward, almost filling Yi’s vision. Eyes and nostrils. Yet, the creature slows back down as if soaking up every microsecond of her dilemma and pain. Yi covers her head with her hands and whimpers, bends, cries and grovels like a mortal woman. Macaque is so close, she can feel the whiskers against her face.

  What a pitiful creature! Oh, come now. Just think of my lovely teeth inside your neck drinking up that sweet colour. Just think about that feeling: needles and nerves bending. Weight so dense you can’t lift it from your chest! You were so cute last time, wetting your pants like a child. You have no idea what sort of rush that gave me. Mmmm. I’ll enjoy that for years to come. Well, unless what I do to you next overtakes that pleasure. I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to fuck one of you humans…

  And oh, what a poor excuse for a sister you are, Yi. Can’t even take a simple attack for her sake. Don’t tell me you’d rather all the pain be transferred to Una! After all she’s been through! Years of being unable to eat, years of quiet pain. That would make you worse than me. Can you really live with the knowledge that you would be responsible for such darkness in your dear sister’s life?

  Yi-Ting’s eyes turn to her sister. Words mouthed across the void – please, please – but the Macaque blocks her sister from view now with his solar mass. Oh, that face. The face of death.

  This is it.

  So what will it be, then?

  The man’s voice echoing across the dead colour space: ‘Hurry! Give me Permission!’

  Do you love your sister? Does loving your sister mean protecting her or trusting her?

  Macaque screams out a warm jet of air into her face and Yi sobs.

  ‘Hurry!’

  Forgive me, sister. I am so very weak.

  In the tiniest of voices: ‘Cut it.’

  The world snaps into action. A blade of something quick red flashes before her face. The umbilical cord is cut and new warmth rushes the girl’s heart. Strength. Liberation from the cold source. Macaque rears backwards as an army of shadows rush to fill the space between girl and monster. Rise up, and Yi finds her balance. The man called Bax rests on one knee now beside Yi, protecting her. His singular action must have drained all life from his limbs for exhaustion riddles his face.

  But the Macaque is free.

  Macaque holds the severed cord in its hand and throws a dirty look at Yi over the shadow army. Oh, yes, you know exactly what I’m going to do next.

  The beast turns to Una, who stands defiant with her fists at her side. Warrior-fierce against the drugged-out backdrop. Yi swallows hard and screams, ‘Una, please run! Please!’

  But Macaque has already cut the distance; the beast launches at full pace towards the other girl standing on the periphery of the mirage walls. Footfalls loud and certain, a wild look of unrestrained joy and hunger scribbled across the face. Now! Macaque leaps into the air with arms raised and fangs drawn!

  Time stalls. No, the sky and walls are still fluid with universal blood. There is still motion. But the Macaque is frozen in time, in the air. Statue still. Yi looks closer and she sees a beautiful net of pink and purple light woven in front of her older sister. A shark net, a barrier of lurid wormy glyphs. Yi feels a strange pull from her fingers and looks down to find the same light orbiting her hands. It’s as if she’s casting magic from afar to protect her sister. Una stands defiant behind the barrier and throws a quick look her way. Yi’s heart softens. Everything will be ok.

  Blinkspeed: the net inverts and wraps around the Macaque, who springs back in the opposite direction as if fired from a cannon. Hurtling through the ether, the monster shatters one of the walls and the real colour space comes tumbling in like water breaking from a glass. Everything shatters as the world washes back in.

  Yi blinks and finds herself grounded inside Dani’s real apartment. Macaque is struggling in the net over by the fridge, but the creature is tiny now. Mouse sized and all tangled. Everyone watches in awe as the Macaque slips a sharp nail through the net, slices itself free and scatters for the door with a hiss and flick of the tail. The monster hits the wood and vanishes ghost-like into the material. Gone.

  Bax coughs loudly and all turn to see him slumped on the sofa, withdrawing a hand from his mouth to show blood. Dani springs into action, ‘I’ll get you some alcohol,’ and Janelle appears by the woman’s side, helper.

  No more words as the man goes very silent and cold.

  But Yi feels life stream back into her soul. She turns to her sister by the kitchen and their eyes lock, exchange those beautiful words of love, and then Yi is in her sister’s arms. So warm and familiar. Hair and smell and lips on the neck. Yi stifles her crying with a huge breath and whimpers, ‘I missed you so much.’

  ‘You’re a brave girl for taking the Macaque for so long.’

  Yi looks her sister in the eyes. ‘He was going to hurt you.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I couldn’t let him…’

  ‘But he nearly killed you. How would that make me feel, aah? Not all that good.’

  Yi sniffs and laughs once. Suddenly, she finds herself on the couch next to Bax with Dani pressing something warm into her hands. Hot chocolate. Wow, the good stuff too. Yi smiles her thanks and sips, eyes her sister sitting on the floor in front of her.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere, don’t you worry.’

  Janelle’s over next to Dani, both sitting under the light of the window like glow-in-the-dark stars. Janelle looks like she’s seen a monster or two before – certainly this much c
alm on her face warrants such an assumption. And what of this strange man who proved one half of her effective rescue? This oddity with his eyes shielded from the room like a shadow trying desperately not to look at the sun. He sips his liquor silently. The longer Yi looks, the longer she thinks this man may indeed be an apparition. His shadow on the wall: all fuzzy and wrong. What is his name? Bax? Maybe…this is Dani’s boss?

  ‘That’s right, little miss,’ replies Bax without being asked, and he straightens up, a little more alive than dead. A faint smile graces his face and softens to a grin. Eyes free from shadow now. Yi takes another quick sip of good chocolate and asks, ‘How did you and my sister find me? How did you know what to do?’

  ‘I deal in the supernatural. That monster of yours was on my radar. It just so happened that I crossed paths with a sister in search of someone she loved. Our desires overlapped and I helped her help you.’

  ‘How did you meet?’

  ‘Through your father’s eyes.’

  Yi-Ting scrunches up her nose and asks the man to repeat himself, but instead Bax says, ‘I doubt that horrible monster’s going to cause you any more trouble. Truth be told, his might just be the worst case I have seen in recent times. Certainly in terms of length and malice.’

  Glow-in-the-dark Janelle pipes up from under the window, ‘Hey, my monster ripped out my voice box and stalked me at work!’

  ‘True, true, but he didn’t follow you around all day and force you to drink the colour from people’s skin to keep from going insane.’

  Janelle bites her lip and changes tact quickly, clumsy, ‘Yes, well, I wound up talking like this, so…’

  Bax jokes, ‘I take it back. Becoming a walking thesaurus is a much worse fate than this one.’

  Janelle sticks her tongue out, playful, and Dani nudges her in the ribs. But Bax doesn’t seem to mind. Yi finishes up her hot chocolate and says with warm confidence, ‘I’d like to go home now.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  Yi stands up and, not entirely sure what the protocol is, offers Bax a little bow – hands all neat on her lap – and says, ‘Thank you for everything that you have done for me. I’m in your debt.’

  ‘Not a thang.’

  ‘Dani and Janelle. Thank you both for taking me in. I couldn’t imagine what I would have done without you both.’

  The women get to their feet and wrap their arms around the girl, very tight and very long. Dani bends down and places two hands on the girl’s shoulders, says to the sisters, ‘You need a lift home?’

  ‘Please.’

  Dani nods and then says to Janelle, ‘Finish the movie while I’m out. Bax’s favourite, you know?’

  The man perks up. ‘You guys watching Spirited Away? Man, did I save the right people tonight.’

  So goodbye, Bax and Janelle, goodbye, tiny apartment – home of the prostitute – and goodbye, Turkish grocery store.

  Yi-Ting holds her sister’s hand tight. Never let it go.

  Three on the bike as they rocket up the industrial roads and out towards Stallwind East. Yi rests her helmeted head on her sister’s back, calm.

  On they ride to home.

  Last Hope

  ‘I’ve never seen Dad cry before.’

  Una muses for a moment and brings up the painful memory: ‘Oh, you would have. When Mum died. He cried a lot then, but recently? Uh-uh.’ She smoothes out the sheets of her sister’s bed as the two sit cross-legged and face each other in the gorgeous light of home. Little lampstand all sunlike, spreading a sweet tinge over the bedroom. Her sister’s place. Exactly where she belongs. Yi-Ting takes Dani’s socks off and asks her sister, ‘What sort of magic spell did you cast on the Macaque?’

  Una replies, ‘That wasn’t a spell. Bax said it would be sort of like the embodiment of our connection.’

  ‘How did he know it would work?’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was counting on a couple of things like Janelle giving you that letter and you making the decision to let the Macaque go. All plans that could have failed.’

  ‘He seemed like he was in control of it all…’

  Una hums. ‘Yes, a very strange man. I was only able to meet him with some supernatural help of my own.’

  Yi makes a little inquisitive noise so Una explains the pact with the cranes.

  ‘How strange. I wonder what they really are?’

  ‘All that matters is that you’re here.’

  Beep beep and buzz; Yi-Ting’s phone goes crazy for a few seconds and Una laughs as her sister whips out her Shandian from thin air. Attention focused now. Tricks of youth. Una asks, trying not to smile, ‘How’s the girlfriend?’

  ‘Good,’ Yi-Ting says without looking at her sister, so Una presses, ‘Funny time to tell Dad about you and Carrie.’

  ‘I thought it was the best time.’ A little swooping noise tells the world a message has been sent. No doubt one filled with mountains of stupid emojis and lovehearts. Maybe one of those dog-face filter selfies. Yi discards her phone and says, ‘I want to sleep now. Get off.’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  But Una feels a hand around her arm and Yi rises up for a kiss on the cheek. With her head still close, she murmurs, ‘I love you.’

  ‘Keep it in your pants, sis.’

  And the two laugh.

  The next day after school they’re back at the ice creamery, shovelling black iced sugar and spilling chocolate rivers over biology homework. Una feels her heart reset and return to normal, to see her sister smiling and scribbling down the answers, all framed in the fronds of green palms and seated in that perfect space that the two have shared for so long. The view outside like Taipei, like somewhere filled with hope…

  Una had been right to hope. Hope was, all along, such a key ingredient. At every stage. From the first disappearance to the reunion at school to almost giving up and making a very different pact with the cranes (both now and then, that time before when they instead helped her make the Macaque). That other pact would have…no. Some things are best consigned to memory. Hope, then. Hope took her through the alternate world of closed circuit television static and befriending a strange black man. Hope was a fundamental currency exchanged at every toll booth. Each stop chipped her total further and further away into oblivion. She had had enough hope to succeed. Just.

  So what would happen if all hope ran out? What would have happened if Yi-Ting became lost and destitute? What if evil had befallen her in that dark alleyway before Mirror showed up? What if Dani hadn’t been in that very same ice creamery to find her and care for her? What if what if what if.

  What if a young black man had no outlet and support for his mental illness? What if he felt that the only recourse for his perverted mind was to end it all instead of seeking help? If he knew that he would never get better and nobody would listen…

  What if a young black girl was forced from her work and had to rely on public housing and food cards? What if her mother slipped back into the throes of heroin’s salty promise? Could they eat and pay the bills and survive, could Janelle find work at another brothel where they still cared about safety and conditions, where she would have been abused to the final inch of her life on the shoestring promise of a little pay? Would she have been driven to ice or heroin on customers’ orders, her last breath deathrattling from her lips as the chemicals take over?

  What if a young black girl was raped outside a good brothel and had her throat cut out, but instead of supernatural resurrection…

  Where is the hope in a hopeless world? See, each of these stories has relied on the fundamental and misguided promise that hope will always bring about a better future. That’s the mantra, right? That’s the song and clarion call of a species that has been faced with repetitive and indescribable trials and evil for as long as they have existed. It is the only thing that humans can look forward to. It is the only thing that makes sense and matters. Hope.

  But what if hope was a bastardisation. What if these three stories of loss and pain and chance
and love are nothing but…nothing but a whitewash over the thin face of reality…?

  Did you notice something about the cranes that helped Janelle and Una? They are Hope and Despair, yet you cannot tell them apart. Visually, they are a duo. Or, to recycle a metaphor used earlier on – a yin and yang of the same shade of grey…

  I’m sorry.

  I don’t want to destroy Hope…but casting a light always creates a shadow.

  Hope and Despair, in tandem.

  So from here until the very end, I’ll show you the reality:

  Story 4:

  Civic Obligation

  2 months before Janelle’s death

  Mistake #1 – The Nameless Girl

  After a while they all start to look the same. Don’t they, Baxter?

  This one decided to audition in her school uniform. With some half-sense of rhythm, she ties her arms around the stripper pole and works her body snake-like up and down. Back to him, bent over slightly, just enough to give a decent flash of her upper thighs. Next comes an unconvincing wink. Oh dear. Bax leans against the bar top, elbow in a puddle of spilled bourbon, and watches the creature bend to the will of total music. There’s not a soul (human soul) around save for them. And so, she dances for her life. Too thin for his taste, really. Too flatfooted, too plain. That look on her face – some bitter measure of fear eating into whatever nubile innocence she should be flaunting. Without much grace, both electro thumper and girl finish at the same moment. She shouldn’t be here. She should be in the first period of the school day.

  Bax pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs deep, reaches out for a tumbler of liquor that doesn’t exist and swipes at air. The man turns, watches his ghostly bartender shadow make an appearance, a cup and cloth in hand, washing, and the beast shakes his head of flame from side to side. You’ve had enough, old man.

  From the stage, the frightened doe calls out into the dark, ‘How…h-how did I do?’