After Hope Dies

by Lilly Haraden

  Little Janelle…

  Dani looks up, still clutching her sister. Mirror watched it all. Just stood there and watched it all. Her face: unreadable. Girl turns and folds out a long sword from thin air. To the cheers of all the Spirits of Misery, she walks over to Bax. Macaque screams, Counterfeiter rolls the tongue, Reflex crunches his bone eyes, Dead Man stands so still. Mirror is before Bax now. Quick as anything she makes an arc with her clock-blade. Whoosh. The man’s head comes off clean and flies, soars, lands in a fountain of his own blood. Thunk. Mirror sticks the blade through the corpse’s heart and kicks his body over. Pink Hex shatters soundless.

  Turn. Lock eyes. Out comes the final dagger. Sapphiric. Despair. Dani kneels beside the body of Janelle as she watches Daddy’s Little Slut approach. A baffling expression crumples her face. Is that sadness or focus? Is that hope or finality? Is that hatred or remorse?

  What is that?

  The blade touches Dani’s throat.

  ‘Goodbye, big sis. Your world dies tonight.’

  In the blade slides.

  And Mirror’s Reality comes crashing through:

  Someone once told Daniela that each event in her life is a little chip in the whitewash that covers reality. Every expectation of what the world should be ultimately ends up a bastardisation. The layer beneath is certainly not what we expect…or what we want…nevertheless, it is the truth.

  Janelle’s funeral is held on the Tuesday. Sunday was all it took for the autopsy and police report to confirm what everyone already knew: that another child prostitute had been killed working in a licensed, two-storey, good brothel. Good is subjective, mind you. Her throat was slit open, a red smile under her chin. Semen between the legs. Stripped bare and left on top of Garbage Mountain. There’s talk of a suspect – some shadowy connection with the council – but Dani doesn’t hold her breath.

  Dani holds the shaking mother as they sit in the woman’s tiny kitchen. Solar charger broken, hot water broken, fridge giving up on life. Cold cocoa to soothe the nerves but Dani knows that there is no remedy for a lost life. Maybe, perhaps, heroin. It’s sad, you know? To have seen so few people at the funeral that morning. Kids usually attract the largest crowds but very few of Janelle’s classmates showed up and those that did looked bored and uninterested, guided there by the stern hands of Good Christian Parents who owed Corrina a debt by way of guilt. Poverty has a sheen to it after all. None of the club girls attended.

  ‘Think she suffered?’ comes Corrina’s voice from beneath the fog of heroin, across the kitchen table.

  ‘No, Ms Broadchurch. And I don’t think she is suffering now.’

  ‘Reckon?’

  Daniela places a hand over her little sister’s mother’s and catches her cloudy eye. Says, ‘I reckon she’s on her way to heaven right now, carried there in the arms of two beautiful birds. They’ll wrap around her body and heal her and protect her as she’s delivered to God like a newborn babe. God will look down on this poor child and say that she is worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He will wash all of her sin away. How can he refuse such a sweet girl? He’ll wipe away all her tears and give her some new clothes and a beautiful hat and make sure she has a little space just to herself where she can do all the things she wants. God’ll take care of her. And someday, we’ll see Janelle again, won’t we?’

  ‘Yes…yes ma’am.’

  God – if you’re reading this – hear my prayer, you sick, motherfucking monster. You fucking awful piece of shit. Why didn’t you protect her? She’s just a child, for fuck’s sake, you cowardly, egotistical motherfucker. Fuck you, God.

  Dani leaves her little sister’s home. On her way outside she sees the blue and red flashing. Typical. But no – not police here. Ambulance, over at the neighbours. Dani pushes Snow White around the corner and spies an old black couple in distress, blankets around their shoulders, paramedics by their side. Something heavy wheeled outside under the privacy matte of a sheet. Jesus, what a huge sheet – that corpse is enormous. Who’s that? Maybe just another nigga OD’d on smack or crack or whatever black people call their drugs. Maybe someone who was tired of fighting his own demons and perversions and decided it was time to end it all with a sleety razor through the Brachial. Someone who found no answer, no comfort and no kindness to help guide them. Someone who could have used the hand of a young girl to save him. But the woman will never know – to Dani, he’s just another ghost.

  On her way to Bax’s old club, Dani stops by the ice creamery and looks inside at all the happy people eating happy foods. A little poster marks one of the windows, showing a young Chinese girl with a beautiful smile, standing beside a sister that loves her very much. The poster informs us that the girl is missing and to contact the police immediately with more information in return for a substantial reward. Huh. Dani could certainly use that money. Maybe she should track her down. Snow White’s had better days and she’s having to downsize her apartment too – maybe into a one-point-five roomer like the public housing blocks…

  The Magic Carpet Ride is closed now. Saturday was their last shift on account of Bax being dead and nobody wanting to fill his enormous shoes after those horrible two months, or take over his criminal trafficking obligations, the fine balance between serving law and serving evil, making friends with the police, the council, while sourcing more girls. Saturday was the swan song. Really. Janelle’s final day of work. But of course there’d be more brothels opening in the wake of Carpet’s death. Try telling that to the minders with their young girls playing outside the front, though. There’s Treasure teaming with Frankie on a game of Candy Crush. No old highscore to beat. Dani sits down beside Madia on the front step and the two talk:

  ‘Found another place to work?’

  Madia shakes her head. ‘Only place nearby with a child license is Front Door. They’re full up for now. Owner can’t take us all. Back Door is an option but I’d sooner drink rat poison. I’d be better going solo, but the girls need work too. They can’t work unless they’re registered to a club cos, you know, you need a friend to convince a tight-ass council member.’

  ‘We should have taken over from Bax.’

  Madia lights up a cig and offers Dani one, who obliges and leans into the zippo flame. Dani continues, ‘At least we’d have somewhere to work and see each other. At best, we’d have a home. Good pay, good work, good healthcare…’

  ‘Bax needed an army to keep him afloat. Ain’t nobody alive with those kinda connections.’

  ‘Guess you’re right. What are you going to do with the girls?’

  Madia shrugs but says, ‘Streetwalk for a couple until we can get in at the Front Door.’

  Dani looks down at the girls; Frankie’s just won her game of Crush and is busy rubbing Treasure’s nose into the victory. Treasure swears at her and Frankie punches the little bitch right back before she coughs, bubolic, and spits on the ground beside them. How long will she survive, really…how long will any of them survive? And not just these girls, but the girls of the future who relied on such evil work in such a good place like the Carpet? Like the girl Dani’s never met: a girl folding paper on her bed while Dad helps her make beautiful shapes in the low light of their house. Folding and folding together. Trying to block out the screams from next door…Father trying not to think about how much a plumbing license costs, daughter trying not to worry about her father, father trying not to think about how much his daughter’s little body is worth. Look, Daddy, here’s a paper bear catching salmon from a lake!

  Dani cycles to China. She leaves Snow White in the carpark and doesn’t bother to secure the front wheel. Taking her leathers off and using them as a towel, the woman sits and stares into the ocean. Ain’t nothing quite like watching the Pacific swallow God. Fuck you, God. Giver of light and life. Provider for all who seek answers.

  Someone once told Daniela that each event in her life is a little chip in the whitewash that covers the truth. What happens if the truth is so horrible that it snuffs out all possibility
of hope? Dani doesn’t know. But that is reality.

  Janelle takes a seat beside Dani on the woman’s jacket and the two lean into each other. White dress with that golden hair and hat. Brown eyes all moist. She’s a marvel. As the sun dies, Dani whispers to her friend, ‘I’m so sorry for what I’ve done to you.’

  And the girl replies, ‘You did only what you thought was right. I lived a good life with you. You taught me to use my words. You taught me to be better and try at school. You taught me to love what I love, like dancing. I’d have never tried it without you. Without you, I wouldn’t have lived. You showed me that I could be better by being entirely me.’

  ‘Can you forgive me?’

  ‘Of course I can, big sis.’ Janelle kisses Dani on the cheek and says, ‘I love you.’

  I, and love, and you, sweet little sister, baby Janelle, carried to heaven in the wings of two beautiful birds: hope and despair. Sisters. Partners. Lovers. Two creatures so different and yet fundamentally the same. For they are both born from our wishes and desires and actions – one ends as the other begins. And so, which one will grow? Which crane will succeed while the other withers? Remember, only one twin can survive. Perhaps one of the birds will attack the other and gouge out her throat.

  Or are the sisters bound and intertwined: inseparable? Wherever you go, I follow…

  Up above, Dani spies two grey cranes circling in the sky. Like a moving halo, they orbit each other. Up and up they rise, closer and closer to the sun, until they are Nowhere at all…

  Oh, sweet girl. Janelle. Can we ever separate hope from despair?

  Janelle leans in and asks her big sister, ‘So, what will you do now, Dani?’

  Story 6:

  Author Afterword

  It took me just over three years to realise that the monster in Hope, Despair: Nowhere [former title] was actually me. With my bare hands, I ripped out the voice of a young African American girl and cast her identity aside. With my opal teeth, I cut her soul in two. Her life and body I bastardised and abused. From the basic elements of ‘her’ I forged a narrative that is entirely toxic in its hopeless portrayal of what a future America will look like.

  I first saw Janelle back in 2015 as a flash before my eyes. I saw a girl falling through an LSD nightmare with her throat torn wide open. Her blonde hair trailed and danced behind her in the inky, dark world of that monster’s lair. Instead of letting Janelle fade away into synaptic memory, I took her image and crafted HDN. One April of feverish writing and three years of self-doubt later…here we are.

  HDN is a racist story and, therefore, I am racist too. This realisation destroyed my precious little ego. I always thought I was a good person, a typical liberal, someone who donated to charity and fought for minority rights. Ticking all the boxes. Signalling all the virtues. To discover that my attitudes and ways of thinking were wrong — that they weren’t aligned with proper morality — was heartbreaking. But if writing truly does come from the heart, what does HDN say about my heart? Can I really be that evil? After all, we are the protagonists in our own stories, aren’t we. Sometimes, we are the narrator too.

  Even allowing myself to wallow in that sort of admission is shallow given the true face of evil that other people must bear with and fight against on a day to day basis. I am so very lucky that I will never experience anything remotely close to what Janelle went through. I am so very lucky that I live comfortably, away from the jaws of systemic classism and overt racism. My discomfort is paradise. See, aren’t I wonderfully woke, being pathetically self-reflexive of my privilege? It’s nauseating, isn’t it —the whole ‘falling on my sword’ mea culpa.

  I don’t matter. I don’t have a real name, and I don’t intend to accept any massive profit from this story [see the copyright page for details]. But if I erase myself from HDN, does that absolve me from taking responsibility for the content of the story? I don’t think so. I expect good criticism to come. I apologise unreservedly and deeply for the pain this story will cause and for the dehumanisation it renders onto already vulnerable people.

  We come to a question now. A simple one: why am I still publishing HDN? Seems like a hollow flavour of apology when you follow it up with ‘but I’d do it again.’

  The answer, I think, is this:

  Blaxploitation

  An alternate ending for Hope, Despair: Nowhere, written by “Lilly Hara”.

  >Penultimate chapter of Story 5:

  >Janelle confronts Mirror outside the Magic Carpet Ride.

  >Mirror gives her side of the story, detailing the violent abuse she has rendered to fix the systemic problems in her life. Very touching.

  >Janelle overpowers Mirror with the strength of her conviction, using her original voice to syphon away Mirror’s power. Very touching. Very powerful and life-affirming.

  >Mirror drops her 9mm to the ground, collapses, cries.

  >Janelle forgives Mirror for her sins and merges their realities together into a ‘new, wonderful world’.

  >New reality: Hugo overcomes his innate perversion and their team win the Osu regionals, Yi-Ti returns home, Janelle walks away from the brothel because her mother {won the lottery / worked very hard like every good American should / finds a new job}.

  >Dani and Baxter go to jail for child sex trafficking.

  >Michigan outlaws child brothels. Eastern America follows suit.

  >East and West America reunify.

  >Janelle stands in front of her bedroom mirror at night and takes a fist full of her white girl poison. She chops it all off to a short, spunky do, notices her roots are slowly growing back to her normal colour. End.

  >[Movie Adaptation note: Don’t Touch My Hair by Solange plays as Janelle smiles to herself. Closing credits roll.]

  >America is fine. Nothing is wrong. People just need to ‘lift themselves’ out of bad situations and bad systems. Right, Kanye? People just need to undo fundamental, pervasive racism and the whole country will repair itself. Right?

  >Author publishes story on Amazon.

  >HDN goes viral on a wave of white people frothing over an opportunity to show how progressive they are for reading and empathising with the POC themes.

  >Author makes back the cost of the story and profits from the exploitation of {African American / POC} suffering.

  >Author donates nothing to charity.

  >Author gets an offer from {a major publishing house / a New York literary agency populated by white middle-aged women, one token unpaid POC intern and one man, who is their boss}.

  >Author receives the following email: “We at {$New_York_literary_agency} love love love #diversebooks and feel that HDN will be right at home in our catalogue.”

  >Author secures a three-book deal (hello, unnecessary sequel, unnecessary prequel) and receives an enormous advance from new publishers.

  >Author donates nothing to charity.

  >Book republished under the Orbit label.

  >The John Green quote on the back cover seals the deal. It reads: “Challenging…powerful, a testimony to the enduring spirit of womankind.”

  >Book wins minor US publishing award with 10K prize money.

  >Author donates nothing to charity.

  >Netflix acquires Film and TV rights for an undisclosed sum. Coming soon, maybe fall 2021. A Chinese director with state ties is brought on board for obvious reasons.

  >Author buys a Fijian island.

  >Author conducts a series of cryptic interviews with Vox, Buzzfeed, Vice, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, WaPo and the Guardian, giving scant detail about personal life.

  >Several bloggers and reviewers begin to question the racist content of the story.

  >Author writes a series of response tweets claiming the story is meta-fiction, thus absolving the author of all social responsibility.

  >Example: “American readers have overlooked the fact that HDN focuses on the downfall of America and instead obsess over the racial elements within the narrative. Please read with your eyes open.”

 
>Example: “The use of racial slurs serves as intentional dehumanisation. Crucially, the disproportionate focus by various groups on these admittedly horrible words distracts from the point. America is dying, but it can be saved if we focus our attention on…”

  >(This is called the “not as bad as” fallacy, where people try to minimise the moral wrong of action A by claiming that action B is worse, thus absolving themselves from doing A).

  >Several bloggers object to the author’s crass and lazy attempt to assuage guilt by claiming the story as meta-fiction.

  >A few commentators question the character of Hugo, suggesting the author may be projecting their insecurities/thought processes.

  >A few commentators question the characters of Yi-Ting and Una, suggesting that Lilly Hara is writing outside of her racial lane and lacks an appreciation of the intricacies of minority groups living in the US.

  >A few commentators question whether the author consciously stole the Crane/Taiwanese imagery and parental death theme from Emily Pan’s The Astonishing Color of After (published March 20, 2018).

  >A few commentators criticise the author’s shallow and base-level handling of Janelle’s rape, claiming that the trauma is used as a convenience vehicle for character development.

  >In response, the author writes a series of incomprehensible tweets and makes a too-late-the-damage-is-done donation to a popular charity.

  >Author identity is then probed. Turns out Lilly Hara isn’t American. Turns out Lilly Hara is actually Lilly Haraden is actually Lilly Henderson is actually an Australian white male who hasn’t set foot in the US since 1999.

  >The tide of public opinion rapidly shifts.

  >Buzzfeed: “HDN is abhorrently racist, feeding off the worst preconceptions that white systematic oppression has bred into the entitled mind of the author.”

  >Vox: “What’s more egregious than the racial slurs is the fact that the author has effectively stolen and pimped out the voice of black Americans for his own profit. This is – to put it bluntly – modern Blaxploitation by a nefarious Culture Vulture.”