Blind Hope (standard:fantasy, 3108 words)
Author: Peter Ebsworth	Added: Jan 01 2007	Views/Reads: 3427/2195	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A bereaved father decides to get his daughter back. Whatever the cost

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

face.' 

It took him a moment or two to sieve through the possible alternatives
to the inappropriate word that his daughter had used, which wasn't 
unusual during conversations with Katie. Then it came to him. 

‘That no one would need faith?' 

‘That's right,' she continued, unperturbed by the correction. ‘Because
everyone would know for sure that God was there because of all the 
miracles they got to see.' 

* 

Gradually, his overtaxed heart began steady and his breathing to slow.
Body heat bled into the cool, damp ground beneath him while he waited 
for the jagged pains in his shoulders and back to ease a little. 

This was madness, and in a detached, still logical part of his mind he
knew it. His little girl was dead. Digging up her coffin to get her out 
was insane. In a remote way, he realised that the shock had tipped him 
over the edge of a mental crevasse and that the only reason that he was 
still functioning was that he was still falling. He simply hadn't hit 
the ground yet. 

Over and over he had relived those moments when the monitor went
flat-line as he sat beside her bed. Rhythmic electronic pulses merging 
into a terrifying single, unending tone.  The green monitor light 
turning red, a distant alarm sounding at the nurses station, him 
dropping his astronomy magazine as he rose from the uncomfortable, 
moulded plastic seat to stand impotent beside the bed as the door burst 
open and the room filled with people and equipment. As he was bundled 
out of the room, the words spoken to him just noises, their meaning 
drowned by that constant nerve-jangling death note emanating from the 
monitor. Before the door swung to behind him, seeing the bed covers 
thrown back and Dolly Polly snatched from his daughter's limp embrace 
to be unceremoniously tossed away to land with her face pressed against 
the wheels of an oxygen trolley. 

Later, when the doctor had explained to him that her heart had simply
given out while her body's immune system was fighting the Meningitis, a 
chamber wall weakness that no one would have suspected, he had never 
questioned it. Never asked for a second opinion. It seemed that all his 
life, he had simply accepted as fact whatever he was told by the 
“experts”. But this was too big for that, maybe this man was wrong, he 
was only another man, only another fallible human being. 

At the funeral that afternoon, she hadn't looked dead. In a coma maybe,
she was very pale, but not dead. The service, the burial, the wake, it 
had all seemed like a waking dream. It was only after he was finally 
alone that the thought had come to him, what if they were wrong? 

People had been buried alive before, he'd heard about it. Pulse so slow
that it wasn't detected; breath so shallow that it didn't mist a 
mirror. Everyone had thought that those people were dead, but they 
weren't. Okay, so the monitor had gone flat-line but, in the end, it 
was only a box of electronics, maybe a duff receptor had shorted out. 

Once that worm of an idea had got into his brain, it burrowed so deep
that there was no getting it out. 

But now there was no more time for thinking, no more time for resting.
Any more thinking now would be a big mistake. If there is any chance 
that they were wrong, then she could be laying under there now, running 
out of air and desperate to get out. 

Jerking back up, he shuffled forward to lower himself back into grave,
the rocky earth spilling from the edge under his weight causing two 
more pain filled shovel loads to fall back into the hole. 

A cone of stark white light illuminated the haphazard ranks of
gravestones, blackening their shadows into slabs of night. Far behind 
them he could dimly see the black iron cemetery fence that marked the 
border between this land of the lost and the vibrant life and energy of 
the city beyond. Carefully, he realigned the halogen lamp that had got 
knocked askew as he had climbed out, training the powerful beam back 
down into the pit. 

He had dug down about three feet, so he imagined that he had about the
same to go. But this would be even harder work now, as he had to throw 
the heavy clay and rock ever higher to clear the lip of the hole. A 
quick look around at the deserted graveyard to check that his light had 
not attracted any unwanted attention and then he picked up his mud 
encrusted shovel and started to dig again. Each loaded scoop seemed 
heavier than the last as he plunged down the blade then gouged and 
twisted to throw it up onto the growing mound that surrounded the edge 
of the grave. Almost immediately, he broke back into a sweat and the 
pains in his shoulders and chest returned. Twenty years as an 
accountant by day and an astronomer by night, two decades of little 
exercise, a par chant for doughnuts and an addiction to cigarettes, had 
left him pathetically unfit. But he wouldn't stop again, not until she 
was out. 

Once his mind had closed down the option of stopping, he fell into a
rhythm of scoop, twist and toss; scoop, twist and toss...his body 
becoming one constant ache...the palms of his hands oozing fire. 
Progress was slow. Sometimes the mounting earth banks became too steep 
allowing a small, but soul-destroying tumble of stones and soil to 
cascade back in. 

After an unknowable period of physical pain and distracted anguish, the
steel edge of his shovel struck wood with a dull hollow sound that 
almost made him scream. Now that he was so close, a desperate panic 
seized him, making him dig frantically to clear the last couple of 
inches of earth from the lid of the small coffin. 

When most of the pale, white wood was exposed, he paused. What he needed
now was a miracle. He remembered once telling her that if he ever got 
to see a supernova flare in the heavens it would be a miracle. But now 
he needed a lot more than that. 

‘Please God, let me have her back,' he mumbled as he drove the blade
into the pencil line space between the moulded edge of the lid and the 
coffin base beneath. When it caught, he levered the shovel by bearing 
down on the handle with all his weight. With a loud tearing crack the 
lid came away from the right hand side of the base. Throwing the shovel 
up onto the earth mound above, he jammed a booted foot each side of the 
coffin and tore away the lid. 

She moved. 

It wasn't just the shifting shadows as his body blocked the lamp beam,
her head had definitely moved. 

He'd been right all along. 

* 

‘I think that Mrs Templeton is right about God performing lots of
miracles but they're not a secret because a lot of people get to see 
them,' he said, turning to where she sat in the canvas director's chair 
beside his own. ‘But God only does big miracles. With everyday things 
he leaves us to manage as best we can. Besides, little miracles would 
really only be tricks. God doesn't do “tricks.” 

‘Have you ever seen a big miracle, Daddy?' 

‘No, but many others have and I hope to one day,' he reached out to lay
his hand on the cool steel shell of his telescope. ‘Through this.' 

‘What big miracle might you see?' 

‘A Supernova.' 

Katie looked up at him, Dolly-Polly had now been successfully inserted
into her pink PJs with all ribbons and ties now sorted and secure, so 
he had her full attention. Nevertheless, her expectant expression had 
remained unchanged by his answer. 

Feeling foolish at expecting his young daughter to understand, he
nevertheless pressed on. ‘Every Supernova is a miracle on a cosmic...on 
a huge scale. It is when God causes a star to explode. When it 
explodes,' he swung his hands out wide as he spoke, ‘it gives birth to 
planets where people like us can one day live. Or sometimes, if the 
star is very big, it collapses into a tiny Singularity,' he pulled his 
thumb and forefinger close together, ‘which twists and alters space and 
time in ways we may never understand, but some believe unleashes forces 
so powerful that it creates a new universe somewhere else.' 

His daughter held his gaze for a heartbeat longer, then stood up holding
her doll snugly in one arm. 

‘So he can't make Dolly-Polly smile then?' 

* 

Impatiently, he jammed the oak lid behind him then shuffled closer,
bending towards her, but as his booted foot struck the side of the 
casket her body shifted again. Even blinded by hope, he could see that 
her body only moved when the casket moved. 

Any natural colour that he had remembered from earlier that afternoon
was bled away by the harsh light of the halogen torch. 

She lay still and white, her eyes hooded but not closed as if just
managing to stay awake. Long dark hair framed the gentle oval of her 
young face and spilled over slight shoulders to lie softly on her 
narrow chest. His rough handling of the coffin had caused her head to 
tilt over to the left in a parody of enquiry. 

What are you doing here Daddy? 

Emotionally deadened, he stared down at his daughter feeling helpless,
weak and lost. Then he noticed a dark patch on her left cheek about the 
size of a grape. Turning away for a moment, he stretched his hand up to 
the lip of the grave, just managing to grip the bottom of the lamp with 
his fingertips, lifting it down to shine it fully on her face. 

The patch appeared to have a hint of green within the black. Bending low
over the open casket, he reached down and rubbed his thumb gently over 
it. With a mounting horror, he scratched away at the fibrous growth to 
realise that it was mould. She'd only been down here a few hours and 
already mould was growing on his little girl's face. 

With sudden renewed urgency, he tossed the lamp aside and bending low
grabbed her under each arm to lift her clear of her wooden trap. 
Pinched nerve endings in his lower back demanded that he stop but he 
rode the pain to pull her up anyway, her head flopping backwards as if 
there were no longer any bones in her neck. It fell forward again, her 
chin cracking painfully against his left temple as he hoisted her slim 
body across his shoulder. 

He wasn't leaving her there. 

He didn't care if it was madness or not. No way was he letting her stay
in this place. He would never let her go back, now or ever. 

Turning to the side of the grave, he reached up with his remaining free
arm to grip the edge and tried to scramble out. The wet clay slipped 
under his fingers giving him no purchase. Vainly, he tried to ram the 
toe of his boot into the earth wall to give them a step up, but as soon 
as he applied any weight the toe of his boot simply slid down 
channelling a deep grove in the bank as it went. Frantically, he looked 
around him. In his attempts to climb out he had knocked the halogen 
lamp onto its side, inadvertently directing the beam onto the coffin 
lid still jammed against the bank behind him. 

Carefully, holding his daughter steady across his shoulder with his left
arm, he used his right to pull the slab of wood free, jamming one end 
inside the casket to create a short, steep ramp against the earth wall. 
Stepping onto the top gave him just enough height to reach a tussock 
close to the grave mouth into which he drove the fingers of his right 
hand deep enough to be gripping roots. Legs scrabbling wildly for 
purchase, he was able to slowly drag clear of the grave to spill once 
again onto the grass above. But this time not alone. 

Leaving her to lay on the ground for a moment, he struggled back to his
feet, then bent and lifted her limp body once again. Only this time she 
was cradled in his arms, her head slumped against his chest as if being 
carried of to bed after falling asleep in front of the TV. He took a 
couple of hesitant steps, vaguely in the direction of home and then 
stopped. 

That part of his mind that still clung to any reason, demanded to know
what he intended to do. Because it knew that there was nothing that he 
could do. Nowhere he could go. He was trying to escape reality, the 
fundamental truths of existence. There was no escape. 

Slowly, his exhausted legs gave out beneath him, dropping him to a
knelling position, head slumped over his child's body as it rested on 
his knees. 

Desperation swelled up inside him, erupting from his very soul, arcing
his back and raising his face towards the heavens. Above him, sharp 
needlepoints of light twinkled prettily in a void of ice-cold 
indifference. 

‘She doesn't have to be dead God! Even if her death is part of your
Great Design, you can change that design. Hear me Lord. Turn away from 
the miracle of new creation and repair a past one. Give her back to me. 
Break the rules, God...break the rules for her. Please...make an 
exception for my little girl.' 

Tears caused the stars to melt and blur as he cried his plea into the
empty night. But then one light bloomed much brighter than the others. 
Fiercely, he rubbed his filthy forearm across his eyes to clear them in 
time to see the entire Andromeda galaxy disappear behind the ferocity 
of a single, all enveloping flare. 

He had been given the miracle that he had always prayed for, to witness
a Supernova. 

But now he didn't care. 

Any remaining hope drained away as he ignored the exploding star to look
down at his daughter's face. The still strengthening light bleached her 
features, washing away any last vestige of the semblance of life in its 
bone-white glare. 

He closed his eyes in despair... 

* 

...snapping them back open when he heard the rhythmic electronic pulses
merging into a terrifying single, unending tone. Blinking in the bright 
light, of a Supernova? his confused mind suggested, he turned to look 
at the heart monitor to see that the green light had turned red, the 
tracer pulse following a flat steady trajectory across the screen. His 
astronomy magazine dropped to the blue tiled floor as he jumped up from 
the moulded plastic seat to stand beside the bed. 

Katie looked up at him with tired eyes but a mischievous smile. 

‘I thought that Dolly Polly should have a turn on my machine,' she said
quietly, pressing the blue rubber sensor pad onto the rag doll's soft 
body. 

As the door burst open and the room filled people and equipment, he
noticed that the pressure on the doll's chest tugged at the material of 
the face. 

Dolly-Polly was smiling. 


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