With Hope: A Fan Fiction of Something To Hitch Meat To

With Hope: An Alternative Fiction Story

Artho’s skin began to prickle. Not with fear, not with fever. With hope. He rushed outside the building, put his palm against its dull brick exterior. Clicked. The walls flushed red, then purple. Fluted columns started to sprout beside the doors, which were quickly changing from sliding glass and steel to intricately joined oak. With big knockers.  Artho giggled. Pretty damned tarty. He wondered if that had been the builder’s original dream for the building. He double-clicked. The building reversed to its usual form.

“You’re getting it.”

When he turned towards the voice, Artho wasn’t at all surprised to see the little girl. She was crouched down beside the steps, jam-jar glasses winking at him. Her hair knotted and unknotted itself.

“Can I change everything?” Artho asked.

“Course not, silly! Changing things isn’t your job. You’re not changing things; that’ll happen anyway. You’re helping them peel off the fake skins” (Hopkinson 849).

Artho’s skin began to prickle. This was a moment that he never thought he would get to meet. This girl must have been sent to him from the heavens. He thought about all the years he carried around this bitterness and animosity, how weighed down he felt.

“I don’t want it anymore” Artho cried.

“So let it go”.

                The sky grew into this thick layer of black. The ground shook and debris filled the air as the winds picked up and buildings swayed. Artho stood in disbelief as his skin began to bubble and peel. The hate was literally freeing itself from his physical body. All his heart ache and all his worries in the world were melting away. The skin made piles and piles and piles. First just one but then two, and three, and four and they continued. Tripled and quadrupled, all the way down the boulevard. As far as the eye could see.  These piles of crisp black pieces of skin formed around Artho’s feet until they picked him up. Swirling and tossing him around playfully in the air. The skies parted and the sun shined from behind him and he looked down at the girl. She smiled. It’s almost like these piles were trying to tell him something.

                “Go” the girl whispered to Artho.  

                So he ran. No, more like floated across these piles of skin. He laughed and danced through them, and after his foot left each one, they vanished from behind him. All his flaws and imperfections disappearing into thin air, never to be seen again. The start of something new.

Artho touched everything in sight, changing every dull and bland piece into bright and vibrant colors. He wanted the world to appear like how he felt. This indiscriminate little child had given him this breath of life and inspiration that he had been waiting on for years. How beautiful. He never wanted to come down from this. And so he fell off his high horse in the clouds and hit the ground running. And he ran and ran with such joy and liberty. He had to tell the world about his change. But in the midst of his excitement he stopped at a beautiful realization. She had helped him peel off his fake skins. This meant more than just being able to change physical characteristics of things. This meant that he could show the real him. Artho could be himself, the self he always wanted the people around him to see but couldn’t dare let free.  What this girl had done for him was more than give him superpowers. She had given him a second chance.             

Artho actually took pride in his appearance when he got dressed this morning. Waking up didn’t seem as “routine” as it did yesterday. No more going through the motions. The bus ride to work didn’t seem so agonizing and long, but instead he took an extra look at the flowers, looked out the window today and admired the sunshine for what it was.  It was time to start appreciating the small things.

Although his purpose for attending work today was not the same as it was yesterday, he still recited the same performance as he did every morning. Artho sat in computer chair, and opened up the files as though the editing process would begin. But instead, he deleted it. He opened up the next file, and deleted that one too. Every document deleted. Every program ever downloaded was deleted. Every porn video, every editing software gone. He had done what he came here intending on doing. There was no telling where Charlie was or how soon he would be coming back, but Artho wanted to be nowhere in sight when he came back around.

 He grabbed all the things out his desk, his coat and out the door Artho went. This would be the last time he would ever be seen in this building ever again. No goodbyes to his former co-workers, no one last glance to his desk. None of that. This job and what it stood for was behind him. What he did for a living was completely against everything he stood for now. He didn’t want to be responsible for hiding people behind fake edits anymore and even though the idea around it all was so ugly, it was what transpired such a wonderful new outlook for him. The world should know what it feels like to be free and from now on he promised himself no more walking around with his head down. Everything he would do from this point forward would be WITH HOPE. His mission was complete. He could sleep easy at night now knowing that the software that hid people’s true selves behind artificial revisions was lost in the cyber realm forever. With his things in his hands, Artho put his hat on and walked down the block. To moms for Easter it was.