Drawn Hope

My pencil sits, poised, ready, just above the page. I let it hover there for a moment, pondering my subject. Slowly I build up the courage to mark the virgin paper. Its quick, but there it is, I’ve started. It looks lonely, so I don’t allow it to linger there for long without companions. Swiftly the individual strokes form a circle. Its not perfect, but I don’t care, that’s not what matters.

Wit a few more strokes, the circle is a face, tiny on the page. I toy with the face in my mind, hundreds of permutations rushing through my head until out of the blackness of my subconscious a decision surfaces. Yes, this would be good. Within seconds my pencil makes its way down the paper. Behind it, the graphite nib leaves a curved slender frame. It’s still so very small, but it’s got some identity. It’s no longer an it. It’s a ‘her’.

I decide to take a back seat, and let her develop herself. It would be slow, but… Here she comes… I jot down a few more long lines, her hair now comes down to her waist. She has a pair of large open eyes. I think you’re going to need them, you’ve got a whole world to see. From her face, a nose emerges, small but definitely there. I draw another line, and she’s scowling at me.

This won’t do.

I flip the pencil over and wipe the grimace from her face, and give her a grin as compensation. That’s better. If you’re going to survive you need to be able to smile.

Her body however is looking rather neglected. Lets see. Who are you going to be? A warrior? No, no-one starts as a warrior, you wouldn’t have a reason to fight. Besides, your too young. How about something smart? A pair of nice trousers and a blouse. I sketch it in with lightning speed, just lightly, she might not like it. No? No, its too formal. Hmm. How about jeans and a tee shirt? With a quick show of pencil acrobatics, the trousers are jeans, and the blouse a tee shirt with a slogan across it, ‘ph3ar th3 cut3 on3s’. OK, I stole that, so I can’t use it. Besides that hair, the lovely flowing river of light pencil cries for better use. I up end my pencil yet again and once more she is but face and skeleton.

Fine then. What do you want to wear, I’m obviously not good enough to decide for you.

But of course.

Simplicity is beauty, so here we go. It only takes a few strokes, ans she’s wearing a simple dress. As per her want, the hem sits at her shins, the shimmering material wavering in the native wind of my paper. It only has short sleeves, but she’s warm enough. I flesh out her skeleton, the pencil dancing to its own beat. Before me her arms, hands, legs and feet all form themselves in the flurry of scratching. There she is. But you don’t have a name. You need a name hun.

I try to think of something, but I am pre-empted. She grabs hold of the pencil and throws it across the page. By the time she’s done the word ‘Hope’ is spelt out in neatly swirling letters. Okay. So you’re Hope.

But hope needs somewhere to live now. A home. I try to draw a forest, but before I’m finished it’s a cliff. High on its top, I allow my pencil to jot down a small house. It doesn’t seem fitting for someone as important as Hope, but then, you could find her in the most surprising places. She agrees though, this is her home. But there’s something missing. In this world you have to be colour blind. I place the pencil down and heft my flesh marker into place. I daub her face, as if taking a cloth to it, revealing the real Hope underneath. My Grampa had done it so many times to me, he called it a ‘Grampa surprise’, so I suppose this is a ‘Fish Surprise’. That sounds like a bit of food though.

No I don’t think I should hide from Hope behind a nickname. Hi Hope, I’m Andrew, and this is an Andrew surprise. She smiles back at me, but that quickly fades as she sees that she is now the only thing in the world with colour. I draw my yellow marker and pull it down her hair like a brush, bringing it to life. I switch to a sky blue and dye her dress. Finally I take up the grey marker and fill in those big eyes.

But you’re right. Its sad just to have you filled in. lets do your house. I switch back to my flesh marker and wash over the roof of the small cottage. Hope is watching, curious. I click the lid back on, but don’t bother putting it back. I fetch my red marker and draw it across the top, just lightly mind, building up the colour to a bright terracotta. The house has been faced, so its a kind of white, but in the dark corners its showing its age, so I switch again to my yellow marker and pull it lightly through shadowed surfaces of the walls, giving it some age. I grab my green marker and over paint down one corner of the house, across its front, then up and over the door frame. Quickly before it dries I dab the ivy so it stands out against the white wall. Suddenly I notice that Hope is looking ponderously at the door. So she’s taking an interest. That’s good. I switch to a brown marker and go to pen in on the door, but she shoves the nib away. Not brown? What then? She seems to like the ivy. I take out my black marker, but there is resistance as I try to put it to page. Trust me, I know what I’m doing. I barely allow the marker to touch the paper, even then I still don’t cover the whole thing. I allow it to dry then bring back the green pen and go over the whole door.

See? A nice deep green. In a heartbeat she dives into her home, out of sight. While she’s taking a look around, what about a garden? It would have to be a decent size. I switch back to my pencil and draw a line a little ways out from the house. I don’t like it. It would make the garden too small. I leave that line where it is and draw another double the distance away.

Swiftly I erect a picket fence around the house and begin to fill it with herbs and flowers. Some heather here, a cherry tree there, hmm, how about a bird bath here as well. I’ve come full circle and come back to the line I started with. Its not right. Half of me wants to rub it out, the other wants to find out what it could be. I decide to colour the rest of the garden first though. Hope wouldn’t be pleased to walk into a black and white garden. My page is a flurry of activity, vibrant purples and reds trade places happily with warm browns and floods of green. But I cant get away from this one stick. It stubbornly points skywards. I allow my pencil to flick some curves its way, allowing it to reach that little higher towards the white sky.

Hope emerges from her house, she now has a wide brimmed sun hat, and starts to wander around the garden, finding all the little features I put in. There’s a little bench under the cherry tree, the blossoms falling on an ornate paved floor. The scent of the Lavender fills the air, and Hope seems to like it. I’m suddenly aware that in all this wandering, my hand has finished its activity, and the stick has become a solitary black rose. I go to erase it, but Hope arrives before I have a chance. I don’t dare go anywhere near it, I might hurt hope. Come on girl, get away from it, let me get rid of it. She looks at me, disapproving. I admit its a nice looking rose, but it gives me the creeps. It’s also very close to the edge of that cliff, so don’t get any closer. Why did you choose a cliff to live on anyway? She bends down and takes a deep sniff at the flower. She seems to pause, not even making a judgement. Her eyes glaze over, and she collapses. Damn! I knew it wasn’t good. She slumps to the side, but the wrong one, suddenly she’s falling from the cliff, down and down, crap, gotta do something, but what, but what? I cant just make a ledge, it’d break her, a hand maybe, something that’ll give a little. As fast as I can I try to draw an out-stretched hand, but its no good, I get but a couple of strokes out before she’s past it. What’s at the bottom? I haven’t drawn it yet. Damn. With three deft strokes the floor of the valley becomes ocean, deep without anything for Hope to catch herself on. Like a dart Hope drops into the water. But she’s not coming up, she’s not moving. Cant just sit here. My pencil scratches furiously across the page and soon some driftwood rises from the depths to carry her to the surface.

Is she alive?

Yes.

But the current is treacherous. Where is it going? I haven’t drawn that either yet. Keeping one eye on that sheet of paper I pull another free, and quickly draw a rough circle. Hope’s house is on the south east corner of the island. There’s no time to draw in the island but I quickly map our the currents surrounding it. It’s odd, some of the currents seem to come from nowhere, and disappear out to the west. The island is only taking up half the page, there’s another one, out here. My pencil goes into a frenzy, first making an outline then filling its coast with cliffs and beaches. But where is Hope?

There she is, on that beach, but she’s on the wrong island. Deftly I tear a new page free and begin to draw. The driftwood seems to have done the job, she’s alive. Poor thing is sodden through though, the waves still rolling up to her waist. I let her rest for a moment while I fill in the rest of the beach. Its a bleak affair, the black pebbles filling most of the space with jagged slippery spikes forming the backdrop before a sheer cliff face stretches away high above. It reminds me of an Italian beach, the volcanic rock then had been a novelty, but here it feels forbidding and cold. I look back to see Hope has managed to roll over onto her back. She’s blinking up at the white overcast page. I swiftly outline a square and fill it in with a woolly texture and colour it a deep green, but the towel falls uselessly into the water, too far out of perspective.

That’s not right, I should be able to help her.

She stands, but the hard rock is sore on her feet so she hobbles her way out of the water. I draw a pair of sturdy boots, but she reaches down to pick them up, and she seems disappointed. She flips them over and shows me that they’re just cardboard cut-outs. Maybe if I could just draw some string. No it’d probably tun into something nasty. I don’t think I can help from here. Hope walks her way slowly up the beach to the cliff. It seems that part of the cliff is an optical illusion, and Hope begins to climb the hidden staircase.

There’s something at the top of the cliff, at the far end of the stairs, Hope looks up, but I manage to only get a few strokes down before its gone again. Damn.

She keeps climbing and I’m forced to rip a new page free. All I can do Is watch her from here, but I cant just abandon her. She reaches the top of the staircase and my pencil scans across the page. Finally I found some detail off in the distance and fill in what I can. There is absolutely nothing close by, its desolate. I draw out my flesh coloured marker and fill in most of the ground, then go over it lightly in yellow, making the kind of sandy earth that spreads out in front of hope. I switch to my black marker and begin to drag it heavily in swift downward strokes. These are what should be trees, but the forest is either burnt or burning. Hope’s hands are clasped to her mouth in shock. In the centre of the picture however there is a figure shaped hole. I reach over to it, but find it difficult to fill it in. I cant do it, I cant see who it is. Hope grabs hold of the nib of the pencil and using long sweeping lines shows me what she sees, its a cloaked figure, no, not even, there are no feet, no hands, no face, its just a cloak. Hope opens her mouth, she’s speaking to the cloak.

But I can’t hear her.

A speech bubble, that’ll do it!

Quickly I draw a circle and it fills with text in ink from my ballpoint pen.

“Who are you?”

I draw another bubble above the cloak, but it remains empty.

I go back to Hope’s bubble.

“I just need to get home, can you help me?”

The cloak turns and hovers away from the cliff and the burning forest. I don’t like this Hope. I don’t like this one bit.

She stood, her hands on her hips.

You’re going anyway aren’t you?

She strides after him. I already know I’m going to need another sheet so I have it ready for when she disappears as a dot from my page.

My pencil throws down a wide arc across the paper, and the cloak comes to rest for a moment at its edge. The cloak then descends the sloping hill to its right, hastily outlined in pencil as he goes so I can see what it’s doing. Hope goes to the edge, but stops and stares down. The cloak seems to have paused, so I allow my pencil to track across and fill in the hills at the other side of the valley. I try to draw the valley floor, but I can’t. About halfway up the hills on either side, the image stops. I bring out my grey marker and sweep across it in long wispy strokes. I then fill in the gaps with light strokes of my purple marker. The whole valley is engulfed in a thick smog. Hope tears herself away from the edge and follows the cloak down into the purple clouds. I reach for another sheet, but the meagre pile I’d started with is now exhausted so hastily I dive into my drawer and grab a wedge and dump it on my desk. I check my wrist and its already gone twelve, but I’ve already decided. I’m not going to give up on you, not if it takes all night. I got you into this mess, I’ll get you out.

I put down a grey, purple wash and begin to sketch the walls of a house in the gloom. The smog is oppressive, I can barely make out Hope, still following her floating guide. They turn a corner and I’m forced onto a new page, but when I get there the cloak has vanished, and its a dead end ally. The alley is surrounded by the whitewashed facings of the houses either side. The wall at the back looks the same, but there doesn’t seem to be a house behind it and it’s far to high to climb. We’re lost Hope. Told you it was a bad idea. My pencil is drawn to the shadow that is draped over the corner of the alley. I have to concentrate really hard to pick it out, but Hope is already backing away from it so whatever is there it isn’t friendly. A figure steps out of the deep black, and into the half light of the fog. I switch to my black marker and scrawl in the squared off shoulders and tall top hat. Hope is trying to talk to it, I swiftly outline a speech bubble.

“sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you… I’ll just leave you in peace…”

She turns to go, but then suddenly she cant move. Did I miss something? I concentrate, and I realise that I’ve actually been too slow to catch the action, the figure has stepped out now and Hope is bound with thick ropes. It takes a few seconds for me to pencil this all in, but then I’m behind again, and Hope is on the floor, the figure hanging over her, taunting her. I draw him a speech bubble, its like I’ve just managed to get the microphone in front of him. Crap I’ve already missed half of it.

“…dress. So pretty, so pretty. Sell it I could, but no. That’s not me, I know who it is, but its not me. No, I can see you, squirm, struggle, mmmmm. Yes.”

“let go of me! I just want to go home! Please let go!

“no, no, no, no, not now I have you. You’ll be mine. Belong to me. I love to see you like this. Maybe I could see you dance. See you run, and cry.”

the figure bends down and runs his face up her body, sniffing as he goes, over her ankles, up her shins over her thighs, past her waist up to her neck. She recoils away.

“maybe, even get to see all of you.”

piece of filth. With all the pace I can imagine I draw various weapons to destroy this parasite, but they all fail. The swords are made of foam, the guns shoot sucker pad arrows, the 100 ton weight is full of helium and blows away. The figure draws her to her feet, but she struggles free of his grasp and runs. He grabs hold of the trailing rope, and she almost falls flat on her back, but she manages to stay upright. With frenzied strength he draws her closer and closer. She’s trying so hard to get free. The scissors I draw are blunt, the knife is rubber, the fire suffocates in the smog, I can’t cut the damn rope! Suddenly they’re face to face, his toxic breath making Hope gag.

He’s speaking, right, the speech bubble.

“if I cant have you”

Hope twitches. What? Hope twitches? Quick, he’s talking again.

“then no-one will.”

She leans against the wall. What’s wrong hope! What’s going on! There’s something near her stomach. My pencil darts around, but then to my horror I find its not near her stomach, its in it. I pause for a second. Gingerly I pick up my red marker. The knife is only small, but its still a knife. The red traces its way in a circle, staining the blue dress. Even with the blue, it doesn’t turn purple, there’s just too much red. It seems to drip down to the pavement. She slumps down, leaning her back against the wall.

No. I cant let this happen. Everything I draw over here just turns to crap. Got to do something.

Her eyes close. No Hope, don’t sleep, stay with me.

Fine if I cant do it here, I’ll do it from the other island. I gently tease the page fee and set it to one side. Working as quickly as I can I begin to draw another figure. I know who I need. I’ve drawn him before. I glance across, to the other page, she still breathing.

Within a few seconds I’m finishing off the deep red background to Courage’s kimono. The white cherry blossom on his chest is in stark contrast to the rest of his clothing. The long curved sword he always carries is by his side.

I peek back at Hope, she’s still there, still living.

Courage, I need your help, she’s across the water, they’ve got her! You need to and get her back!

He raises an eyebrow at me and opens his mouth to speak. Ah, yes a speech bubble. I quickly draw the circle.

“Calm down sir. Who is it, and why are they over there.”

Its one of ours, her name is Hope, she’s new to the island. You need to go quick, she’s hurt, the bastards over there have stabbed her. If you go and get her, we can get her healed, she’ll be fine, but I cant do a damn thing for her.

I look across at the other page, but I cant see her.

No.

The lines that made up her dress, her hair, her face, they’re all there, but its just a collection of lines.

Hope?

She’s still.

Come on, you’ve got to be there somewhere. I childishly place my hand on the page, as if to nudge her, to wake her.

There’s too much red. I haven’t drawn it in, but I don’t need to. Its pooled around her.

My hand is trembling, I can’t draw any more. I should have erased that line when I had the chance. Now there’s nothing I can do. No, there is something.

I turn back to Courage.

Burn it down. Burn them all down.

My hand is oddly calm as it traces the words that he tells me.

“I do not burn islands. I go where I must, I am a warrior, not a murderer.”

So I am betrayed. Without Courage’s support my hand trembles again.

You can at least bring her body back for me. She belongs over here.

“That I can do. Will you provide a ship?”