The River Ván
They say Fenrir’s drool was called Hope. Not the hymn type, not what you whisper over a child’s forehead, but the foam that fights that bit in the jaw, that slick refusal to lie still, even after the prophecy has been cast.
Hope is not clean. It leaks. Stains the pillow and the inside of the mouth. It's the inadvertent twitch of a worm after it’s been cut in half. Even in death, the most wretched of creatures hold onto a reflex for life.
I noticed her first from her cane, a slender piece of oak propping up what the body couldn’t. _She had 6 months to live 20 years ago _ the husband whispered to me, as we sat quietly, politely, staring at magazines that we didn’t have the heart to read.
It’s as impossible as capturing the sound of a cat’s footfall, a woman’s beard, the roots of a mountain, bear’s sinew, fish’s breath, bird’s spittle. And isn’t that a little like hope too? Made up of things we swear don’t exist, but somehow hold us to the end.
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