The Girl Who Sold Hope.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer, a poet, an artist, anything that could craft worlds and get my ideas down on paper. I had no idea what form it would take, all I knew is I wanted to do something creative, to produce something that could make people feel better, even for a moment. Because when things seem darkest, I think a glimmer of hope is the most important thing in the world.<br><br>And then it all unravelled. I was lost, soulless, and without words for the first time in my life. We were gifted the ultimate form of despair, and I didn’t know how to cope. All I knew was I wanted to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to be a child again, dreaming of the endless possibilities of what I could achieve.<br><br>I never found my way back, and I started to think I never would.<br><br>I was losing everything and everyone I loved. Most of all, myself. I had no idea who I was anymore. What made me who I was now made me miserable, and I didn’t know how to fix it. <br><br>I decided to take a step back from everything, everyone. I ended up living alone in a flat not far from a park. I hadn’t written a thing for years by that point. My aim was to learn to live with myself. Every night I would walk in the park, even when it rained, and I would just let my thoughts wander.<br><br>Days turned into weeks, and those weeks turned into months. I grew more and more comfortable with myself, with the silence. But one day, as I was walking through the park, I saw a young girl sitting on a bench. She could have been about 12 or 13 years old. She had a sketchbook and a pencil, and she was scribbling furiously.<br><br>I stood and watched her, and I could see the pencil shaking in her hand. I could see tears running down her face. She was trying to draw something, but whatever it was, it had been erased. Over and over again, she tried and failed to fill the blank space with anything.<br><br>I felt a lump form in my throat as tears began to grow in my eyes. I could see myself in her. I knew how it felt to have a dream, to have a vision, and for it to be cruelly snatched away. I knew how it felt to lose hope and not know how to get it back. I knew how it felt to be lost, to not know what to do, to not know how to help myself, let alone anyone else.<br><br>As I watched her cry, something inside of me snapped. I didn’t know what to say to her, how to comfort her, but I knew I had to do something.<br><br>I coughed to clear my throat. She looked up at me, startled, and scared. The pencil shook so much in her hand I thought it might break. She opened her mouth to speak, but I stopped her. <br><br>“Do you like riddles?” I asked.<br><br>She looked at me strangely, before slowly nodding.<br><br>“Okay, then. Well, I’m going to tell you a riddle, and if you answer correctly, you will get the answer you are looking for.” She looked at me suspiciously, but she nodded again. I smiled and began.<br><br>“What can be broken, but never held? What can be given, but never sold?”<br><br>She looked at me dumbfounded. She opened her mouth to ask what it was, but she shook her head and she thought. She closed her eyes, and opened them. She shook her head again. I could see the frustration growing on her face. She desperately wanted to know the answer to the riddle. <br><br>I sat down next to her and I gently took her hand in mine.<br><br>“What is it?” she asked me, defeated. <br><br>I smiled and I told her.<br><br>“The answer is a promise. A promise is something that can never be physically held in ones hands, but it is something that can be broken. A promise is something that cannot be bought or sold, only given.”<br><br>She thought for a moment, then she looked at me, confused.<br><br>“I didn’t ask you for a promise. I wanted to know how to get my dad back,” she said quietly, then she turned her head away from me and she started to cry again. <br><br>I was taken aback, I hadn’t expected her to say that. She could only have been about 12 or 13. What could she have done to lose her father? I shook my head. It didn’t matter, I told myself, I have to help her.<br><br>I held her hand in mine, and I looked into her eyes.<br><br>“I know you didn’t ask me for a promise, but I am going to make you one anyway. I am going to make you a promise that you will be happy again. You will learn one day how to live with what has happened to you. The truth is, if you want to be happy again, you need to do something for me.”<br><br>“What?” she asked, wiping her eyes.<br><br>“You need to do something for me, and that is all I am going to tell you. What you need to do is figure out what that thing is. If you do, happiness and hope will follow.”<br><br>I stood up and I walked away. I never saw the girl again.<br><br>For a few months after that, I went about my life as usual. I didn’t give what had happened much thought. I didn’t think I had helped the girl. Most likely, I had confused her. But then something unexpected happened.<br><br>The girl turned up at my door one night, holding a small book. She pushed it into my hands, and she smiled. She was no longer crying. She didn’t look quite so scared anymore. She looked different now. She looked happy. She opened her mouth to say something, and as she did, I saw something shiny in her mouth.<br><br>“How did you find my address?” I asked, surprised.<br><br>She pointed to a poker game that was being held in the bar down the street. She told me that one of the players was her uncle, and he had come home talking about the girl who sold hope. I laughed at that. She told me that she had been searching for me ever since that day in the park. <br><br>I asked her what she was doing with a metal thing in her mouth. She told me it was a tongue piercing. She told me that the reason she got it was because she was going to keep her promise, and not say a word to anyone until she had figured out what she needed to do.<br><br>“How did you figure it out?” I asked, dumbfounded.<br><br>“I read a lot. I read a lot of books, and I talked to a lot of people. I talked to a lot of people about you, about the promise you made me, and about the riddle you asked me. I discovered people didn’t know what a promise was, or how important it is. I learned people need to know what hope is, and how important it is. And I learned that you are the girl who sells hope.”<br><br>I laughed at that. She didn’t. She was serious.<br><br>“Figuring that out was easy. What wasn’t easy was figuring out how you do it. But I did.” She smiled and she handed me a piece of paper. <br><br>I took it, and I read it. I laughed, and I cried, and then I hugged her tight.<br><br>“How did you work it out?” I asked, choking back tears.<br><br>“You told me yourself when you told me the answer to your riddle. A promise cannot be held or sold. It can only be given. You are the girl who sells hope, but you don’t sell it. You give it. And you give it in the form of riddles. When you give a riddle, you are giving hope. That is how you do it.”<br><br>I didn’t think of it that way, but she was right. I gave her a riddle which gave her hope, and she in turn had given me more than I had ever given her. She didn’t just give me a book full of riddles, she gave me my life back.<br><br>I was the girl who sold hope. But I didn’t sell it. I gave it. And I gave it in the form of riddles.<br><br>I decided to spend my life creating riddles and giving them to people in need of hope. Some I wrote myself, some I found in books or I was given by friends. I carried them everywhere I went, and I gave them to people when I could see they needed it.<br><br>Over time, more and more people became my customers, and I was able to live off of the money they gave me. <br><br>As for the little girl, she grew up to be a great artist. But she kept her promise. She didn’t say a word about what I did until she had figured out how to do it herself.<br><br>And that brings us to here. To now, to you, to me. And to my riddle.<br><br>What can break, but never fall? What can hurt, but never bleed?<br><br>If you figure it out, and you want to know the answer, come and find me. I am not hard to find. <br><br>I am the girl who sells hope.<br><br>The Girl Who Sold Hope.