HOPE FLOATS " Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul.

And sings the tune without words And never stops at all." This inexplicable word "hope," everybody has got his own brush to paint the word into differeht colours. The word hope is simple, crystalline yet abstruse. Hope is the only panacea for pain and suffering. Ask the significance of hope from a weary sailor trying to sight land, ask its significance from a man fighti ng a deadly disease and ask what it means to a prisoner looking through the jail window uopn the green pastures and spacious sky. There have been days when Hope has been my antagonist and moments when it has been my confidant.There have been days when i have been abandoned by it and times when it has reluctantly refused to leave my side. There were days when i pleaded God to grant me HOpe and make me understand its essence. One day my wish came true. SO once upon a time, i had a rendezvous with Hope. It was a night filled with abysmal darkness, as infernal as it could be.Even the sky then was portentous. The malignant masses of cloud shrouded the moon's face.The darkness flowed in my veins like blood. I lay in that murky corner like a corpse.With breath culminati ng in gasps, i waited for the inevitable.Doom. And she came-uninvited and swift. Cloaked in white , she had an aura of grandeur about her. Her existence filled my senses. As those lips carved into a smile, she held out her hand as if saying"hold me" Bewildered, i looked into those celestial windows, those eyes that were the gateway to her soul. In them, i saw a future- i saw peace.Utopia. It looked as if the light emanating from her had dispelled the dark. She , then offered me the elixir of Hope , so that i would always live in Hope. As i held that cup Of LIfe, her wings fluttered . All of a sudden , her wings started burning as the day dawned and human voices resonated the space.She winced as if in great pain. Her eyes opened. Terrorising . No, they looked terrorised themself. When she started disappearing, i begged her to stay.Those tear brimmed eyes and that deafening silence said it all. Hope eludes us for it shall not dwell in a tainted heart for it needs purity and virtue. As the race becomes devoid of these, Hope becomes a less frequent visitor. Infact , what we have in us are just remnants of hope. Hope is that eli xir which when u drink , there is no room for despondency.Hope is faith. Hope floats . And so to this day, i wait in that cavern of hopelessness hoping against hope that someday hope finds time to visit me again. and so i wait. Dead yet alive.