Can We Hope No More

• Sarah Hall, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2015

The dark, grey clouds hung low in the sky as a warning to those not to enter. The boat creaked with every step and leaked in corners where rusty pieces of metal, covered gaping holes and chipped, bleak wood, lined the ins and outs of the boat as hollow families shuffled on. The man who held our papers, checked something on his pad and nodded, before hoping off the boat and heading farther away down the wobbly jetty. My mother waved goodbye with a tear streaked face, as we floated across the water with nothing but hope.
Days were long, as the unforgiving sun shone down and burnt my skin. Families in corners shared the sparse supply of food and water and payed me no attention as I sat cold and hungry. The dark nights consumed me, as I prayed the darkness would not come for my broken and hungry soul.
The cold is what took most people. It dug deep into their skin in the night and they were left without breath or thought and the dead were thrown overboard and forgotten. I watched daily as one family was picked off one by one; first the youngest boy, the sun drained away his life and left his mother only hours behind him. During the next few days, the girl cradled by her father, cried herself to sleep before her energy was all gone and she did not bother to awaken. Then the father was all that remained in the corner of this sad, old, deteriorating boat. He sat lifeless without hope or care. It was easy to see that this boat was now filled with captives, hopeless and moribund.
I manage to make it by with the scraps of the forgotten ones, but I begged for rain, so that I could taste water once more.
Something changed in the lifeless man. The despair that shadowed his eyes, turned to hate and soon all emotion was gone. “I hope you make it,” the man sighed with saddened eyes, stood and chucked me a bottle. It was a quarter full of old, stale water, but I opened it without hesitation and rushed it into my mouth. The water slid down my throat, causing tears to spring to my eyes. I couldn't have been more grateful.
The man grabbed the rope and began tying one end to the back of the boat and another around his neck.
No one cared as cracked lips whispered, “I’m coming for you,” and he plunged into the water; a clear snap ringing in my ears…
The rope dragged his lifeless body along. It was hours before I crawled over and untied him.
‘You’re free now’ I thought, free from the boat’s captivity.
I had made it through what was to be my final night, when the sun sat bright in the sky; it was different though; the sun peaked on the horizon lively and there were signs of land in the distance.
‘Was this it’ anticipation growing.
‘Australia?’