Chapter 1: Fool's Hope

Going out to get the mail was the only thing that David Hemming had to look forward to once a week. It was pretty much the only responsibility that was officially his, and was the only reason he had for not leaving this God forsaken boy’s orphanage and evading the clutches of the hag that ran the place, Ms. Proulx.

He always told himself: “This is the day, this is the day!” David did not even waste the time to put on his coat or his shoes if they weren’t on already. It didn’t matter that it was snowing in late fall and less than zero degrees outside. He made sure that nobody could lay their hands on the mail before him, even if it meant being harassed all day by Camille and his gang or doing all the chores that Ms. Proulx could think of. Over thirteen years had passed since his mother abandoned him on the front steps, but the fact that nothing bearing his name had ever come out of that rusty old box did not keep him from hoping that something would one day.

Unfortunately, today was just the same as any day in his life’s past: no letter. So David just did the same as always: he walked back looking like his spirit had just been carved to ribbons. However, this was not because he truly felt this way, but rather that he knew not to ever show a single spark of happiness. For if he did, then Camille would go to whatever possible extent to extinguishing that spark, and burning that letter he had been waiting for all these years was no exception.

“Still didn’t get that letter, huh,” Camille asked, as David was walking back inside. “What makes you think you’ll ever get it? Nobody gives a shit about you, let alone whether or not you get anything in the mail.” This caught the immediate attention of any orphan who could hear it.

Camille was just as old as David, but he was bigger and stronger than any of the other orphans, and liked to remind them of it. He had short dirty blonde hair, a freckled face, and blue eyes that could strike fear into nearly any kid that crossed his path.

The Girard twins, Addison and Ike, almost always followed him wherever he went. There was no way to tell the twins apart from their identical and thoughtless faces, which lead them to be confused for one another more than half the time. Their average length hair was brown, but when the light hit it just right you could swear that it glistened a dark red Neither one of them had half a brain, but they had twice the muscle that any of the other kids ever did, making them no less a threat.

The kids at the orphanage regretted noting more if they ever stood up to Camille and his gang, and never felt the courage to do so again. Except for David, who wasn’t afraid to show off the fact that he was, with out a doubt, the sharpest tool in the shead. Quickly and effortlessly humiliating Camille with witty and belittling comments was his favorite way to prove just how smart he was.

“Knowing that you’ve been here just as long as me, I’d have to say that nobody gives a shit about you either, let alone the fact that you couldn’t even read or write a letter,” said David, with obvious satisfaction. He was the only one who ever had the guts to say anything about Camille’s illiteracy, to his face or behind his back.

“Why would I even want to read or write,” asked Camille, “so I can be a book worm looser with no friends like you?”

"So you could be as smart as the average person," David answered. Now the three of them were really pissed off.

When Addison and Ike began to approach, looking as if they were about to rip David’s head off, Camille stopped them in their tracks before they could even lay a finger on him.

“You just gonna let him get away with that, Camille,” Ike asked

“No,” Camille answered, with much frustration, “I’m not.”

“Then let’s teach him a lesson and beat him till there’s nothing left,” said Addison.

“Not now. If we have a fight in the middle of the day and around others like this, then the rain will come down hard on all of us. Even he isn’t worth Ms. Proulx’s wrath,” Camille explained.

“Wow, Camille,” David exclaimed, “I would like to say that great minds think alike, but it would be cruel get your hopes up.”

“You just keep saying shit like that, David Hemming,” threatened Camille, “You’ll get yours soon enough.”

David wanted to keep on going and force Camille to his breaking point, but decided that he had had enough fun with him for the day.

Suddenly, David remembered what he was doing before he entered into a battle of wits with Camille. He quickly ran up to Ms. Proulx’s office to give her the weekly mail, so as not to keep the bitch waiting. He knocked on the door, only guessing what brutal labors she would give him for disturbing her.

“Who the hell is it,” asked Ms. Proulx, in an angry but exhausted voice. One could easily tell that when she decided a job that required her to do little more than sit around all day was a great idea, running an orphanage over an hour away from Churchill, Manitoba, Canada wasn’t exactly what she had in mind.

“It’s me miss,” answered David.

“What in God’s name do you want!?”

“I brought the mail, just the same as every Saturday.”

“Well… what are you waiting for, give it to me.”

He walked on into the office. Ms. Proulx was smoking a cigarette while playing some old American jazz on her stereo and watching some soap opera on the TV. They were the only electronic luxuries in the entire orphanage.

Ms. Proulx looked as if she was in her fifties, though she was more likely in her forties. Crow’s feet had already started to develop behind her cold and dark eyes, the number of grey hairs on her head had begun to grow in number and thickness, and her skin look like it was hanging off of her bones more and more every year. Her life style wasn’t particularly healthy: drinking before twelve o’clock in the afternoon, smoking at least two packs of cigarettes in less than a week, and sitting around nearly all day long.

David handed her the mail and stood their waiting for her to give him some kind of backbreaking labor to do that he wouldn’t enjoy. She looked at the mail, then at David, who kept his heart broken look just so that she would never guess the day he got his letter either.

Ms. Proulx removed the cigarette from her dry, wrinkly lips. “Go and clean all of the bathrooms,” She demanded, “and do a good job. I want to be able to eat off the floor and drink out of the sinks and toilets when you’re done.”

“Yes, ma’am,” David replied. He knew that if he said anything other than ‘yes, ma’am’ to any of Ms. Proulx’s demands, then she wouldn’t let him be the little mailman anymore. Even she knew how important it was to him.

“The stuff you need are in their normal spot,” she said.

David went to the utility closet next to her office. He took the rubber gloves, rag, mop, bucket, scrubbing sponge, drain cleaner, windex, and the can of Scrubbing Bubbles. There were three bathrooms: one with showers, one with the toilets and urinals, and the last was Mr. Proulx’s personal bathroom, which had a heater and the only bath in the entire building. She would always hog the hot water whenever she took a bath. David knew that it was going to take a very long time before he would be finished, so he did not hesitate to get started.

He started with the bathroom with the showers because, knowing that nobody was going to use them until that evening, giving him quite a bit of alone time. The amount of filth that had accumulated since he last cleaned just a few weeks ago didn’t surprise him by much; the orphanage was not very sanitary to begin with.

David decided to start easy and clean the mirrors and sinks first, which only took about half a minute each. The floor was just as easy, mop and dry every square tile on the floor, though it took much longer to finish. The showers were a different story all together: he had to scrub the hell out of every inch of scum that built up on the floors, walls, shower nozzle, and plastic curtains. By the time he had finish, his arms and shoulders felt like they had turned into rubber. Next stop was the bathroom with the toilets and urinals.

Again, David started with the sinks, mirrors, and floor so he could give his arms and shoulders a little break. The toilets and urinals weren’t as arduous as the showers, but they were still very gross. There was dried up pee all over the toilets and urinals, all thanks to some boys who couldn’t aim worth a damn. Streaks of crap were still in some of the bowls, and one of the toilets was clogged up with an unbelievably huge turd and a giant wad of toilet paper. But as usual, David endured the job he was given and left everything clean as a whistle. There was only one place left to clean.

Ms. Proulx’s personal bathroom had much less to clean, but he had to be extremely careful to put everything back where it was when he first walked in. David went in the same order as he did with the other bathrooms: first the mirror and sink, then the floor, and finally the toilet and bath. After many hours of nonstop labor, he was finally done.

As David began to walk out of the squeaky clean room, he saw his reflection in the mirror that covered the whole bathroom door. Looking into the mirror, he realized just how much he had changed over the years. His nearly pitch-black hair had gotten much thicker than it was not too long ago, his originally blue eyes had turned hazel green, and his skin was just a little darker. He even noticed some abnormally thick peach fuzz on his upper lip, which made him kind of proud.

He then suddenly realized that he was wasting precious time that he could spend reading or sketching. So he put everything back inside the utility closet and ran to the upstairs library, which was really just a room with four decently sized book shelves that were a little disorganized. David had read nearly all of the books. The only ones he had not read were those meant for the younger kids.

Sometimes, people would give Ms. Proulx their unwanted novels and children’s books when she would take the orphans on a bus to ‘help’ her get the groceries from Churchill every three weeks or so. The real reason that she took them along was so that somebody might, by some chance, take at least one of the brats off her hands. Unlucky for David, nobody wanted to adopt him. Even worse, this was obviously the case for Camille and the Girard twins as well.

As for sketching, he didn’t really have many things to use as a subject other than scenes, people and creatures in the books he read and what he could see right outside the orphanage. David took his sketchbook from behind one of the bookshelves, which was given to the orphanage along with a batch of other donated books. He kept it there because it was the one place that Camille would not look for anything.

While he was trying to thinking of a sketching subject, one of the younger orphans, Reese, noisily came into the room, blowing David’s concentration. Reese was of Native American decent and about three years younger than David.

“What are you doing,” asked Reese, looking over David’s shoulder.

“Drawing, just drawing.”

“Drawing… drawing what? Your pencil hasn’t even touched the paper yet.”

“That’s because I’m still trying to think of a subject that’s good enough to draw.”

“Do you want some help? I’m sure I could give you some ideas.”

Reese’s persistent questions were beginning to annoy David.

“No thanks.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want any help,” David snapped, “I can think of something on my own, that’s ‘why not’. So stop breathing down my neck and asking such stupid questions.”

Immediately after the final word left his mouth, David noticed that Reese’s dark brown eyes started to tear up. He realized that what he had said was uncalled for and extremely harsh, but Reese had already run out of the room crying before David could think of what to say in apology. He felt guilty, but decided that he would let Reese calm down and take care of it later.

David continued struggling to think of something to draw. Just as he was about to give up and put his sketchbook away, his eye caught a gray wolf on a snowy hill outside the window. He quickly got a mental picture and started drawing the basic features of his new subject, just incase it left as quickly as it came. Instead, the wolf just stood there, as if it was actually observing him. David took advantage of this and began to draw in a more detailed manor.

Even though the wolf left after only a few minutes, David still had a sufficient memory of what it looked like. However, his mental image of what he was sketching had faded away just before he could complete the new addition to his book, but David was satisfied with the final results anyway. So he put the sketchbook back in its hiding place.

He turned around and started to leave the room, but before he could even take two steps away from the bookshelves Ms. Proulx stormed in, looking furious as ever.

“There you are, you little shit,” she yelled, “I give you one simple job, and you go ahead and screw it all up!”

David had no idea what she was talking about, “What did I do wrong,” he asked, “I cleaned the bathrooms just like you asked.”

Ms. Proulx exploded, “HELL BE DAMNED IF YOU DID NOTHING WRONG!!”

She quickly grabbed his arm and started to drag him away. David tried to break free, but he just couldn’t escape Ms. Proulx’s Kung Fu grip. As she was taking him down the halls of the orphanage, David realized that they were headed toward her private bathroom.

When they finally got there, he could see water flowing from underneath the bathroom door. David could feel a knot in his chest getting tighter the closer he got.

Once Ms. Proulx opened the door, David could see that the sink and tub had been plugged with her towels, causing the water to flood the room and the outside hall.

“Do you see nothing wrong with this,” she rhetorically asked.

“Ms. Proulx,” David replied, “I did not do this. It… it was probably Camille.”

“BULL SHIT,” yelled Ms. Proulx, “I don’t want to hear any of your pathetic lies. I don’t even want to look at your ugly mug. Go crawl into your bed and stay there till tomorrow morning.”

David didn’t say another word and quickly ran upstairs to the orphan’s communal bedroom. When he opened the bedroom, he realized that his luck had gotten even worse. Camille, Ike and Addison had been waiting for him right behind the door, smiling menacingly.

“I told you you’d get yours,” said Camille.

Ike and Addison swiftly took a firm hold of David. He tried to shake them off, but his efforts were futile. Before he could say anything Camille punched him really hard in the gut, knocking the air out of him. David immediately fell to the floor, desperately gasping for air. The gang picked him back up and started to carry him to the bathroom with the toilets.

David had regained his breath by the time they got there; only to have his head shoved into a toilet. At least it was still clean. He was certain that he would surely drown, but before any water entered his lungs Camille pulled his head out and threw him out of the stall onto the cold hard floor. Once again, David tried to get away, but Ike and Addison got a hold of him and held him against the bathroom wall. Camille began to punch him, again and again and again. When he finally thought it was over, David started to look up. Camille then punched him twice in the face, giving him a busted lip and a bloody nose. David fell to the floor like a rag doll.

Camille turned him over on his side and looked him dead in the face.

“If you ever make a fool of me again,” Camille said, “I won’t pull your head back out of the toilet.”

Camille spat in David’s face and kicking him in the gut, knocking the air out of him one more time.

David got up once he heard them close the bathroom door, feeling an incredible amount of pain while he did. After limping over to one of the sinks, he washed the blood and saliva off his face, and put a couple pieces of paper towel up his nose to stop the bleeding.

David started to head back to the communal bedroom, taking a little detour to the library on the way. He grabbed his sketchbook and flipped the pages till he saw the gray wolf, ripped it out and put it in his pocket.

David entered the bedroom and placed the page he took from his sketchbook underneath the sheets of Reese’s bed. It seemed to be the least he could do to make up for the way he snapped at Reese when he just wanted to help.

He then changed into his pajamas and climbed into bed. Trying to fall asleep after what had transpired that day and with all the adrenaline in his system proved to be very difficult, despite the fact that he was completely exhausted. So David tried to find a way to calm himself: counting sheep, counting backwards from a thousand, assuming different sleeping positions. Nothing worked, but he refused to give up.

Then, for some reason that David did not understand, his mind unexpectedly began to dwell on the gray wolf he saw earlier that day. He looked outside one of the windows and saw that the wolf had returned, looking at him the same as when David was sketching it. Even though the wolf happened to return just as David was thinking about him freaked him out a little, he still found it to be relaxing.

After a while, the wolf gave out a long howl, which soothed David even more. As if the fact that the sudden, but calming, presence of the wolf alone wasn’t freaky enough. But David just accepted the consoling melody of the wolf’s howl and found peaceful sleep at last.