From Sand and Ash

by Amy Harmon

Life is hell shot with just enough heaven to make the pains of hope all the sharper. Life is impossible. Ugly. Agonizing. Inexplicable. Torture.”

Fear is strange. It settles on chests and seeps through skin, through layers of tissue, muscle, and bone, and collects in a soul-size black hole, sucking the joy out of life, the pleasure, the beauty. But not the hope. Somehow, the hope is the only thing resistant to the fear, and it is that hope that makes the next breath possible, the next step, the next tiny act of rebellion, even if that rebellion is simply staying alive.