The Despair Chronicles, Nr.01 — Saturday 13th January 2024

Life is beautiful, and delicate — precious and precarious — like the flower growing in the pavement crack, dicing death with Doc Martins and speeding sneakers.  
   
Despair, my life-long companion, ambles up and puts an arm around my shoulder to comfort me.  
Annoying all the pedestrian lives stepping around us, we bend down to examine Beautiful Flower.  
She is in a bad state, covered in grit and dust, her stem half broken, amputated leaves on indifferent concrete.  
   
“Beautiful Flower” I say “you have a choice. Either we cut you and take you home where you can die in nice surroundings in our kitchen, or we can leave you here and you can take your chances with sudden death under the boots of an ageing punk-rocker.”  
She sways a little.  
Despair, calmly opening a Swiss-army knife, says “what about the third option? We can dig between the pavement crack and lift her out with some roots …”  
   
“Have you been seeing Hope?” I demand jealously “… and that’s a thingummy for gutting fish.”  
Despair is already carefully scraping away at the base of Beautiful Flower, digging deep as close as possible to the side of the slab.  
“There we go,” he says, pointing to a dozen or more scraggly dangling roots.  
I pout my lips, wrap her up in a piece of toilet paper, and place her carefully in my shirt pocket.  
   
When I get home Despair has already stoked up the wood-burner and placed a small vase with water in the middle of the kitchen table.  
“Beautiful Flower,” I say “this is your new home.”  
She sighs.  
   
Despair and I go downstairs to the fridge in the cellar.  
“Look,” I say, “it hasn’t been bombed.”  
I open the door. The light comes on, amazing. The fridge is full of food  
“… and we haven’t been robbed either.”  
Despair smiles. “I built this cave-tunnel long before you were born. Neither Hamas nor the Israeli Defence Force know anything about it.”  
“So you have been seeing Hope, haven’t you?”  
He grabs some cheese and tomatoes and goes back up to the kitchen. I follow him with half a cucumber and a fresh lettuce.  
We sit at the table, looking at Beautiful Flower.  
“D’you think she’ll make it?” I ask.  
“Not a hope in hell,” he replies.