Being twelve. Being a girl. Being a genius. Being beautiful. Being Black.

None of those words meant what they said.

Hope James was all of them.

Down a small path, up a tall hill there's a tree... The Ancient, her mother called it. Under the early light of dawn, the stately oak looked more like a skyscraper.

"Ancient Skyscraper hardly makes any sense, Langston."

Walking beside Hope to the tree, just far enough so her backpack straps wouldn't bounce off his nose, was her 89 1/3 (not even 90) pound blood hound, Langston Love James.

Hope walked to one of the two worn out patches of grass under The Ancient, took off her backpack, removed the blue rolled up yoga mat from it, unhinged the Velcro strap, and placed it to fit perfectly over the worn out patch.

Langston spun around three times on the other patch, laid down, and watched Hope.

Hair was the first thing you noticed about Hope. Big. Bushy. Bold. Perfectly parted down the middle. Done up like two overgrown Christmas baskets with a million mahogany and gold ribbons flying out.

"Today's the day, Langston."

Exactly 24 and a half days ago disaster struck.

Like all geniuses Hope had one great goal. Hers was to prove a Grand Unified Theory to the Universe. "One Law to rule them all. Hope's G.U.T.," her brother Finn called it.

What disaster happened to get in her way?

Hope solved it.

A verifiable scientific theorem unifying all the Laws of Science.

But even with this proof, something was missing. The something making everything move.

Where did Life come from?

What made Science work?

Textbooks and AI models were of no help.

She'd exhausted and disproved most anyhow.

Plainly put: Hope ran out of Science.

Literally.

As the question dealt specifically with Creation itself, Hope did something 24 and a half days ago she never thought she would.

She turned to religion.

As Buddhism was the most practical of Faiths, and Enlightenment sounded useful, we find Hope now sitting zazen (a perfect one of course) under the oak tree (no suitable bodhi trees in Massachusetts).

It took Siddhartha 49 straight days of meditation to reach Enlightenment. With thousands of years of scientific advancements, not to mention a working Grand Unified Theory of The Universe, Hope would reach it in half the time sat zazen during the optimal hours of sunrise.

She checked the dawn, looked at Langston, gave two nods of her baskets, and smiled, "Here goes Nothing, Langston."

And with that, Hope shut her eyes.

Hope walked through the swinging door of consciousness into The Other Place.

The scene was the same. There was an old stone fountain in the center of a completely black space. From the fountain shot up a beautiful array of lights shaped like a dandelion.

Like a shower of rainbow rain from below each color of light joined in to build the flower.

Red was first drawing the contours. It gave way for Yellow, showing Orange where they met.

Blue rippled and shone a shimmer as it met Yellow at the base to merge and make the Green stem.

Hope sat in front of the fountain, knowing today, at last, the color show would finish the dandelion.

Every time before when blue met red... well it didn't.

Some grey static showed, fizzled out the attempt, and the rest of the lights dimmed, never finishing the flower.

Today though, The Genius knew, was the right day to show whatever Enlightenment brings.

"The Blue must overcome that Grey," was Hope's Hypothesis and what she waited and watched to see.

She sat on the floor that wasn't a floor. Red began its climb and the whole Other Place glowed to match its ember.

Yellow zipped next making Orange waves in its wake.

Here was Blue weaving through the contours of the stem, like a neon light color show in the depths of Space.

Blue reached the bulb and touched Red!

Purple, at last!

Now with every color of the spectrum a clear portrait of the dandelion hovered and lit up The Other Place.

Suddenly, the bulb burst like all the seasons happened in seconds and the flower turned to parachute seeds of neon glow that whirled and wisped around the fountain.

The mostly Blue bristles floated towards Hope, circled around her and her whole being shone a turquoise shine.

She clapped and Blue sparks leapt from her hands.

Then, The Other Place while filled with thousands of every color dandelion shoots, coughed.

The floor that wasn't a floor quaked. The stone fountain cracked and out of the air that wasn't air static formed.

Grey! everywhere like heavy rain clouds that drop from the sky and land on you and smother engulfed Hope.

She shifted and shouted. No!

Then Hope remembered her hands.

She clapped. Blue light cut through the Grey cloud.

She took a breath, stood, climbed to the top edge of the fountain and clapped and clapped and clapped.

Blue light from Hope's hands cut through the Grey static.

When the Grey turned Blue something new was made, something wonderful.

The dandelion now free of the static was surrounded in a Blue protective shield.

Hope sat back down and watched.

"But what does it mean?" Hope asked her favorite question.

That Grey was a corrosive force, color cured it, color made the picture of the dandelion clear.

As Hope drew her Genius conclusions, The Other Place coughed and spasmed again.

This time a dark Grey cloud nearly the size of The Other Place itself descended.

She stood and clapped.

Her Blue light fizzled and died in the static.

Again Hope clapped.

Again fizzled.

Again clapped.

Again died.

The cloud was above her now. She clapped and clapped and stomped. Every attempt at light to end that dark static didn't.

She took a breath, headed for the swinging door to get free and wake back up. The cloud blurred her image and knocked her down.

A roar from the swinging door sent a fire of pure crystal light like a sunrise to light the whole Other Place clean.

Just before Hope woke up she saw the face of what sent the fire that saved her.

Awake and safe now, she hugged Langston, huffed a deep breath and told him, "Dragon, Langston, a dragon."

Hope's cellphone chimed. Her mother, Faith, sent the message: "Breakfast."

She looked at Langston, turned to face back the small path towards home, put on her backpack, lunged down like a relay racer at a starting line, leaned down lower, met Langston's eyes and said: "Downward Dog, Go!"

And The Hound Dog and The Genius raced home for breakfast.

"Start the speech off with a joke or a poem, Faith." It was Hope's older adopted brother Finn, The Poet. "I've got one for you."

He stood, raised his fork to his mouth like a microphone and began.

"Ahem... A Lament for Our First National Poet
Poor Mr. Jefferson, you'd think
The two-dollar bill would be worth more."

Her mother tapped her hands together as if to clap, Finn bowed and returned his fork to his pancakes.

"Thanks, Love, but I think I'll stick to the usual stay in school get a good education message."

Faith was a current Representative running for Senator of Massachusetts in the Fall. It was Summer nearing the end of the school year and today she was to give a speech at a neighboring town's high school.

"How was meditation this morning, Love?"

"Interesting, mother." How was she to approach bringing up the Dragon? Quantum Physics was welcomed table talk, as was politics; her family was all quite intelligent, but a dragon? A mythical symbol, some religions spoke of them too.

Her grandfather, 'Gramps,' was a renown preacher. He was due to visit in a week. The Genius already decided it was best to speak with him first on the subject.

"Interesting to you, Hope James, is always a lot more than just interesting. Share, honey."

"Well... there's not much sense to it. Images and unconscious things, mother. I thought I'd discuss the whole thing with Gramps."

"Lord knows your Grandfather would love to speak all things religious with you."

Hope gave two nods of her baskets and continued the pancakes she'd perfectly sliced into quarters.

"You know, My Only," it was John her father. "You're always free to express yourself here. We might surprise you with our wisdom."

"It's all right, father. I want to process all this first. Then, I'll talk more about it."

"All right, Love," Faith again, "just don't ever be frightened to say what you're feeling or to ask questions. You're not the only one who finds you interesting, you know." Big smile.

"Schools gonna find you interesting wearing that rainbow shirt." Finn with his High School Senior smirking mouthful of pancakes said.

"Listen Finn, just because I look good in rainbows doesn't mean I'm attempting to define my sexuality."

"Hope James!" John put down his coffee.

"I'm just saying, father, the only statement I'm making is that I look good and feel confident wearing rainbows."

Faith stood, picked up her plate, smiled, "My girls growing up, you know." She walked over and kissed Hope on a basket. "I'll drive you to school today, honey. It's on the way to my speech."

"Okay, Mama," two nods of her baskets.

Faith set her plate down on the floor. Langston came over and cleaned it.

"When you two lovely gentlemen are done eating if you'd be so kind to put the remaining campaign signs in my car, I'd appreciate it. When you're finished brushing your teeth Hope, I'll meet you in the garage."

"Okay, Mama," again two more nods of the baskets.

On the car ride to school, Faith was full of her usual advice. "Love, I'm glad to see you taking more interest in how you express yourself."

It was only a 12 1/2 minute ride to her middle school from their farmhouse.

Hope's thoughts now were on her meditation. What could it mean? Dreams were always so cryptic, so in need of explanation.

Her mother continued, "You know, I'm sure Gramps will be thrilled to discuss your meditation with you. I would love to hear some about it, too."

Should she bring it up? Dragons roaring light to save you from a smothering grey static cloud was hardly considered proper conversation.

"Oh, it's difficult to make sense of mother. The unconscious can be so unforgiving."

Faith smiled. "Sometimes our dreams are trying to tell us something, Love. I find talking about it helps. And you know when words aren't enough, I have my art."

Besides being a State Representative and former elementary school teacher, her mother was also an accomplished landscape painter.

"I am very rational you know, mother."

"I know, Love. I also know there's only one way to get better at something and that's to practice."

Two nods of Hope's baskets.

It was always the same way with Hope. When she saw the World, she saw an intricate masterpiece. Everything from an Autumn leaf's fall to a downpour in April made beautiful sense to her. She wished more than anything she could express that beauty to the World.

There was solace in sense, Science made her feel welcome, but even Science missed the point of the wonderful beauty in creation.

You see dear reader Hope James was a genius and the difference between just a very smart person and a genius is: A true genius has a level of compassion to match their level of intelligence.

Hope genuinely cared for the World. She saw it Beautiful and Oh! how she wanted to share what she saw!

People didn't see like she did and her genius heart and mind knew it would help so much if they could.

The car slowed to park in front of her school. "I'll give it some thought today, mother. Do well at the speech."

"Of course, Love." Faith turned to look at Hope and lifted her arms up. Hope mirrored her as they both said in unison, "Don't wrinkle the suit," while they leaned in to kiss each other on the cheek.

"Have a good day at school, Love."

From the school sidewalk, Hope watched her mother drive away.

As Faith turned the corner to leave the parking lot, a grey static cloud like she saw in her meditation formed above her mother's car.

Hope stood still and wondered what to do. The first school bell rang, so she went to class.

Later that afternoon Hope's father picked her up and told her that her mother, State Representative Faith Esperanza James was killed in the latest school shooting.

…🐉…