Elpis

Elpis Grey picked up the one bag she would take with her to her new apartment. The rest of her room in the institute was still filled with her belongings; a point she and Dr. Leander had not discussed openly but seemed to nod between them it was for the best. “What if she didn’t make it? It would be good to have her room set up for her return,” were most likely his thoughts. “I don’t want to carry all of this stuff with me,” were hers followed by “and it will provide the doctor with some comfort. 

Elpis’s hands weren’t trembling; she was not yet old enough to understand the gravity of their situation. Dr. Leander’s hand were trembling and so he kept them tucked away into the pockets of his white coat. Dr. Leander was an average height at five feet ten inches. His hair was more gray than brown and full for his age. He wore it parted to one side, more for convenience sake than anything else, and it conveniently curled above his right eye. He never understood how women could wear their hair in their faces. 

Elpis’s pictures of her parents lined the shelves of the room: them with Elpis as a baby, them on their wedding day, them with Elpis at her first birthday party, them with Elpis during their first trip to the institute, and finally them together in the institute’s hospice center. Elpis loved that last picture. Dr. Leander didn’t understand it. He thought the picture was very obviously morbid and so why keep it around? I thought it didn’t bode well for Elpis’s character: such a morbid sense of humor. But she just didn’t see the picture that way. Her parents were together and happy; a rare moment at the end,