He grew attached to things quite quickly and he wondered why that was. He tried to trace it back, to a person, a place, a thing, an event. Something on which he could put his finger and say, This. Because it bothered him. Not the attachment itself, but the mystery of it. Why when he bought a shirt he kept it a decade, even if he hadn't worn it in years and knew he never would again. Why if his mother sent him baked goods in the mail with a note telling him to divide them amongst his friends he rarely would. Why if he spoke but a few words to a beautiful girl he thought they might be rather happy together, thinking this long after she'd gone.
Sentiment. Greed. Lust. They were these things, yes, but they were part of something greater, and he wanted to know what. He wanted to say, This. He sat and thought, he walked and thought, he wrote and put his thoughts on paper. Finally, he concluded that, yes, it was more than mere nostalgia, more than petty selfishness, more than his carnal desires. That there was a true and deep honesty to these feelings, a longing in every one. Something of history, of the past and present and future. He decided—and he was glad when he did—that it was, Hope.
He smiled at the word, then immediately questioned it. He realized how naive it sounded and he thought himself a fool. But he decided that there was nothing particularly wrong with connecting a blissful past to an undetermined future, and that if his todays had any part in it, he would do what he wanted.
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