An anatomy

[levity]

Hope has three pairs of legs, four pairs of wings, a better brain than ours, and we don't know how many eyes. The entire point is that it flies despite aerodynamics, and it walks when it cannot fly, and it either has very bad eyesight or vision, which are hard to tell apart, sometimes.

Hope is Arsenal for the treble and hope is failing all of your Bio30 exams and not dropping the class, is revolutions because revolutions don't do anything in the long run but they might yet make people believe. Is three little people and a ring making their way to a volcano, is why people never have nothing to lose, is what's in between the cathedral and the populace. Is why we wage wars and why we bother to rebuild after. Is why the only people who look down on escape are jailers. Hope is Lamarckian, giraffes stretching their necks towards the sky and waiting for the day to come when giant trees are no longer an issue. (Darwin is about what you've been given; Lamarck is about effort.) Is not the thing with wings, because we were never designed to have wings, but we can't do the whole plodding-along-through-life thing without hope. (And when you're asked what the hell is there in the human anatomy that suggests the possibility of flight the answer is: the brain.) Hope is knowing you can get more done the easy way and going on being a good and honest person as much as you can in any case. Is people. It has to be.

Hope has three pairs of legs, four pairs of wings, a better brain than ours, and a three-chambered heart. It consumes oxygen like fire and eats enough for two countries and has no digestive tract. The entire point is that it is there despite reason.