Claire North - The Sudden Appearance of Hope

This is not a story of being forgotten.

As memory of me faded, so did a part of myself. Whoever that Hope Arden is who laughs with her friends, smiles with her family, flirts with her lover, resents her boss, triumphs with her colleagues she ceased to exist, and it has been surprising for me to discover just how little of me is left behind, when all that is stripped away.

If words on the page are the only part of me that can be remembered, and I am to write something which will survive when I am gone, it should matter.

A story of Perfection, then.

For you, it begins in Venice. That was certainly the first time the world became aware of what it was. But for me, and the part I was to play in it, the story began earlier, in Dubai, the day Reina bint Badr al Mustakfi killed herself in her hotel room on the seventh floor of the Burj al Arab Jumeirah.

Because the room cost 830 a night, and because it was clearly a suicide and thus a social faux pas, the body was rushed out of the service door within hours of discovery. A Nepalese cleaning lady was sent in to scrub at the worst of the stains, but Reina had been helpful in slitting her femoral artery in a hot bath, and thus only a few towels and the bath mat needed to be burned.

I found out she was dead because her cousin, Leena, kept on screaming. Not crying just screaming. In later tellings of these events, she would not say the words, My cousin Reina killed herself, and this is why but instead, My cousin Reina killed herself, and Ive never recovered from the blow.

I didnt like Leena much. It made it a lot easier to steal from her.

I liked Reina. She didnt know that we were friends, but thats okay I dont mind these things.

I broke into the morgue where theyd taken Reinas body, a false name on the tag around her toe, skin as grey as the steel bed she lay on. I riffled through the clothes theyd stripped from her, flicked through a notebook of curious ideas and comments on passers-by, found myself in the descriptions there: Woman, skin like milk in coffee, deep, diluted. Pink headscarf, very close-trimmed nails, stands tall, bag in her left hand, looks at everyone without shame, doesnt care that people stare.

I took the notebook, pressed it against my heart, then put it in my pocket, a thing to cherish and keep safe.

Her phone was in a clear plastic bag by her shoes, and the unlock code was easy to guess by the oily stain her fingers had left as she swiped across the screen. I took it, and sat on the steps of the morgue in the burning shade, flicking through messages and emails, looking for something cruel or a cry of pain to explain why Reina was now cold in the quiet building at my back.