Status Updates From A Guardian and a Thief

“It was her duty, as a guardian, to put into action the beautiful ideal of hope. Ma thought harshly: This was what it looked like. Hope for the future was no shy bloom but a blood-maddened creature, fanged and toothed, with its own knowledge of history’s hostilities and the cages of present. Hope wasn’t soft or tender. It was mean. It snarled. It fought. It deceived.