Hope

There was a knock on the door. Was there?
Pandora opened the door. Did she?
There was someone outside with a jar in his hand. Was there?
The myths don't tell us that.
They don't delve into details.
That's not their purpose.

What they tell us is that Zeus gifted a jar to Pandora on her marriage to Epimetheus. It was meant as a punishment for Prometheus because he gave mankind fire.

Pandora was curious. She wanted to see what was inside the jar. How could she know?

When she opened the jar out came death, doom, dismay, disease, plague bloodlust, war and every evil imaginable. As she hastened to close the jar, she managed to trap one thing inside.

Hope.

Legend says hope remained with mankind. Did it?

What legends, myths and bedtime stories fail to tell is that why hope was in the jar. What was hope doing in a jar full of plagues and diseases?

When a child's pet dies
He hopes in heaven it flies.
When a mother has a miscarriage falling down the stairway
In all her pain she hopes the child didn't suffer the same way.
When Sheldon was operated on after being hit by a van
His sister cried, hoping he could walk again.
Sarah was raped the day she went out on a walk
Even after months she refused to talk
Her parents spent waiting day after day
Hoping that she would smile, the same old way.
All this makes me wonder if hope was just a deceptive play
Designed to lead us to disappointment and dismay.
Even though I can see Zeus smirking
Laughing at all our suffering
I dare to hope against all hope
As a human I resort to the last
I hope for hope
I hope.