{"id":6978,"date":"2017-02-20T13:38:25","date_gmt":"2017-02-20T20:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/?p=6978"},"modified":"2017-02-20T13:38:25","modified_gmt":"2017-02-20T20:38:25","slug":"flashback-defensive-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/?p=6978","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: “Defensive Optimism”"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>here are days when Mr. Gulley can barely stand sunrise.<\/p>\n

He sees it and all he can think about is later.<\/p>\n

When the world is gone. When the sun is gone. When there\u2019s nothing but an empty void and it\u2019s his family\u2019s fault.<\/p>\n

He thinks of dead Skoll and living Fenris and the third one, wherever the heck that one might be, and all he can think is:<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t.<\/em><\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t even sure what he can\u2019t. Just, he can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

He realizes, on this particular day, watching this particular sunrise, that he\u2019s curled up like a gargoyle against the roof of one of his buildings. He\u2019s crouched there, frustrated and broken there, on the slanting tiles of a Lethal Magnet School roof.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s not alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as you have hope,\u201d the Professor of Defensive Optimism<\/a> tells him. \u201cAs long as you hang on to hope, it\u2019ll be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gives the man a thumbs-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t hire a Professor of Defensive Optimism,\u201d Mr. Gulley informs him.<\/p>\n

Professor Brittain shrugs at him. He stares off into the dawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really didn\u2019t. It\u2019s just, you keep ignoring that. You were supposed<\/em> to be teaching Unsanctioned Operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is an old argument. It is a pointless argument. Mr. Gulley sighs.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s seen it used as a ki barrier. He\u2019s seen some of the Life Skills students holding off gigantic turtle-squids with nothing more than hope and a whispered prayer. It\u2019s not like it doesn\u2019t hold water. He\u2019d even tried it once, manifest this little bubbling white-light barrier. But . . .<\/p>\n

What is hope, against the wolf?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll get through this,\u201d the Professor of Defensive Optimism advises him.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d like to believe that.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gulley would.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

here are days when Mr. Gulley can barely stand sunrise. He sees it and all he can think about is later. When the world is gone. When the sun is gone. When there\u2019s nothing but an empty void and it\u2019s his family\u2019s fault. He thinks of dead Skoll and living Fenris and the third one, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"series":[48],"class_list":["post-6978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strange-encounters","series-strange-encounters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Strange-Encounter-Brittain-1000.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6978"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7013,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6978\/revisions\/7013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6978"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=6978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}