by Jacqueline Coleman
“The Hope Index” placed second in Southern New Hampshire University’s 2025 Fall Fiction Contest.
My manager says hospitals smell like hope— it’s better branding than what they actually smell like, which is dying children and hand sanitizer.
They brief me in the van: our segment underperformed in secondary markets, the sympathy gap is widening, and the rival network is pushing a “miracle twin” arc that’s testing well with families. The numbers matter more than the names, but I repeat the name once anyway: Eli.
The steady beeping of monitors and hum of the camera rig sound sharp and hollow in the sterile hospital room. Someone’s moved the IV line so the sponsor logo faces the lens. My handler adjusts the mic at my collarbone without creasing the blouse; we’ve learned which fabrics read compassionate on screen. He reminds me the Hope Index refreshes hourly. Spontaneous warmth ranks higher than memorized lines. Spontaneous warmth also requires rehearsal.
Eli looks smaller in person than in the photos. Paper skin, a cap patterned with stars. I take his hand and check my lighting. A producer leans near the bed and makes the gesture we all know: chin down, eyes soft. I lower my voice to the register that people use at funeral homes.
“Do you think you’ll win?” he asks, barely louder than the pump.
“It’s not a contest, sweetheart.” I smile. Of course it is. Every A-lister has a child. Every child has a number.
We film a sequence called Everyday Courage. I pour juice into a cup with my left hand so my ring catches the light. He sips. We hold the pose for a beat that will play well with the backtracking. In the doorway, his mother keeps smoothing the hem of her cardigan. The director nods. We cut.
In the green room, my manager scrolls the leaderboard. “Second. If we can nudge a remission spike before the finale, you’ll close the gap.”
A nurse walks by with an empty tray and pauses. “You’re very good at holding his hand,” she says.
“That’s the job,” my manager answers for me.
“No,” she says. “It isn’t.”
We don’t use that footage.
Kite Day is set for Thursday. The courtyard tree has been trimmed for a clean skyline; the star-shaped kite has the sponsor insignia along one side. Eli’s cap keeps sliding back, exposing a pale scalp that reflects the set lights. I hang onto the spool. The team decided it looks steadier that way. On the third try, the kite lifts into the bright square of sky and Eli laughs, quick and thin. The sound tests well later. In the raw audio, I hear myself exhale off cue—as if I’d never heard the laughter of a dying child before.
Back inside, a compliance officer asks the nurse to initial the SPONSOR DOSES bin. She does it without speaking, her lipstick painted in a thin line.
Eli likes to draw when nothing hurts. Planets, mostly, and a series of patterned stars in pairs: stripes with stripes, dots with dots. After an hour, he holds up a page—two red stars, near identical. “They want to stay together,” he says. I tell him that’s a good story. He asks if the stars win anything. I say they get to be a pair. He nods like I’ve told him the rules.
At the end of the week, we tape a roundtable titled The Face of Care. We sit under pendant lights shaped like teardrops. Across from me is another celebrity, third place last season. She tells me the trick is to cry from one eye only. “Symmetry reads artificial,” she says, then touches the corner of her left eye and produces a single tear. “This side is more persuasive.”
After, my manager gives me a champagne-colored envelope. Inside is a card: RevidaLife—Compassion Credit Statement. I have qualified for Youth Renewal Tier Two: collagen flush, moderate neurotoxin stipend, laser support along common vectors of decline. “It’s a beautiful gift,” he says.
“Do the credits expire?” I ask.
He smiles. “Gratitude shouldn’t.”
Eli’s mother cries in a hallway once, not on schedule. She sinks to the floor near the vending machine with her hands inside her sleeves, cheek pressed to the dirty tile like a person listening through a wall. I frown. She’s supposed to save it for the montage. The cameras arrive too late for me to intervene. In the cut, we use a different cry from a better angle.
The rival network airs a miracle recovery. We increase our bedside frequency to twice daily, vary the outfits to suggest unstaged visits, and reduce eyeliner for authenticity. I try to cry out of my left eye. Eli holds my hand.
On a Tuesday before Bedside, doctors rush into his room. My team debates whether to roll; crisis footage is unpredictable, after all. We decide to go in with a smaller rig and wide lens. Eli’s breath is a shallow mechanical motion. His mother sits very still, eyes closed, as if not seeing can change the order of things. The nurse touches the inside of Eli’s wrist with two fingers and looks at the door, then at the cart, then at the camera. When the alarm stops, the quiet that follows is not like normal silence; it’s more like a plug removed from a wall.
The showrunner asks if I can speak on the feed. It’s mid-season. The timing is not ideal. I stand by the bed with my left shoulder angled to my best side. “He taught me how to look up,” I say. “He taught me that hope is something you do.” That line will work. I can tell by the way the producer inhales through his teeth and holds his breath.
The edit team chooses B-roll: the kite, the stars, my hand on his hand, the mother’s cardigan hem smoothed flat and flat again. The sponsor approves the segment.
The Hope Index does something I’ve never seen it do: a sharp rise, a sustained line. A brand liaison calls my manager personally to say I’ve achieved Platinum Compassion—Youth Renewal becomes Lifetime Access. The phrase is large and clean on the certificate: Eternal Youth Access. Non-transferable.
“Congratulations,” my manager says. He doesn’t touch me. It isn’t that kind of moment.
I film another message. “Loss teaches us to love deeper,” I say, then rest my hand on my collarbone. “We honor him by going on.”
In the evening, I look at my face in an ordinary mirror in the clinic restroom: the new skin is firm with no redness. The water from the tap smells like chemicals. The paper towels are rough. I press one to my cheek and count to ten, the way the aesthetician taught me, to keep the swelling down.
They match me with a new child on Thursday. A girl this time, eight, blue eyes that shine even when she’s tired. The mother signs the packet in a careful hand. The room has been painted recently—the cartoon clouds on the wall still look wet. The producers adjust the chairs by an inch, then by another inch, until the frames align. When I sit, the girl leans in like someone who already knows how to play the game. “Hi,” she says brightly, and squeezes me with a force that requires a reaction. She still has hair; blonde curls that match the color of mine.
“Welcome to the family,” I say. I put my chin on her crown and close my eyes, counting to five. Ten seconds felt too long.
I didn’t ask for her name.
My manager goes over the schedule in the car. “We should revisit the closing arc,” he says. “We lost the remission beat, but the tribute held the line. Next time, let’s consider a risk frame earlier. That tested well in Season Four.” He scrolls past something I don’t need to see. “Also, there’s a gentle push from upstairs to space out the bedside gowns. Too much of one color feels staged. I’ll let the nurses know.”
The RevidaLife portal pings: Cycle scheduled. A digital badge appears beneath my profile photo—the design team has selected a glyph that resembles a star.
At the next Youth Renewal appointment, the clinician uses a tone that is gentle. She asks me to relax my forehead. I do. She touches a gloved finger to a fresh place and says I’ll feel a little pinch. The room smells faintly of citrus and something clean.
The network schedules the reveal for Monday. The girl’s file calls her “photogenic resilient.” There is a note about a sibling who could be useful later. The sponsor wants a softer palette. I set an early alarm without thinking, then unset it. Alarms cause wrinkles.
My manager says hospitals smell like hope. In the van the next morning, the assistant reminds me the rival network has an advantage in the midwest. My handler checks the mic. The schedule is tight. The girl will be waiting. The door opens.
We continue.
Category: Competition, Featured, Short Story, SNHU Student