“A Gap of Sky” by Anna Hope is a short story about a young girl caught in a dilemma between expectationsand desires. It is a portrait of a young girl on drugs and a description of what the city can do to a personwho stands alone without the support and care from other people. The narrator is third person andomniscient, and the narrative technique can be described with the phrase “stream of consciousness” whichis a technique that writer and feminist Virginia Woolf used a lot in her works. This “stream” is veryconfusing, because it describes the situation by every little thought of the persona who in this case is verydistractive and unfocused as a result of ingesting drugs - she changes her focus by the second.Ellie is a young student living in London. She has a lot of pressure on her shoulders because her parentshave made her take a course at the UCL which she is about to flunk if she does not hand in an essay aboutVirginia Woolf. Only, the problem is that she wakes up Monday at half past four in the afternoon realizingthat the essay, which she has not started yet, is due for Tuesday at nine.Her thoughts and actions are hectic and out of order. The hallucinatory drugs she has been taking and thealcohol she has been drinking all night make her unfocused, and as her printer has run out of ink, Elliedecides for herself that she has to go out in city to buy some ink before she can get to write the essay, eventhough all the stores are about to close.Ellie is as far from sober as she could be, and the big city itself is a jungle of distraction to her unfocusedmind. But she has a mission, a purpose, and she moves through the streets beside other Londoners with amission. It makes her feel like a functioning part in a greater machinery.On her way she comes across an iron railing where someone has left behind a black leather glove. Theglove is arranged so that the middle finger is raised as if the glove was flipping people off. This awakes arebellious side in Ellie, and she interprets the glove as a sign telling her to just “flip everything off”. She isnot accountable to anyone. She is young, she is in London, and she is free to do anything she wants to. Sofor a while, Ellie forgets about the ink and spontaneously follows two men into the British Museum - justfor the heck of it. The theme of the exhibition is “Living and Dying”. Suddenly Ellie feels that the exhibitionis directed personally towards her as if the museum is trying to tell her something, and she thinks that sheis going to die. She flees from the museum because she is not ready to deal with death. The description ofthe city is similar to what Ellie feels is happening inside her body. The trafficked streets are being comparedto clotted veins which are what you have when you are about to have a coronary. In her head she repeatsquoting philosopher Thomas Hobbes on his view on life: “Nasty, brutish and short” . It is not too late tokeep her spot on the course, because she still remembers fragments of the things she has learned. Ellie realizes that she has let the wildness of the city take over her life, and in this moment it appears to her howprecious and short life really is. This is described by her seeing a gap of sky that she has not seen before.She has finally been able to see above the tall buildings of the city, and this is her chance to escape thecity’s grasp around her. She wants to go to the river. In this story the river is a crossroad - she can eithergive up and choose the easy way out like Virginia Woolf did when she threw herself in the local river, or shecan go and wash herself clean. Clean of drugs.Someone opens a door to a little shop, and once again she is distracted so she follows the person inside.This is the open door to her new view upon life. She feels old and worn-out as if her body and being aretwo different things. Her feeling is described as “(…)rancid, as though the tide of her being has retreatedand left her on the shore surrounded by plastic bottles (…)and syringes (…)”. Her body is left on the shorebeside all kinds of synthetic waste and leftovers from drug addicts while her mind has taken a newdirection. This “rancid” feeling disappears when she finds a Red Jasper stone in the little store similar toone she was given by her mother. The Red Jasper stone symbolizes her mother’s protection and care, andEllie remembers that she had just thrown it away, taken it for granted. The mother appears before her, andEllie understands that there is one thing she can do to reciprocate the love and protection that she till nowhave taken for granted, but further on can carry with her. She can do her essay and avoid an expulsion.This revelation fills her with lightness and life. She recognizes this feeling in everyone else she sees as shewalks down the street. Everyone has someone who cares about them and protects them, and this is whatbinds people together and gives them the strength to be alone in a big and confusing city - and in life. Nowshe sees a big clock on a building that tells her that she still has time to buy the ink for the printer. Onceagain, she is distracted by the river, but this time she is settled. She walks through a gap in the buildings tolook at the river, and as she sees the river, she knows what she is ought to do. And she actually likes themoment: “She wants to receive this night and it’s great dark pulsing (…)”. And in this moment she knowsthat her purpose in life should not be “(…) nineteen, only living, and (…) to dig to the core, to get the pith(…)” but to be “(…) nineteen and in London and she has an essay to write (…)”. Because that is “A goodthing and the right thing to do”.What the author wants us to realize with this story is that it is crucial for a person to have someone aroundhim or her in order to manage all the obstacles that life brings us. The city is a good choice for the settingbecause the city has a certain gloominess to it as you never know what lurks around the next corner. Also,the city can be like a living creature on its own, independent of the individuals living in it, and if you havenothing to hold on to then the city can just eat you up and make you disappear in the crowd withoutanyone even noticing. These are things that also characterizes life.