Louise felt her heart breaking. The pieces shattering into smaller pieces, getting smaller and smaller until she can barely see it. It’s like it was being pounded to nothing, being pulverized to oblivion. Louise held not the debris but nothing in her hands as the wind took it away from her.
And she’s left without a heart.
She starts her day as usual. Getting up at 6 o’clock in the morning, putting on her slippers, washing her face. She takes the manuscript on her bedside table, flips through them and thinks about the day ahead. Except with a slight difference this time. Her chest had a hole in it. She can’t remember how or why it happened, but the hole was gaping open and wide. You can hear the air passing through it, blood dripping. It was a grotesque sight. But Louise doesn’t remember where it came from nor does she bother to know. It was there. Closing her eyes still made it there.
So, she went about her day. As do all other people.
It was time for breakfast. But Louise didn’t have an appetite. It was time to draw the manuscript, but her hand felt heavy. It was time to do things and act like an adult. But today, for some reason, she just wanted to stop and die.
If her time were to stop, would the hole in her heart stop bleeding too?
She brings a hand to her chest. After a long time, Louise just sighs.
It’s still there.
She stands up, puffs her chest, and goes back to bed, deflating like a balloon. She looked funny like that. Louise shrank to a ball on her bed. Pulling up the covers, she decided to hide from the world. Time passed from morning to late afternoon. To dusk. To late evening.
The bed is dripping wet with the blood dripping from the hole on her chest.
But she’s still breathing.
Louise stares into nothingness. And it looked back at her. With a fist, she pushes the covers away.
It’s still there.
She’ll go crazy from the pain. Paralyzing, unexplainable pain. Ah, sometimes there’s no answer. There’s no salvation. And there’s no hope. Sometimes there’s just this suffocation rising up from your throat, swallowing your veins, your heart, yourself. There was no Louise.
Only a gaping hole.
