Stolen Heart

Her heart was stolen from her chest during surgery. A man guised as head cardio surgeon seized the pumping organ and ran. Turns out he was the desperate relative of a young girl he called his sister, a girl with red strands of hair and skin sickly pallid on the waiting list for a new part to pump life through her veins. The man was reprimanded and told that he’d lost access to the hospital. She shouldn’t have known this, the girl with the missing heart, but miraculously while under anesthesia she could still hear. She heard the man’s fire, his passion, mingling with his weakness and growing in intensity. When her heart was replaced, reconnected, she still heard his shouts, his screams, a year later he’s still inside her.

“I’ve got to go back to the hospital,” Ava said to her mother who was busying herself preparing a simple cup of tea as if it were a chemistry experiment (which Ava supposed it was, but not one to take so seriously). “You know, for tests and things.”

“That’s fine,” her mother said, still not turning from her cup after she’s added a dash of sugar to it, tasted it, added a drop of milk, tasted again. With spoon still in mouth, she added, “Just don’t expect anything.”

Ava didn’t ask her to elaborate. She knew what she meant. It’s what everyone said, their words lingering in her mind, on repeat. “Don’t expect anything.” “Don’t expect that that man will be there, the one who stole your heart.” She’d told the story to just about everyone, friend and relative. And, surely, some thought it all fabricated, too much like something in a medical drama; others didn’t believe the man, kicked out, would ever return to the hospital. Certainly the person he was trying to save would have expired by now. What reason would he have? And even still, all she had as a way of recognizing him was his voice. No face, nothing that had specific coloring or style like hair or eyes or even gait, just a voice.

But she couldn’t relinquish the thought, the hope. She walked swiftly, as though getting to the hospital faster increased her odds, as though it was still the day of her surgery and he was still running through the halls with her heart. She took no time for the birds flitting overhead, ‘happy sprites’ she liked to call them, singing everyday of their lives, blessing people with their gift. Any other day she’d stop to watch them flap and flitter, carefree, but not today.

She took no time for passersby, though she enjoyed watching them on ordinary occasion, guessing where they were headed, those who walked back towards where she’d come, those who sped ahead of her, assuming a spectacled girl with a stack of books tucked under her arms was bound for the library, a boy with a baseball glove to the park, a fidgety man in a trench coat too long and dark for the heat to a risqué engagement. She never discovered their true destinations but she liked to think she’d won when these same people passed by with evidence that she was close if not dead on – the girl with a new stack of books and a smile, the boy sweaty, grass smeared, the man still shifty but oddly pleased looking around the eyes, lips, where a lipstick stain dyed them pink. Truly, figuring what exactly someone had been up to would be a whole new game.

But today she hadn’t the time.

She was close to the hospital when something finally gave her pause. A man slumped against a light pole, clothes tattered and dirty, face shaded with overgrown shag. “Don’t go harassing strangers,” her mother always told her in this situation. “Meddling with one of them is like handling a stray dog, don’t know if it’ll bite, and it’s not worth tetanus.” Ava pushed this despicable warning off.

“Excuse me, sir, could you use some change, or food. I don’t have food on me, mind you, but surely I can get you something from the hospital there, soup, a sandwich, jell-o.”

The man didn’t answer, didn’t move. Perhaps he was asleep, Ava assumed. She turned to leave, then felt a brace on her ankle. She gasped, looking down to see the man’s hand gripping her. Rather than screaming and causing uproar, she asked quite calmly despite her heart’s newfound drumbeat, “What is it? What do you want?”

He didn’t answer, the man. But he eased his grip, slowly, and finally released her. His eyes cast down, Ava could still only see his hair, cheeks and chin hidden, but she sensed a blush, as though the man were embarrassed. A normal person would still run after such a startle, “a close encounter,” her mother would call it, but Ava wasn’t normal; she fancied herself extraordinary. So she stooped beside him.

He was mumbling, too low to hear. “What was that?” Ava asked, bending closer. The man’s stench was strong, but not unbearable. Her niece’s diapers, now those were nose-pinch worthy. The man still mumbled, so she asked again, “What are you saying?”

“A heart,” he said. “Get me a heart, if they’ve got one. My sister, she might still need one, in heaven.”

Ava’s breath hitched. His voice, she heard it now. Tears spangled in her eyes. And she smiled, “How about I get you some food first, water. Then we’ll talk hearts.”