CW: References to anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and a bit of gore.

They say that the heart makes you human.

And I agree. In a way, it does. It keeps the blood pumping. It helps you understand the world. Feel it. Enjoy it. The constant beating in your chest. A beat you can hear if you just listen hard enough. It proves that you’re alive—a living, breathing, human.

But what happens when the heart malfunctions? Not enough to fail—no, people would notice that. You are more valuable dead than alive, after all. But, what happens when your model is just defective enough that your pain is near invisible? What then?

What happens when it beats so hard and so fast that you can’t hear your thoughts? When you claw at your neck and gasp like a dying fish because you can’t breathe? The times when it races and races until blood pools down onto the floor, but you can’t prove it because your nails are still clean?

Rooms are too bright. Too much. You stand in them alone, wanting to scream yourself hoarse, yet no sound ever comes out. Hearts aren’t meant to overwhelm. They’re regulators. Yes, you know they can overwhelm, poor sailor, because yours did, but that’s not normal. And you know what they do to people who aren’t normal.

So you lock yourself in, smile nice and wide, and swallow your suffering whole. You force down each bite until you swell with it in your best, most grotesque attempt at conformity. The heart helps you understand, and you understand that fast hearts are hysterical, freakish, and most of all, not tolerated. 

Then there are the times when your heart slows. Slows until you’ve been in your bed so long you wonder when the linen sheets twisted in your fingertips will turn into the rich soil of a shallow grave. When your brain gasps for air whilst chaining your wrists to the bedposts. You struggle against them, yet they don’t move an inch. They never do.

Slow hearts steal days and keep them in a pouch you’ll never get back. Even if you beg on your hands and knees in front of the pearly gates, those days are lost forever. That’s assuming you get there in the first place, which you probably won’t. You could scream at God, tear your throat to shreds trying to convince Him you’re worthy. But deep down, you know you’re not. You’ve always known the truth about yourself.

You don’t want to open your eyes, but you’re too much of a coward to stay in the darkness forever. You don’t eat; you somehow sleep too little and too much, and talking has become a herculean task. So you rot, no matter how much Captain yells at you. You just rot there, because that’s what slow hearts do. They rot and they rust and they crawl until they eventually stutter to a stop in a sad cough of defeat. That’s their destiny.

But you think you’re better than that. So you try to get rid of it, remove it, replace it with something less pesky. You go to your nearest tinkerer and ask if your thing can be replaced. But, much to your dismay, it’s still a heart. Even if broken, beaten and malfunctioning, it’s still your heart. After all, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

So the tinkerer says no, because hearts are one of a kind and irreplaceable.

“The best you can do is to work around it,” he says. He lists methods to tend to the sensitive workings of it, namely by learning how to make a potion—a special fuel needed to force it back to life. A few pills here and there to equalise the heart, a few sparks for the burner, a sprinkle of melatonin, pixie dust. You ask where the hell he got pixie dust. He doesn’t answer. You have to look over the potion constantly and monitor the heart and its condition for the rest of your life. It’s exhausting to make, but you have to remember to make it every day. You feel a little sleepy, a little numb and lost. You ask about it and he says you will probably feel like that for the rest of your life; it’s a side effect from the fuel fumes. Your memory also feels a little funky now. You would not remember a thing if you were not consciously taking notes. You start to panic a little. You need your memory for work. A sailor without his memory is useless. The tinkerer rattles on about how it may take a few years to learn, and how the heart will never be truly fixed because the fuel isn’t its own, but he can get it functioning if you’re willing to put in the work. “It’s a small price to pay for a functioning heart,” he says.

But you don’t have time for that. It would require years of ripping yourself apart piece by piece just for the ingredients. Blood, sweat, tears and pain do not seem worth it for something that does not have a cure. So you deal with your broken excuse of a thing that never beats correctly by putting it in a box where you don’t have to see it. So far, this has served you well.

It’s a fragile truce, one that keeps you afloat—for now.

And yet here you stand, poor sailor, with your broken heart in hand. You’re alone on a ship headed for the rocks. You’re going to die. Some of your friends yell their best war cries as they launch themselves overboard. Others have already jumped, futilely trying to swim against the riptide. But you stay on the ship and spin your wheel with your remaining strength, hoping to get away. For you, it’s a matter of pride. Martyr yourself for a noble sailor’s death. But, something catches your ear. You stop, despite your best efforts.

A siren sings, perched on the sharpest rock. The melody has changed, taking the form of a tune that’s foreign yet familiar. The siren, with her song, tugs and beckons you over. It’s a sweet, slow andante that runs over you like honey. The lyrics talk of sin, of sacrifice, of honour, of refuge, so you bring yourself over to her to save the others around you. It’s better for them if you follow her. She’ll let go of them if you fall into her embrace. You don’t have to suffer if you fall. There’s no suffering when you’re under. The melody tempts you. It’s a drawn blade, yet you want to go closer.

You try to snap out of it and take control, but find you don’t want to, for you are too busy tracking the droplets that fall from her ink black curls onto snow white skin. Skeletons surround her, floating in blood red waters, yet she shines like she’s absorbing the darkness. You want her. No, not only want her, you want to belong to her.

There’s a misconception about hearts, you realise. Hearts weren’t made to regulate; they weren’t made to reason. They were made to want. Whether it beats too slow or too fast, your heart will always yearn. It yearns for love and purpose and meaning, despite all the consequences. It’s why your heart, with all its faults, is still a heart. Your heart wants to be desired, to be seen. And the siren offers all of that—and more. You were a goner the minute you laid eyes on her.

It’s okay. Men have died for less.

The rock is now in front of you, and finally, after fighting for so long, you crash into it. It’s devastating, yet also strangely freeing. The ship splinters and breaks. Wood chips fly into your eyes, but you don’t move. Cuts litter your flesh and blood begins to well. The saltwater stings like hell, but you smile through it. You relish the pain because in some sick way this is validation that you are just like everyone else—that you aren’t faulty. Your heart’s curse affects all, even in death. So you reach in and unlatch the locks. You let the mangled thing out of its box and let it feel.

Your vision hazes as the siren embraces you, dragging you under. You sink into her. She feels so warm. But once your head goes below the water, you wake up.

She isn’t beautiful anymore, is she? Her claws are digging into your skin. They burn, pooling with blood again. And she’s not warm, after all, but cold.

For once, your old heart is doing its job. Finally, it’s kicking into gear and fighting for its fucking life. It wants to live. You push her away and try to swim back up, but she’s too strong, it’s too late to take it back.

Now, you scream.

The water swallows you alive until you’re not.

But that’s it, isn’t it? The truth about hearts: they want, but they never know they do until it’s too late. They are the root of sin—pride, lust, gluttony, greed—but also life’s greatest euphorias.

Oh, you poor sailor, poor soul. You were doomed from the start. Feelings are what make you human. And the worst part? That’s what makes you so beautiful.

Remus is an aspiring writer stationed in Naarm who loves to write songs and prose fiction. She’s been published in both the Below Earth anthology and Farrago edition 6 and has had written award winning children’s books under her real name. She loves writing as a way to express her emotions and explore the human condition and plans to write much more in the future. Follow on Instagram:  @remusinjuly