Heart

The man was squatting on the cold sidewalk, holding his stomach in vain. He could feel the hunger growing inside threatening to swallow him whole. His stomach eating itself to keep him alive, the world eating him to bury him sooner.

He looked for anything, a crumb or a morsel to soothe the savage beast, but nothing. Not even a pebble or sprinkles of dirt to lick.

People walked around him ensconced in their phones and conversations. Dropping nothing, but gorging their faces, rubbing his own into his pain. Their already large frames growing thicker while his shrunk. He could feel the days numbered and he had not even the strength to rummage through the nearby trash can. Not that it would matter. This city was a clean city, designed to turn away his kind and discourage charity among its citizens.

No one cared enough to offer help or even ask if he was ok. A simple question.

In the younger days of his hunger, he made noises as an attempt, but it wasn’t really their language. Yes, they could understand his words, but not his need.

He needed more than food. Safety, security. Yet his mother could not offer it and the world around him seemed bent on destroying him rather than making him a part of them.

No, it wouldn’t be long before the hunger took all of him. The pains shot through him like lightning and ice all at once. He could feel it all shutting down. There wouldn’t be much left soon and then there would be nothing at all.

He could only hope that in the afterlife, he would be loved, feeling what it seemed like he would never feel here.

It drummed louder and he groaned.

He would be gone soon. No longer a waste of time to step around him. Maybe some other unfortunate soul would replace him, but he could only hope that his legacy ended with him.

He felt the cold feeling and thought rain. It would be something at least. Some little bit of ease.

But when he gathered his strength and looked up, it was a large hairy beast. A dog. Scruffy, black, with parts of fur missing.

“Get out of here,” he said, “I’ll eat you.”

He laughed though he was only half-joking. If only he had the strength…

The beast seemed to obey him at first, but when he followed the dog with his eyes, he saw it head to a preoccupied man with a half-eaten bagel. It was the kind of bagel with seeds he couldn’t identify, but it looked amazing.

He expected the beast to beg, wave its pretty eyes (which he could now see that one was blue, the other brown).

Heterochromia, he thought, drawing the word slowly in his mind. He was surprised he knew it, but remembered when he could read to pass his time.

Heterochromia, he tried to say aloud to a woman drinking coffee and talking to her friend (drinking a smoothie), but only grumbles came from his mouth. The women, now disgusted, took their beverages and left.

He turned his attention back to the beast and cell phone man. The man texting aggressively didn’t notice at first that the beast had snatched his seeded bagel.

Only when the beast took off towards him did cell phone man notice. The beast dropped it onto the dirty ground and whimpered towards him.

He didn’t ask if the beast wanted any. He shoved it in his mouth and tore a chunk out of his mouth to give to it. It lapped up the bagel much like him, grateful as if he were the one to procure the nourishment.

The beast licked him and laid in his lap, looking at the disgruntled cell phone man.

“You need to control your dog,” Cell Phone Man told him and he laughed in response.

Cell Phone Man gave him a look, but said nothing, returning to his aggressive texting.

“I’ll call you Heart,” he told the beast, rubbing its fur, “Because unlike anyone who has passed me for several days, you have one.”

It was slurred from sickness and leftover hunger pains, but the beast now named Heart understood. It was the cock of his head and the appreciative nature in which he approached their new lives.

Heart would live with the man on the sidewalk. Warming him in the winter and shading him in the heat of Summer.

They begged and pleaded, but the man was too dirty and Heart was as intimidating in appearance as he was sympathetic and loving.

Looks, words, and curses fell upon their heads, but they had each other.

Death would come to take the man on the sidewalk as it should’ve the day he met Heart, but it was different this time.

No longer the cold hands down his throat, these hands were gentle and comforting. His breathing slowed and his life on this sidewalk caught up with him, but he was no longer alone. Massive paws with patchy black fur held his cracked hands. Eyes blue and brown looked into his greys. It was more than he ever hoped for.

Heart would be alone, but never truly. The memory of the man on the sidewalk would be on his mind until his final day. He would be his last thought as the hands of death that took the man claimed his paws.

Heart’s heart would be beat for him until it stopped.