Heartbeat

In the old world, a heart was a symbol of love, harmony, and compassion. I was grateful that I'd never known that world. It would have been almost impossible to bear the new one if I had known those feelings. My great-grandparents' generation couldn't adapt, and they died out long before their time. My grandparents learned from their parents' mistakes, and by the time my own parents were born and came of age, the new society had been completely tamed.

Of course, the Beating Council that watched over us would have you believe that a heart still meant the same thing. But some of us knew better. It was now a symbol of tyranny and death.

The heart-shaped locket that dangled around my neck, and around the neck of every single citizen of Heartfelt City, was a time clock. I gripped it tightly, wishing I could crush it between my fingers. But as much as I hated it, it was still precious to me. Until tonight. Those lockets were a countdown. It told us how many heartbeats separated us from death.

Crouched upon the empty rooftop, I looked at the street fifty feet below. It was so quiet. Although many people travelled up and down the avenue, there was no rush or bustle. Most people used the slow electric buses that operated from one end of the city to the other, but even those who walked did so at a sedate pace.

There never was any hurry in Heartfelt City. No excitement, no elation, no enthusiasm. There never was any emotion. Emotion made the heart beat faster. When you could see the countdown of your life before your own eyes, you were in no hurry to shorten it for the silly pleasure of emotion.

The heart lockets had first been created as a medical tool to monitor patients' heartbeats, just after the End of the World. There had been so many sick and injured people that doctors couldn't take care of everybody. With the locket technology, they had been able to focus on the people who still had a long life ahead of them. It had made many heartbreaking choices easier.

Then, as society was rebuilt and walled city-states sprouted on the ashen expanse of the old American continent, survivors grew curious about their own lifespan. They had endured an extinction-level cataclysm. Life had become so precious. What better way to celebrate it than to be able to witness it right before your eyes? Wasn't that ticking clock proof that you were alive?

But there was one thing more powerful than humans' love of life. It was their fear of death. Humans cannot think about death peacefully. That's why they invented religion in the old world. They needed someone to tell them that their life was not futile. That it would go on forever after their earthly death. It was reassuring to hear. If these religions were right, whoever took attendance in the afterlife must have been gravely overworked during the End of the World.

Then again, I'm not sure that whatever was left on Earth could qualify as life. Because of the lockets, people became so afraid to die that they stopped living. Was a life devoid of all emotion, devoid of all sorrow, joy, love, excitement, disappointment, and hope really worthy of the name? People can exist for many years without living for a single day.

People were scared of death. And what do the ambitious do when faced with a scared population? They exploit that fear. As more and more people acquired a locket in order to track their allotted time on Earth and frighten themselves out of experiencing any sort of life, the newly appointed government of Heartfelt City, aptly named the Beating Council, saw an opportunity.

They began favouring those who wore lockets, giving them priority for less stressful jobs or medicine in shortage. They banned sports and arts from public spaces, pretexting it could cause too much emotion to the people who chose to monitor their heartbeat. Heart lockets were encouraged as they were meant to help society sort out its members efficiently, and it allowed the individual to be prepared for the loss of a close one – or his own death. It saved grief and a whole mess of paperwork for the family of a deceased. By and by, sports and arts were completely outlawed by the Council. However, emotions died out on their own. People shut down any flutter of the heart. Loved ones became strangers, and passion became a threat. Fear lingered for a while, as people were still afraid of death, but even that remnant of the past disappeared when people realised it shortened their lifespan.

Then, once most of the population had surredered its livelihood to the lockets, the Beating Council passed several laws that allowed them and their rich friends to gather wealth and build lives of leisure. Poorer people had to fill positions that required difficult physical labour and stressful tasks to be able to pay the taxes that funded the hedonic lifestyle of the wealthy. The lifespan gap increased year by year. The Councilmen often lived to be a hundred years old, while the hardworking population seldom saw their sixties.

The new laws also allowed the Beating Council to closely monitor the population, if ever someone became unhappy with the inequality. Opponents were locked up, frightened, and mentally tortured until their hearts ran out of time. But very few people said anything. After all, outrage and revolt made the heart beat faster. Most of the population only cared about staying alive a little longer. With the constant reminder of their fleeting lifespan in front of their eyes, it was the only thought that occupied their minds. In the end, the life of the flesh mattered more than the life of the soul.

Down below, passersby continued their neat ballet. It looked like a sea of grey as if a colourless ocean had been idly stirred by a faint breeze. Grey was the most neutral colour. It was the only colour allowed. The sight of orange or green might cause an involuntary reaction in innocent bystanders. That was an infraction that could cost the offender six months of his life.

I didn't care for grey, but I needed to blend in. I kept scanning the crowd until I finally spotted what I was looking for. Amongst the drab and the bleak, I saw a splash of red. It looked like a drop of blood amongst ashes. As if the flesh of a volcano had been cut open. That sanguine spot travelled up the street a little faster than the flow of population. People stepped out of their orderly way to let it pass. I even saw a few who turned around to watch it go by.

A Bleeder. One of the Council's peacekeepers. One of the Council's hounds. One of the last people in Heartfelt City who still felt emotions. It was a shame that most of these emotions were the excitement of the hunt and the perverse pleasure of scaring a prisoner to death.

The sight of that foul being nearly made my heart give a beat. For a moment, I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. I only exhaled once I was sure that my heart would remain still. Usually, it didn't beat more than once a minute, but anticipation threatened to let it recklessly spend my lifespan.

The ability to slow down my own heartbeat was the first thing I had been taught when I had joined the Broken Hearts. Five years ago, I had realised they were the only hope to save whatever shreds of humanity remained in Heartfelt City.

My little brother, fifteen years younger than me, had been a creative soul, which meant that not only was he a threat to himself, but he also was a menace to others. He didn't understand how to suppress his emotions and, thoughtlessly, he hummed some melody in the street. Nearby people gasped – it was tantamount to an uproar in this walking corpse of a society. He was only nine years old, yet they still arrested him. That infraction should have cost him one year of his life, but the Bleeders didn't realise that a child was so easily frightened. They spent his entire life in the blink of an eye. When they called my mother to reclaim the body, her heart didn't give a single extra beat. I realised that, like most of the population, she was completely dead inside. A hollow husk with a blood pump. I ran away and joined the Broken Hearts that very night.

They were freedom fighters, the only ones who dared to rise against the tyranny of the heart lockets. But rebellion took a toll on the heart. They had had to develop methods to slow down their heartbeat to help compensate for the years of life wasted to the intensity of disruption, sabotage, and rescue missions.

However, if everything went according to plan, tonight could be the last of these missions. Our leaders had found a way to loosen the crushing grip of the Council. The last thing we needed to finally infiltrate the Synchronising Centre was a banal access card. The exact same kind of card that dangled at the belt of every Bleeder in the city.

I rose. My heart gave a beat. It was time for me to play my part in this historic moment. Today, everything could change. Once inside the Synchronising Centre, the Broken Hearts could destroy the lockets' servers. All the heart lockets would be deactivated in one fell swoop.

Of course, some people would be terrified. There would be panic and chaos, but at least, there would be emotions. It was a minor sacrifice compared to what was at stake. A moment of fear was a small price to pay for the rebirth of a soul. By and by, people would remember what it meant to feel. They would learn to be alive again. They would become human.

The Bleeder turned into a secondary street. It was not as populated as the main avenue. He was probably going home at the end of his workday. Jumping from roof to roof, I followed him like a grey shadow standing between the sun and his body. The buildings grew shorter as we went towards the suburbs. From this distance, I could see the hearts embroidered with red thread on his red uniform. How I despised this shape. It represented everything I loathed and wished to see destroyed. And it was anatomically inaccurate.

I knew those were not feelings I should strive to feel. It would be so much more enjoyable to search for joy and love. But those were nearly impossible to come by in Heartfelt City, and I was grateful to be able to feel at all.

Finally, the Bleeder reached an empty alleyway bordered by single-story houses. All the doors, windows, and blinds were closed. Nobody wanted to see have a view of the streets, in case something unexpected and exciting happened. Hiding behind an air conditioning unit, I watched him approach. I dug the taser out of my pocket and made sure to set it to the highest voltage. I only had one shot at this. I needed that access card. I couldn't fail. This tyranny had to end. Tonight, life would reclaim its dominion over humanity.

My heart gave a beat. I waited for the Bleeder to pass right below me and I let myself drop down. My heart gave another beat.