Henry’s Heart

Most of us prefer to keep our hearts inside our chests, and with good reason. If you always know where yours is, you’re unlikely to misplace it when life gets a little hectic. Since your chest goes with you wherever your travels take you, so does your heart. This makes it easy for it to weigh in on all your major life decisions without your having to think too far ahead.

If someone wants to steal your heart, they have to do it the old-fashioned way by giving you flowers or telling you exactly what you want to hear for as long as it takes to win you over. They cannot, for example, simply break into your home, figure out that you happen to keep your heart in the cookie jar, and take it while you’re out late at the club dancing your bones into dust.

However, not everyone is interested in convenience. Some people — like Henry Hamill, to name just one — would rather enjoy other advantages, so they choose to keep their hearts elsewhere.

Henry kept his in an old-fashioned wrought-iron birdcage that hung from the ceiling in one corner of his office. He fed it twice a day and was always mindful of the temperature in the room, as hearts don’t particularly like it when it’s too hot or too cold. At night, he’d cover the cage with a black, felt cover so that the light from the morning sun wouldn’t wake the heart too early.

Henry understood other people who’d made similar decisions with their hearts chose more traditional storage methods. A safe was a popular choice — the more secure and the better concealed, the better. One very brave woman across town had actually chosen to put hers into the deep freeze at the suspended animation center — a bold but risky choice.

But Henry liked the cage. It was aesthetically pleasing and matched the décor in his office. It also let him keep an eye on his heart and communicate with it as often as he saw fit. He thought there was something very poetic about a writer who kept his own living, beating heart as a sort of pet. Creative types often had intense relationships with their hearts that made it hard to carry them around the all-natural way, but they nevertheless needed easy access in case they needed to get in touch with a particular feeling in a timely, authentic manner.

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When he was younger and people were just starting to take advantage of the type of science that would allow for such a miraculous thing as keeping your own heart separate from the rest of yourself, Henry insisted on keeping his heart right where it had been since he was born. He was worried that if he moved it or altered in any way — even for safekeeping — he might not be able to love Leonora the same way.

Henry had known Leonora since they were children. Their parents had been fast friends with one another, so it made perfect sense that their children would be, too. They remained close all through grade school. When they came of age and began to look outside of themselves with a mind to find love in another person, it only stood to reason that they should try to find it in one another, and so they did.

But as they grew older, they also began to develop into the people they were truly meant to be. Children are like tree seeds that come in a packet with no label. You give them a warm, safe place in which to grow. You feed them, water them, and protect them until they’re big enough to look out for themselves. Only then do you actually get to see what type of tree you’d been raising for all that time.

Henry grew into a mighty oak that loved the country and wanted plenty of space in which to spread out and expand. Since he was a little boy, he’d dreamed of becoming a writer, moving away from the city for good, finding some wonderful wide open space, and building a little house. He’d write the day away in a warm, dark office with a wonderful view. It would always be quiet and still — no traffic, neighbors, or noise to spoil the serenity.

But Leonora turned out not to be a tree at all. She was a fragrant, hothouse flower that loved the city just as it was. She dreamed of living a fashionable life, having a high-powered career, and moving to the most expensive part of town. She felt most alive when there were people around. Energy, sound, and movement made her feel alive in a way nothing else did, and she couldn’t imagine her life without it.

At first, the differences between them didn’t make much of a difference. When you’re still teenagers, you also still believe in the fairy tales sold to you by the movies you love and the songs you cry to. You take it for granted that that’s what love is — something that can survive any set of differences or problems, no matter how pronounced. It is all you need, and everything else simply fades away into the background along with anyone who tries to tell you the truth about how relationships really work.

However, as Henry and Leonora grew older, became adults, and eventually moved in together, the inevitable began to happen. They wanted to be friends with different types of people and spend their weekends on different activities. Henry looked forward to long, lazy days spent at home reading or writing. Leonora always had a party to go to or had just heard about a hot new club she wanted to explore. Henry wanted to move to the country someday and raise a little family. Leonora wanted to stay in the city and didn’t want to discuss ever having a child.

Eventually, as happens with so many young couples, Henry and Leonora became more like acquaintances living together instead of two people who were all fire and ashes for one another. Leonora found other sleek, fashionable people to go out and explore the city with at night while going to design school during the day. Henry threw himself into his writing and earned a few publishing credits. By the time he’d published his first runaway bestseller, Leonora had met someone else and moved out.

Leonora and Henry turned out to be very different in how they handled the end of an era in their lives together, as well. Leonora moved on quickly — so quickly, it made Henry wonder if he’d ever mattered to her at all. Henry stayed stuck in that horrible, sickening moment when Leonora had told him she didn’t love him anymore — didn’t know if she’d ever loved him, in fact — before walking out the door for good.

Even pouring the contents of his heart out into his writing didn’t seem to help much. He’d feel better for a while, but then his despair would rebound as if refilled from a bottomless well. Even moving out of the city and into the little house in the country he’d wanted so badly didn’t do much to help the heartbreak. It merely changed the view, which helped more on some days than others.

That’s when he’d decided to think more seriously about having his heart resituated. The technology involved had come a long way since it was first introduced. Now, not only was the resituating procedure completely painless, but you had many options as to what you could do with your heart once it was complete.

It wasn’t exactly forgetting Leonora, Henry thought to himself. He was simply moving the organ she refused to vacate to someplace more convenient so he could stop living his life as if he were a ghost. It was something he realized he needed to do for himself and — ultimately — for his livelihood. He needed to get back to being productive again, and it had become extremely difficult ever since the depression had really set in.

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Once the procedure was complete, Henry was presented with a metal box — a box that now contained his heart. What a surreal feeling that was, because he didn’t feel any different physically. But when he put his ear to the lid of the box, sure enough, he could hear the strong, steady beating coming from inside.

He felt worlds differently emotionally and spiritually, though. He was reminded of how clean the air in the country had been on that first day away from the city life he detested. He hadn’t realized he couldn’t breathe until he could finally breathe properly for the first time, and that’s how it felt to hold your heart in your hands instead of inside your chest.

Finally, the long drive home was complete. Henry carefully carried the box inside and into his office where the beautiful iron birdcage had been prepared earlier that week. He carefully opened the lid, gently lifted the beating organ from where it lay inside the box, and transferred it to the cage.

He stood very still for a while, admiring the heart, finally able to feel grateful for all it had felt over the years. Somehow it was easier to take out the feelings, look them over, and appreciate them for what they were when they weren’t burning in his chest like an ulcer. He could better use them this way, he thought, looking forward to all the future books he’d be able to write in his new, clearheaded state of mind. And so Henry turned out the light and went to bed.