Matters of the Heart

Matters of the Heart



My name is Egoli Augustine Laroy, and this is my confession. For on this 3rd day of October, the year of our lord 1812, I have slain a living soul.

Two weeks before I murdered my familiar, Carlton, I found a heart lying in a glass jar upon the beach in Wainwright Provence just east of Berkshire. Believe me, I was just as stunned then as you will be upon reading this.

Upon my evening stroll, while the tide was low, it was of great happenstance that I came to find the jar in the sand. I simply tripped over the thing, upturning the jar and sending myself face first into the abrasive beach. I have been washing the detritus from my scalp ever since. Quite the problematic situation, sand in the hair is. You scrub and scrub, only to find after you're done, there's still grit in your hairline. Upset as I was over the condition of my hair, I was even more unsettled by the thing in the glass jar that now sits upon my dresser.

It pulsed with life...

...thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump...

And disturbed my sleep those first two nights. Imagine my discontent. I was quite weary of the heart by day three, I do say.

I was content to be done with the vile thing. My plan was to throw it back into the sea from whence it came. Alas, it was not that easy.

It seemed to speak to me from behind the glass, pleading...

...thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump...

I could not banish this sacred artifact. It had come to mean so much to me. What had I been thinking.

Placing the heart in the jar back upon my dresser, I slept soundly that night, sure in my actions. The heart's rhythmic beat hypnotized me into a land of dreams and wonders.

We dined together every evening after that. I, with my glass of wine, would toast the heart and our good health. It would answer, simply...

...thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump...

I was fulfilled by the heart more than any lover I had ever known. Carlton, my present bedfellow, could never satisfy me the way that heart behind the glass did. I wondered to myself, more often than not, whether I would get the same stares as I did whilst walking the lanes with my Carlton.

The good book did tell that man was not to lay with man, but who was I to deny my want and need for Carlton. Before the heart, my familiar thrilled me in a way no woman ever had. It was surely lust, and not love. I know that now. As with the heart in the jar I came to know true love.

It was this morning that Carlton came to call. He was not pleased at my absence. I pleaded with him, tried to explain what this heart had grown to mean to me, but he was enraged; completely inconsolable. Branding me crazy, labeling me one for the asylums keep, I watched as my former love fell from my grace. Believe me when I tell you the man would not be deterred.

Without regard for my own heart--me being a weak and frail little man, my struggles made no difference to him--Carlton grabbed the jar from the dresser and unscrewed the lid. The heart beat one final time...

...thud-ump...

Before ceasing to be.

The room seemed to go crimson with my anger. A deep seeded rage filled me at my core. I dove for Carlton, grabbing his throat in my small hands, as I stole his air from him. We collapsed to the ground, my bottled heart still between us, as I tightened my grasp on Carlton's neck. His face grew maroon; his eye's asked "why" before rolling back to the whites.

In haste, I released my hold on him.

I lay my ear to his chest and found what I sought...

...thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump...

In the kitchen drawer I found a knife; my very sharpest.

By candle light I worked.

It seems my passion has come full circle, as Carlton and I are reunited once again. The previous heart, discarded; Carlton watches me even now from my dresser as I write this letter by quill and ink and flame of torchlight.

I may not be well versed in matters of the heart, but that steady rhythm does call to me, even now, speaking volumes that I cannot...

...thud-ump, thud-ump, thud-ump...

Signed,

Egoli Augustine Laroy, Esq.

3 October 1812

-The End-