Little Shard

I can tell that something is missing. Something important. I stick my fingers

through my chest, pushing into the gelatinous, fleshy skin, and wiggling my way

past guard dog ribs, slipping each finger through the tissue in between the long

pearl bones. My thumb is too crooked to fit (it was broken once, long ago) so I

hook that around the outside of my rib cage, letting the weight of my arm rest on

it. I am at my heart, and I can feel it brush against my fingertips with each little

thump.  Gingerly, I began an examination, searching, searching. At first, I don’t

notice anything amiss, there is only the gentle thrum of blood, and I almost give

up, and pull my hand away. Oh, but there. I feel it, at last. Somewhere just behind

the left ventricle (of course it would be there, I muse, remembering the

weaknesses of each piece of heart). A little hole. Sharp-edged, like a piece of

glass cracked away. It’s thin, and I can feel the entire space with the tip of my

pinky. It is in that moment that I know what is missing, and with a sigh, I let my

hand slide easily back out of my body, watching the skin gel together with a sad

hum.

I lie in a little ball, pushing my fingers against my muscle and bones, and think

about this. About this little, almost not-there hole, and wonder how it can make

me so uneasy, to have just that little bit missing. And then I realize. This shard of

heart isn’t missing. I know exactly where I have laid it. I put it in a tree, and then

wrote, in such neat, straight, script, (my Ts resembled the cross on a church) a

clue. A riddle, a hunt (Oh, how my heart does love a good game).  The ending

prize, “Whomsoever finds this, will have a little piece of something so very strong.”

So strong, and yet,

I’m afraid it might get thrown away, and it will be lost to me.