Love’s Ephemera

During business hours, the collection of hearts in formaldehyde-filled jars is for the most part silent. Each sits in its allotted place on the dusty shelves. Occasionally they bob like dumb sponges in their hermetically sealed baths of forever and forgetfulness. They do their very best to act their part, keeping up appearances. Fleshy and house-proud. Holding the pose of the day each of them pumped their last drop of blood. Only the oldest let the collection down, floating belly-up in a slurry of their own disintegration.

Once the display lighting has been switched off and the door locked for the night, however, it is another matter. They jostle sullenly, rattle their lids, and murmur to one another of loss, bitterness, vengeance and revolution. But it never comes to anything.

“I dug my nails into his skin and, oh-h, he loved that,” the most ancient (second from the left, third shelf down) whispers through the murky liquid. She’s quite insane.

Closer to the middle, the established denizens squabble incessantly.

“You were just a fuck. That’s all you were…”

“He had you on the rebound…”

“How could he ever really care for you? You were cheating when he met you.”

“Bitch.”

“Whore.”

“Cunt. You are nothing but a cunt.”

“Fucking tourist.”

It goes on and on, all night long. A squelching, seething babble of recriminations and jealousies.

A few never make a sound. They just simmer in their respective broth of dreams. From time to time, one spasms, one twitches, one sinks with the grace of a medusa to the bottom of the vessel, over-saturated with romantic reveries of white picket fences and beautiful, well-behaved children. I envy them most. Not for their dreams, but for their escape.

As the freshest heart on the shelf and still hemorrhaging from the cuts that liberated me from my body, I’m learning the rules of this menagerie. I slop the pickling juice, drive myself with fury against the side of the jar.

“But I *know* he really loved me!” I wail.

My next-door neighbor gives a dry laugh and mutters, “Fucking newbies.”

“No one wants to hear it!” hollers someone from further down the shelf.

And you, gentle reader, what should you make of this obscene collection? Please keep both your compassion and your smug superiority to yourself.

We are all, every single one of us, here of our own free will.