The Call

Tock. Tock. Tock. It was driving her crazy. She was freezing, arm deep in snow, frantically searching for something completely unknown, that didn’t belong to her.

The park across the street was one of the main reasons she had rented this apartment, and even in less than favorable weather she always took a couple hours out of her week to stroll by the water. It was February and below freezing. There were no birds to feed, or street musicians, or vendors, but leaning on the knee-high, faded brick wall that separated her and the ocean, she appreciated the serenity the silence brought her. It was as if she brought all her week’s troubles with her and exhaled them out for the saltwater to absorb and dissolve.

She was walking the shoveled path by the water after a particularly brutal snowstorm. The weather had stayed in the single digits since then and any snow not immediately shoveled was frozen where it fell. She was wearing the sky-blue puffer jacket that her mother had bought for her last fall during their last shopping trip together. She didn’t know how many more winters it would last, but she was going to wear it for as long as she possibly could. Her gloved hands were stuffed in the pockets, and her magenta scarf was pulled up to her nose. On her head was her favorite matching magenta hat—the one she had crocheted sitting in the hospital room for hours, keeping her dying mother company.

Her walk this day didn’t differ greatly from any other. She did a small lap from one entrance to the other, stopping briefly to stare out into the open ocean and inhale the scent of the sea water. As she began walking again, she thought she heard a small sound.

Tick. She looked around to see if anyone was behind her, or coming down the connecting path to the left. She was alone. Tick. It sounded like melting water was dripping onto something metal. Tick. Like a clock that was moving very slowly, but it was a deeper sound…less of a Tick and more of a Tock. She walked a few more steps, trying to pinpoint its location, but she couldn’t hear over the crunch of snow beneath her boots as she diverged from the path. Tock. It was coming from a small hill ahead of her where most of the shoveled snow had been piled.

She took cautious steps over the smaller mounds of snow, making her way to the six-foot hill. She stopped at its base, listening again. Tock. Tock. Tock. It was here, getting faster, underneath this hulking mass of frozen snow. She immediately thought that even if she wanted to get to it, she couldn’t. Not with just her hands.

For a moment she thought that maybe it was something dangerous. A ticking time bomb? Was this a “If you see something, say something” moment? If it did turn out to be something dangerous, it was under a bunch of frozen snow, in the middle of an empty park. What damage could it really do? She decided to mind her business, and turned to walk back down the hill, but as she did, she felt the pull of something holding her back. Like she was a vintage doll with a pull string between her shoulders, and someone had their finger in the loop, holding her gently in place.

Curiosity began to rise in her, and suddenly she was convinced that she was meant to dig out whatever this thing was. She turned back to the mound and began kicking at it with the toe of her right boot. It did nothing. She leaned down and tried to push into the snow with her index finger, but it was nothing more than a wall of ice.

Did she have a lighter? It’s been a few months since she’d had a smoke, but she rifled through her pockets in case one was hiding in there. There wasn’t, and really, what was she going to do with a lighter? Sit there forever holding it up to the ice?

Over the next 45 minutes she’d tried sticks, rocks, a crushed soda can, and a frozen pinecone. She had managed to knock loose some snow on the outer layer, but she was making no significant progress. Exasperated, she let out a loud sigh of frustration and headed back to the walking path. She had been sweating inside her jacket, which was rapidly cooling now that she had stopped exerting so much energy. Her face was becoming raw from the cold wind, and her hair had fallen out of her hat and was sticking to her face. She needed to go home. So, resisting the pull of the mysterious object, she did.

She couldn’t stop thinking about it all night. She felt that it was literally calling out to her. A small voice in the back of her head, repeating her name. Tock. Tock. Tock. All night. She kept getting out of bed to stand by her window and study the trees across the street, watching them bend in the wind. She felt protective, almost possessive. She needed to stand there. What if someone else heard it? If someone was there, digging out her prize right now? She had to stand guard and make sure nobody came walking out of that park.

Several times she tried to distract herself. She sat on her bed and picked up the envelope that lived on her nightstand. “Darling” was handwritten on the front in shaky script. After a few moments of reflection, she stuck the tip of her nail under the sealed lip and held it there. Half a minute later she removed her finger and laid the letter back on her nightstand.

The next day she arrived at the park prepared. She was equipped with a snow shovel and an ice pick that she grabbed at the corner store that morning, fully committed to digging out whatever it was that was Tock-ing under all that snow.

She was sleep deprived, and knew she had a lot of work ahead of her, but her eagerness dwarfed her exhaustion.

She could hear the Tock as soon as she crossed the street. It was very faint, and she could barely hear it over the sound of the cars passing behind her; but she was listening for it. She approached her hill, the sound getting incrementally louder with every step. She thought that it seemed louder than it was yesterday, and it was Tock-ing at a steady pace.

She climbed up the snow mound and got to it. Alternating between the shovel and the pick seemed to be the best method; She would break up a section with the pick, then shovel out the loose snow. With her tools and the weather on her side it took her around 25 minutes to get through the snow, but with each inch she progressed the sound became louder. It was undoubtedly loud enough for others to hear, but the rare pedestrian walking the path didn’t even spare a glance in her direction.

She threw the shovel down and began to dig with her hands, faster and more frantically, desperate to silence this maddening TOCK. TOCK. TOCK. calling to her, relentlessly begging to be unearthed.

She was breathing heavily now, unable to hear even her own thoughts. The noise was deafening by the time her fingers uncovered it. She scooped out the snow around it and ripped it out of the hole.

Her first instinct was to look for an off switch. A button, a wire, a battery—but as soon as she touched it, the noise stopped.

She filled her lungs to capacity with the frigid air and let it out slowly. Feeling the quiet and relief wash over her, she finally looked at the object in her trembling hand.

It was a small machine crafted from dark metal. Rounded, but with protrusions. There were overlapping plates with deep lines like muscle and thin wires where veins should be.

It was a human heart.

A steel, warm, beating heart.

Her anticipation was replaced with confusion. She took off her glove to get a better feel of it and noticed that it was buzzing. Short bursts that were in time with its previous tock-ing, and despite being buried in snow, it wasn’t cold. It felt like it was giving off heat...not enough to burn, but just softly warming her, as if she was holding another person’s hand.

She didn’t know what to make of it. Why had this machine summoned her to this spot, screaming for freedom from its frozen prison? Her knees were cold and wet, and started to hurt from kneeling, so she decided to solve the rest of this mystery indoors. She gathered her tools, left the hole as it was, and took her heart home.

She spent some time that evening doing research but could find no information on this strange mechanical thing she discovered. It didn’t seem like it was cheap, and she felt that someone would surely be missing it, but according to the world wide web, this thing didn’t even exist.

That night she placed it on her nightstand before bed on top of her mother's letter, and for the first time in months, she slept through the night. When she awoke the next morning, she reached for the heart and saw something engraved on the side: “Darling”

She was sure that wasn’t there yesterday. Almost sure. She would have noticed it, how could she not?

Now she knew why this trinket had come into her life. It was the thing she had been praying for. A sign that her mother was still with her.

For the first few days it felt like a miracle.

She was convinced it was a gift sent from heaven to calm her grief, to help her sleep, and help her get her life back on track. Its rhythmic “beating” seemed to sync with her own pulse. She felt calm when she held it; it stilled all her anxiety. The apartment felt less lonely now, like there was something here, keeping an eye on her.

She always kept it with her, never out of arm’s reach. Next to her in the kitchen while she cooked, on the sink while she showered, in her purse when she grocery shopped, and, of course, on her nightstand every night. In close proximity, it calmed all her anxieties. It didn’t give her joy or excitement, but contentment. No more hyperventilating or panicking, just slow, steady breaths and mental focus, without the cloud of grief and loneliness hanging over her.

When she held it, it would reward her. If she began to feel sad, she lifted the heart, and suddenly she would smell the familiar scent that filled her childhood, the only perfume her mother ever wore. Sometimes she would hear the distant humming of her mother’s favorite song, or hear her playing the piano.

It didn’t take long for the symptoms to start. Three weeks at most.

Now the heart did not only reward her when she lifted it, but punished her if she left it behind, as if it resented being abandoned for even a moment. She forgot it in the bathroom after a shower, and it only took a few minutes to feel the effect. A strong dizziness that almost took her off her feet, like she was on the deck of a rolling ship. She scrambled to the bathroom and grabbed for the heart, knocking it off the sink in her haste and desperation.

The decline was slow. At first, she just felt tired. Despite getting a full eight hours of sleep, she found herself nodding off at the sink doing dishes, always needing a nap, her eyes closing when she tried to read. She shrugged it off, thinking maybe she needed more vitamins, or to eat healthier.

Then she was hungry. She would attempt to eat but could swallow no more than a few bites before she felt ill. She was irreparably cold, twenty-four hours a day. She layered sweaters and socks but still shivered sitting on the couch under a pile of blankets.

The heart, she realized, would keep her warm, but it began to ask more in return. Being close to it wasn’t enough; it had to touch her skin. She held it, and relief flowed through her. Her cold fingers could move freely, so she closed her hands around it, and focused on the peaceful beating, which seemed, lately, to beat quicker than her own.

Eventually, leaving the heart in another room caused her lungs to struggle. Her heart rate slowed dramatically, struggling to pump blood through her sunken veins without the help of its companion.

By week four she decided to see a doctor. No answers were given, only more questions. They ran test after test and could find nothing. There were no signs of illness that could be causing the massive organ failure that she was experiencing. They didn't know the answer...but she did. When she left the mechanical heart in her purse, across the room, and the nurse failed to find her pulse, she knew. There wasn’t anything physically wrong with her. Her life was no longer in her own hands.

By week five she was barely more than a framework of bones with skin draped tightly over them. She lay in the hospital bed, clutching her life support machine to her chest, but it refused to work. The buzzing was strong, and it radiated the same comforting warmth, but her state did not improve.

She placed it beside her, and lifted the envelope from her bedside table. “Darling”.

She turned it around, and with weak, shaky fingers, tore the paper open, revealing the letter she had refused to read. There was no time left.

“My Darling,

I hope you find it in you to read this on the day of my passing, or the few days following it. With both me and your father gone, you may feel lost. Your grief may cloud your judgement, and your loneliness may make you desperate, but I beg you to listen to your mother, just once more.

The loss of your father almost broke me. I was searching the universe for a cure, anything to take away the pain and emptiness that I felt without him. The universe answered me. I heard something calling my name. A beautiful work of art with the power to mend broken hearts. But it heals your heart, only so it can take it for itself. Do not listen to it. It does not love you, it will not save you—please, my darling, ignore the call.

You are forever my heart

-Mom

She read the note and read it again, staring at the words, willing them to change their meaning. As she took what she knew would be her last breaths, she picked up the heart and turned it to see the engraving.

It was gone.