This is what Charlotte writes.

01.25.08

I stared at the quivering lump on the table. It was dark, dark red, the colour I would have expected it to be, had I ever expected to see such a thing. A human heart, freshly plucked from a body (the body that had, until recently housed it, sat, slumped in a chair to my left, quietly awaiting its return) and set on the rough wooden surface in front of me. I wanted to touch it, poke it, prod it. The brief moment that I had held it in my hands had been over so quickly, and the adrenaline that I had felt was so strong that I could not recall how dense it had felt, nor make my fingers feel the elasticity (or lack there of) of its surface. I placed my hands, scarlet with blood as they were, on the table in front of me, flexing my fingers, preparing myself.

The air in the room was cold, damp, like a February morning in Maddaloni, when the rain pelts the car windshield, your hair, and the piles of garbage in the street. Walking down the street, your nose fills with different scents as you pass shops, the faint aroma of rotting vegetables at the greengrocer’s, the smell of ocean and fish rising from the tubs of ice and clams and trout, and then the ever present stink of weeks-old rubbish. You can’t hold your breath to avoid the smells, so instead you inhale lungfulls of cigarette smoke from the old men in the café’s, step into a bar and order coffee, holding your nose above the steaming cup in between sips so as to clear your senses, or linger outside of a pizzeria or bakery to catch whiffs of the delicacies within. With the sweetness of pastries in your nose, you read the graffiti on the crumbling wall across the way. Between the sprouts of greenery and rusting iron work, the words “Te Amo con tutto il mio cuore” are written in bright red spray paint. “I love you with all my heart.” You are not yet cynical like I am.

The heart sat in front of me, steaming. I was ready. I reached out, grasped the wet warmth with my hands. Standing up, I tossed it from hand to hand, my private game of “Hot Potato.” I turned to you, where you stood against the wall, your face frozen in silent horror. Blood flew gently around, spattering my shirt, my shoes, your face. I grinned, knowing that this smile would perfect the vision of my madness in your mind. I turned back, reinserted the heart in its abandoned body, and sat again, lounging in my chair as the girl with the red spray paint stains on her fingers opens her eyes and walks over to you.