A Heart with a Name

Flight. The small, shimmering keepsake had experienced flight in a way that it’s inanimate body could never comprehend. The thrust such a tiny object would need to be thrown a small distance was vastly over-compensated by the mixture of emotions that scaled from pain to anger. The tiny object sailed through the air, it’s chain glistening in the sunlight, the reflecting light giving off an illusion of hope despite the feelings of loneliness that were to befall it’s previous owner.

The object could not feel these emotions, but the emotions tied to this object sailed away with it. Were the trinket to be discovered again, and it would, those emotions would be washed away by the corrosive, salty body of water it now fell towards.

The shiny gold of its shell reflected the passing seascape and sky, mimicking the illusion of colors on it’s husk. Blues of varying shade offered color to the reflective surface of the smooth covers of the locket. Despite all the colors that passed across the locket’s surface there was only one reflection on the locket that would have mattered, the image of a woman clad in navy blue jean clothing. Someone who had tossed the keepsake, wishing to rid herself of the object and the feelings connected to it. Her tears were drowned by the waves crashing on the shore. She hugged her belly tight while balling up a fist in her eye. She watched the locket vanish from her sight, forever, as she caressed the small bump that had just begun to show under her shirt.

As was established, a piece of jewelry has no feelings or emotions. To assume it did would be conceived as mentally unstable. And yet, years passed and the locket experienced things no mortal could survive. It drifted, not far from its place, often spending decades under the shifting sand at the bottom of the sea. No glimpses of the sun to be seen, no life to be heard.

In the early years, just beyond the flowing glass ceiling that was the skylight for the locket, various bright streaks appeared and made their presence known to the uncaring sea creatures below by exploding and raining toxins upon them. Eventually, the sea began to turn unnatural colors and the sea life stopped swimming around. Everything was still in the ocean and even the waves seemed to go quiet.

Then, as the locket had managed to stay close to the shore, as of no compulsion of it’s own, the sea life returned. However, ‘life’ was a loose term, as the bodies of those that once dwelled in the ocean drifted up and onto the shore beyond to rot away in the sun. No creature would touch them. Nature would retake the bodies as the sands of the beach continued to change with the rise and the fall of the tide.

There was a stillness to the Earth, as though everyone had decided to hold their breath and turn off all their appliances. Even the wind did not seem to escape the lungs of nature as though afraid to breathe in the toxins that now enveloped the sky above the ocean.

Everything stilled, and in what felt like no time at all, the ocean seemed to slink away. The locket had been lodged in some sand, next to what was left of a sand dollar a sea gull had fed upon years ago. And, with the sand slowly drying and settling. The locket seemed to vanish underground, into the dark and dry Earth.

Beep

Beep

The locket’s rest beneath the Earth was disturbed by a sound akin to a heart monitor. It was muffled by the dirt above, but it certainly was there. In moments, the beeping seemed to increase in volume and the locket was lifted from it’s tomb, and up into the open air once more. The sky was shrouded in dark clouds, so the locket would not be reunited with the life bringer on this day.

Rough, gloved fingers seemed to brush away the dirt of the locket. No colors of blue reflected off of the jewelry’s surface. Instead, an odd phenomenon occurred involving the locket reflecting the black reflective mask of the being holding it. Indeed, the person was completely clad in a protective suit that shielded the wearer from the harsh conditions of a world different from the one the locket had left all those years ago.

The being held the locket up by it’s chain, hovering a hand just below the apex of the locket, should the chain fail to hold. A moment later, the locket was lowered into a plastic bag and stored away in a side pack on the person’s body suit. There would be a long trek back to base for the locket, no part of which was as rough as the ocean’s unforgiving nature.

The locket was removed from the beings pocket and immediately dumped out of the bag onto what felt like hard black, rubber. A moment later, the rubber moved and seemed to carry along the locket and other artifacts found on the expedition into the wilderness. A loud gushing of winds and moisture overtook the locket and, should the locket have had sensations, it would have felt the cleanest it had ever been since being sold by the jeweler long ago.

A sighing and grunting was heard as though someone was struggling out of a suit. Just then, the conveyor seemed to drop off and the locket fell into a tray set atop a desk. The locket laid amongst several other pieces of jewelry and precious metals while the human explorer hung up their suit in a container. The rotating chamber closed around the suit and began to make a whirring noise.

As this occurred, the human made their way to what looked like a standing shower and began to bathe, cleaning every part of their body. Moments later, after taking care of some other maintenance mortal’s required, the human shuffled their way back across the cabin towards the small trinket with curiosity. The cabin in which this human presided seemed to be the individual’s home and lab.

The building appeared to be a retrofitted trailer that had windows covered up with reinforced glass. Though the glass was filthy, the outlines of tall buildings jutting out of the ground in various directions could be seen far off in the distance. A howling wind added to the ominous presence of an empty world beyond the window.

The human coughed softly as they sifted through the pieces of metal. The taste of the acrid air remained in the back of the human’s tongue. The recycled filters on the suit and the trailer were unable to keep out the tastes of the scorched earth outside.

Despite the locket having been placed in it’s own bag, there was quite the haul to be sorted through on this day. The locket wouldn’t be found for some time to come.

After sorting through several pieces of metal, the human pushed the sorted pieces off one end of the workbench. The pieces would fall into a cylindrical device that would melt down the metals and turn them into wiring. Pieces that were not thrown into the smelter for making wiring were pushed off into a bucket to be used for scraps.

Eventually, after repeating this mundane task, the human came across the locket. Seeing the locket gave the human pause. It was not often that intact pieces of jewelry from the old world were found.

However, the meaning of the object was lost on someone who had not seen other beings for most of their life. The world was so barren and they felt so alone, especially now, as they looked upon the locket. They knew that the shape of the locket meant love, but they had never had a love of their own. Only a desire to reverse that which those humans of the past had been unable to salvage.

Sighing, the human tried to open the locket, but the locket had withstood the decades of harsh conditions and wasn’t just about to give up it’s contents without a little bit of work. The rough fingers of the human slipped off of the clasp several times as they strained to get a hold. Eventually, the human threw down their hands in defeat and dropped the locket on the workbench before reaching across the table to grab a flat head screwdriver. Using the screwdriver as a wedge to pry open the locket, the locket seemed to fight to keep its secrets, like a clam trying to hold it’s pearl. But, after all this time, the locket gave and revealed a secret, actually relevant to the human.

The locket opened and the human investigating the locket paused once more. The photo contained within the keepsake was intact. Somehow, the heart shaped locket had managed to protect its contents from all it’s trials since experiencing flight.

The picture was of newly-weds that seemed relatively happy. Not a foreign concept to the human who had heard of such rituals before, but the comfort of seeing two beings that could somehow be so happy brought a tear to the human’s eye.

The locket was set down, once again, and the human removed the picture and looked closely at it. After a moment, the human flipped the picture over, to reveal a name written on the back of the photo. A look of confusion and then realization overtook the human’s face. The human’s eyes glanced to the container in which their suit was hung up and then back down at the photo.

Smiling, the human stood and walked across the cabin with the photo and pinned it to a cork-board in which schematics for a weather machine were pinned. A wave of emotions overtook the human as they wished for the world of old to be returned. There was a longing and need to see how they could make a couple feel the way these two had on that day, even if it didn’t last. Just that moment would be worth it.

Nodding with anticipation, the human gathered up their things and their newly formed wiring before prepping to go finish the machine they had been working on. With any luck, and a lot of persistence, the machine could be finished today and would begin reverting the weather. All the human had needed was more wiring. And…

They paused as they looked back at the workbench. The gold, heart shaped locket sat open on the bench. Looking new, but also empty. Lost, as though it needed some sort of conclusion to it’s story. Eyes darted to the smelter, to the bucket, and then back at the locket.

Moments later, the human emerged from their trailer to make their way back to the dilapidated city. A gloved hand rose up and patted the small lump at the base of their neck. The heart shaped locket could be felt through the suit where it now hung from the survivor’s neck. The hand trailed to the name tag on the suit, embroidered into it from when the survivor had been part of a team of scientists, hoping to salvage a world who’s climate had nearly erased all life.

All but one of the team members had perished.

But, today would hopefully be the start of something better. Something would come of this new project and the world could heal. After all, if a family name, the one on the back of the photo, could survive to this human’s time, as shown by the embroidered name on the suit, then maybe… maybe love and life has a chance.