All You Need Is

When they predicted The End of the World, it was always in a great cacophony of orchestral destruction. An illegal film long-banned, V for Vendetta-esque, only recalled through word of mouth in this age. It ended up being a little more pathetic than that, a lot more, actually; our demise was painful and torturously slow. The New Order shifted who we became. Yes, we were shapeless shapeshifters.

The humans of this society are only capable of a small range of emotion and severely limited in critical thinking. It’s impossible to feel much of anything, anymore.

My brother Kas was an exception to this cage of indifference.

“I’m going out to the old lighthouse, wanna come?” Kas poked his head into my room with a large canvas bag strapped to his back.

“When are you gonna stop wasting your time with these exploration trips?”

Kas looked towards the wall where I was staring, scrutinizing the water-stained walls. He didn’t need to say anything for me to know what he was thinking. He walked to the wall in front of me and put his hands on his hips. “You know, I think I get it now. This mold patch looks like a horse.” He looked back at me, his face blank.

“Shut up,” I stood up and punched him in the spine. “Let’s go then.”

The lighthouse was around a nine-mile walk away. I knew this because Kas wouldn’t stop talking about it. I never really understood what it meant when his tone shifted and became high-pitched and fast. Nobody ever really talked the way my brother did.

He grabbed my hand when the edge of a towering cliff came into view. The air around us palpated with an energy I had never felt before. “Are you sure this is,” I hesitated and lowered my voice, “legal?”

“Of course it isn’t.”

I ripped my hand from his and stepped back. “Listen, I came here with you. You go ahead and do what you need to do.” There was a nice spot of broken rock where I sat down. Kas sighed, but didn’t say anything more. He disappeared into a door on the side of the abandoned lighthouse, being swallowed by such a huge structure never seemed so disturbing.

The clouds ahead were heavy and grey, but a small sliver of sunlight struggled to shine through. A valiant effort. Just as I was about to go fetch Kas, a glint of gold caught my eye. It was stuck in between the rubble of the lighthouse just at the base of it. I used the toe of my shoe to kick a piece of the foundation loose, and the object fell to the dirt floor below. I knelt down, my hands in my pockets, and observed. I wouldn’t get in trouble for just looking, right?

It was a necklace with a bulbous piece hanging from the end of it. A shape I had never seen before, but felt so familiar–safe. I was becoming lost for a moment, and my hands subconsciously slipped from my pocket. My finger was inches away from the necklace, and just as I was about to touch it, my brother’s voice echoed from a rickety window up above.

“Hey!”

I stumbled back and fell, though my eyes never left the piece of jewelry.

“Check this out!” Kas called out. Over the waves of the nearby ocean, I heard what The End of the World was supposed to sound like. It was loud, boisterous, and familiar.

Love, love, love.

Love?

Love.

It was music. I looked up at Kas and his grin lit up the entire sky, replacing the glow and burn of the sun. He was smiling. He was happy. He was feeling.

“All you need is love!” He yelled down at me while holding the record player in his arms and rocking back and forth. It wobbled with his movements.

I stopped breathing. I lunged forward and grabbed the locket, wrenching it open and soaking up the picture inside, devouring it, drowning in it, and drinking it down all at once. It was a young child. The music enveloped me, so much that I stopped hearing it altogether. The roaring of the ocean waves tossed and turned the organ inside of me.

What was that word again? Love. What did that mean? No, he knew what it meant. It was this locket. This locket shaped like a-

“A heart!” Kas fell down next to me and peered at the object just as I had been. His eyes were overfilled with something. An emotion I forgot how to feel. His hand covered mine, as we both held onto the small “heart” as he had called it.

“Heart?” I whispered. It tasted natural on my tongue, but the way Kas looked at me, I knew it wasn’t natural at all. At least not for me.

“Do you know what that song was about?” He asked me.

I looked up at the window where he was a moment ago. The melody had already left me. The words were already forbidden. I shook my head.

“It was once a famous song. Everybody on earth knew it.” Kas sat down more comfortably and put his hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t let go of the golden heart, in both my hands and my spirit. “I read a lot about the concept of Love. There were so many different kinds. It’s an ancient emotion we can’t feel anymore, or at least that’s what I thought.”

“This child,” I pointed at the picture inside of the locket, “is love?” I wondered.

“I don’t really know.”

“We all knew her then, I guess.”

“Maybe.”

“Why can’t we feel it anymore, Kas?” I asked as I finally closed the locket and handed it to my brother. He gently cleaned off the heart with the edge of his t-shirt, and then unclasped it and put it around my neck.

“According to the texts I read, the emotion was too powerful.”

“Like anger?”

“More powerful than that.”

“Hatred?”

“More.”

“More powerful than hatred?”

“Much more,” Kas whispered.

“Wow,” I held onto the heart with my hand and felt it warm against my palm. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“You were too busy staring at the wall.” Kas stood up and brushed himself off, motioning for me to do the same.

I followed his lead and we headed up the stone stairs to the lookout.

“That might be the last depiction of a heart on earth,” he said as we settled down. There were old tarps on the ground where he laid out the materials of his bag: food, water, blankets, and a lantern.

“If someone finds it...” I trailed off, and a picture of the two of us in jail–or worse–executed, conjured itself up in my imagination.

“Hey, you followed me up here,” he noticed with a smile. I flopped over on the ground and faced the ceiling.

“No wonder they banned Love. It makes you crazy,” I muttered, but when I looked over at Kas his expression softened.

“I think it makes you brave,” he replied.

I closed my eyes and tried to recall the song from earlier but it slipped away in a sudden fog.

Maybe they were wrong about The End of the World. It wasn't an ending at all, it was a beginning. The way my brother rummaged through the old trunks, a little impatiently and desperately, were witness to it. His eyes were wild-looking. I felt it for a second too. I could hardly believe such a thing; I could feel.

This little girl around my neck was important. It was a link to something more powerful than the wickedness that had overtaken our world. Whoever owned the locket must have been able to feel love as well. That meant I was wearing evidence that love existed at one point in time.

When that song played through me, I almost saw the face of our mother. At a certain age, children are separated from their family; siblings are allowed to stay together until they're adults. We had parents once, I think. It was common knowledge, but how could you miss someone you never knew? Well, someone wanted to remember this child. I wonder if my parents wanted to remember me. It bothered me suddenly, and an uncomfortable yearning grew in my chest.

One day, Kas and I will separate. We'll both be drafted to the city, where we will spend the rest of our lives serving the New World.

I looked up at Kas. He looked back at my blank expression and smiled. It's understood that only sick people smiled, but my brother was not sick. I just don't know if he would allow his life to end up like mine inevitably will. Maybe that's why he gave me the necklace, so I wouldn't forget. I don't know if this is his beginning or his ending. The most tragic part is that I'm not sure I would be able to care either way. If I owned a heart, could I love Kas? Would I worry for him?

I looked down at the golden necklace and sort of understood why one would wear it. I imagined the owner of this lighthouse never separated from their children. Maybe their parents sat inside just like Kas and I did right now, in the silence of the dusky night. Their children would be asleep. Their first born baby girl rested in a locket around one of their necks. She was created out of love, not of anything artificial like the rest of us are now. As I imagined it, I could hear a baby cry. Then I could feel the vibration of gentle music.

Love, love, love.

"Kas, do you think our mother felt love for us?"

The image melted away, but the feeling remained as I watched my brother shuffle around. He paused.

"I don't think it really matters now," Kas muttered.

"If you could feel love, would you feel it for me?" I asked. I held my breath for an answer. Why did I?

Kas leaned up against one of the large windows. He opened his mouth to reply.

There was a loud crack of glass.

He fell backwards with a shout.

I can tell you now with certainty: I know what grief feels like. It ripped from my throat when I screamed his name. I felt it in the glass of my palms as I leaned out the window to see the piercing cliffs below. Finally, I felt Love, when my face crumpled with sobs.

It was powerful, just as Kas had said.