The Artifact

August handled the artifact carefully. It was ancient, delicate and cool to the touch. She had been drawn to this particular piece for reasons unknown, and she thought about it day and night since the first moment she saw it. She instinctively knew it was somehow a precious commodity indicative of her ancestor’s proclivity toward an elusive emotion they used to refer to as love. She had read about love in the old, wood-pulp artifacts, had wondered about love from time to time, but had never felt love, of course. She had a curious nature toward the intangible, which made her good at her assignment. She explored each item she encountered with fresh, inquisitive eyes and had been able to assess the value of many items that others would have cast aside as something ancient humans referred to as junk.

August often assumed she was different but had secretly hoped the other members of her team were just as shy as she was about admitting that something stirred within them that they could not identify when they handled certain items. With no reference to draw from, only what was programmed into her, she could not know for sure what was happening to her when she happened upon particular artifacts.

Seven emerged suddenly in the transport stage and shook her head. “Again with that one.” She smiled.

“It’s important, Seven. I’m sure of it.”

“I don’t doubt it. But sometimes, we need to move forward even without all the answers.”

August looked back at the artifact. “Look around you, August.” Seven pointed to tables upon tables of artifacts waiting to be reviewed and logged.

“We aren’t on any timetable, Seven. We can take as much time as we want with each item,” August said indifferently.

“True,” said Seven, “but still, perhaps you should log that one and move on. It is never a good idea to become too caught up in anything.

“I’d hardly call it caught up, “ August said, although she would absolutely say that she was caught up with this artifact. “I’m just trying to be thorough.”

“You always are.” Seven smiled again and moved to the table on the far end of the room to double check their logs from earlier.

August walked over to the table with the wood-pulp artifacts. She held her hands under the ultraviolet light for 10 seconds to sterilize them, and then picked up an item that ancient humans referred to as a book. She hoped it would give her some insight this time, after so many times of reflection upon the same pages, she always hoped something would reveal itself to her suddenly.

“That love is all there is, is all we know of love.” The writer wrote. Emily Dickenson. August tried to wrap her mind around the concept of something that clearly shaped humanity, drove humanity to die for each other, kill for each other, protect each other, follow each other across continents, abandon each other out of something called fear. It was immeasurable to August, unfathomable, this thing they called love. And why she felt that this object in her hand had something to do with this love was also a mystery. But on one page in this book, in the corner, in what appeared to be red ink, August had noticed a shape drawn on the page. It was a shape that appeared very similar to the shape of her precious artifact. It was the shape of something that many in these books had referred to as breakable. Not in the literal sense, she was sure that was not what the writers had meant, but how could an emotion be broken? How could a living, breathing, literal organ that kept these bodies alive be figuratively broken? Sure, it could break down, it could be crushed, torn or destroyed, but if it was functioning properly and intact medically, how could it be broken? It was a concept August wanted to grasp. She was fascinated by the idea of it, and she knew it would change everything if she could understand it. She closed her eyes, touched the book with one hand and gently rubbed the heart-shaped artifact with the other.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to feel something.”

“What does that mean?”

“I think it means I’m trying to have an emotion.”

“Which emotion? There were so many.”

“Love.”

“How is that possible? We don’t feel emotions any longer.”

“I’m not sure.” Seven stared at August curiously.

Slowly and cautiously August approached her idea. “Seven, aren’t you curious?”

Seven just looked at August.

“Seven, the thing called love, it provoked humanity to the highest highs and the lowest lows.”

Seven didn’t react.

“It was the ultimate emotion, Seven. It was what made humans….human.”

Seven sighed, and August decided she had nothing to lose. “I also believe that it may be possible the certain objects made humans feel certain ways.

“You mean that something as simple as this, whatever this is,” Seven reached for the artifact, but August did not let her touch it. “This thing could cause emotions?”

“Maybe not so much the artifact itself as what the artifact symbolized to them.”

“This artifact symbolized love?”

“To the barer and the receiver of the artifact, I believe that yes, it symbolized something so powerful that humans would die for it.”

Seven threw up her hands. “I don’t get it.”

“I don’t know if I get it either.” August looked at the locket. “But, Seven, I do have some strange reaction to it. I am….feeling, I think.”

“It’s impossible, August. You know that.”

“Is it? If love, for example, was something so powerful that our ancestors survived on it, lived and died for it, how could it possibly evolve out of humanity?”

“We aren’t what was traditionally called human any longer,” Seven reminded her. “Not for centuries.”

“Perhaps, but wouldn’t it be something if we could rediscover love and reintegrate it into our tissue matter or into our essence or into wherever it lived in humans before, now that we are more….evolved. Now that we could control it.”

“What makes you think we could control it?” Seven said. “Truly, if love could do all that you say, all that those books say, what makes you think we’d be any better off at controlling it ourselves than our ancestors? I mean, isn’t that the point of how we are made now? So that we don’t fall into the trappings that brought ancient humanity nearly to extinction?”

“It seems to me that something so powerful would enhance our existence.”

“Or destroy us again.”

“Or that, yes,” August said cautiously. “But I would like the chance to know.”

Seven stared at August with an odd look on her face. It was the look August hadn’t seen before. She had sparked some sort of curiosity in Seven, she could tell.

“No. It’s not something to explore. It is something to abandon, I’m sure of it.” Seven quickly wiped the look from her face with her words.

“Why, Seven? How can you be so sure?”

“Because as with everything we’ve discovered about our ancestors, we know that they were a species of polarity. So, what is the opposite of this thing you keep calling love?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I am sure it would be horrific.”

“We don’t know that.”

“If humans would die for this love, imagine what they would do to each other for whatever is the opposite love.”

“We don’t know if it would bring with it great tragedy or complete, um, happiness.” August thought that happiness, at least the description of happiness, seemed like a possible companion emotion to love.

“And we never will.” Seven held out her hand.

“I’d like to hang on to this,” August closed her hand around the artifact.

“It’s time to move on from this heart, or whatever you called it, this love.”

“That is not necessary.”

“August, it is. Hand it to me now. I will put it in storage.”

“Don’t tuck it away, Seven. It should not disappear.”

“It must, August. For the sake of our future, it must.”

“Do you think you are feeling fear? Fear of what love may bring?”

“So, what is this fear?”

“I don’t know exactly,” August said quietly. “But it is often referred to along side of love. I suspect love can elicit fear?”

“Is that a question?”

“One that cannot be answered unless we find a way to incorporate love into our existence again.”

“That won’t happen.”

“Why not, Seven? Why can’t we explore letting it happen again?”

“Simple. I cannot feel, therefore I cannot fear, August. Nor can you.”

“You cannot love then, and there is that.” Seven held out her hand, and August could not deny her the heart-shaped object any longer. In her research, she learned that it was a locket, a keepsake, as it was referred to, an item of emotional significance. She released the artifact from her hand and watched it drop into Seven’s.

As Seven walked away, August picked up the book again. She read another passage by the same writer. “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; if I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin onto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.” And she felt something, within her where a heart should be, of that August was sure.