The HEART Remembers

As the earth-bound ship slowly lowers onto the desert sands, Professor Harkine steps out the hatch, light from the sun blinding her. She raises her hand to block the searing rays. “Seems I left my shield glasses on my desk aboard the space station,” she grumbles.

“Here are some glasses mam,” her assistant & archeological dig supervisor Dali says as he slides the protective glasses over her nose. The doctor teeters a bit as her feet shift on the sands, her knees slightly buckling. Reaching out, she grasps Dali’s arm to keep from falling.

“Ah, thank you Mr. Dali. I guess it will take me a bit to get my land legs on,” the professor remarks.

Dali laughs, “I understand mam, I’m third generation raised on the station myself. It’s natural to have a bit of a reaction to earth’s gravity.”

The doctor nods her head in acknowledgement as she looks toward the dig site. “What have you found?”

His voice lightens in expectation, “Quite a find, quite a find indeed - we’ve found a memory locket, and the power source has been unharmed.”

The professor’s eyes widen at these words. “The recordings are intact?”

“Yes!” Dali cries. “Doctor Harkine, the AI in the locket -- it’s communicating.”

As the professor bounds toward the research tent, she passes by some dry bones in the sand. “What are you waiting for? Let’s hear it.” she commands.

ENTRY: 2994

My heart rests in the center, held up by two gentle hands of gold. Tiny stars of zircon glitter on my wrists, my edges. The chain from the top of me has lost much of its color over the years of my use. Two names are etched into my back, put into carving by the swiss army knife of a fifteen-year-old lost girl.

ERNA + ARLYNE

ENTRY: 2995

Since we were first joined via mindlink, Arlyne has not taken me off one day in her life. Even now, I sway back and forth across the air between us, thudding against her chest with each decided step, like a second heart beating to help the first.

She heard stories as a child about rocks - that they were wet, smooth and cool. Stories told about sounds of a bubbling stream with white foam escaping the cracks and water that glistened under soft sunlight. But there is no such thing now. The stones are coarse, dry and cracked - as are the leaves of what plant life remains. She has never heard the sound of a bubbling stream. As she thinks back to those stories now, she realizes that she never will hear a bubble... a gurgle… a drizzle… a splash… They’re all figments of what once was. They exist in her imagination and are lost to the physical world.

Now I dip into the dust underneath as her small, cloth-bound shape bends down for a taste of what remains of Earth’s most valuable resource:

Water.

The taste is sharp, bitter on her tongue. My chain stiffens. I feel her flinch as the water pinches her parched throat. She’s been without water so long that it burns instead of cools. The dust won’t give her up. The water can not heal her throat without first wetting the dust she’s swallowed. Arlyne leans down again to taste the dying stream and drinks until the burning stops.

I get a drenching in that liquid. As my golden-clad casing sways through it, water begins to fill in my cracks and edges… extinguishing the heat of a long day in the sun.

It couldn’t last for long, I know, as she pulls me up and out of the healing immersion. My clasp -- nearly at its end -- clicks open. It’s never failed us. I believe my sides and chain will fall before the clasp dares give out. Arlyne shakes me gently, dabbing my contents with the clean corner of her undershirt. She blows over me with a breath - warm air that moves quickly, cooling winds from the lungs of a girl who blows rejuvenation instead of kisses, speaks with intention instead of words. Her breath is warm, yet strangely cooling, like the winds offering themselves on an unfortunately heat-stricken day.

ENTRY: 2996

For all that I am in worth -- gold, beauty, sentiment. I am nothing but a vessel. What I carry inside… What I stand for… that is her treasure. All remains of her past life I carry here inside a tiny holograph-computer chip with a photograph. She often thinks about the ancients who left entire civilizations behind that when found centuries later are known for what they’d created, treasures and art they left behind in the ruins. With not a thing left to her name, what will remain?

Her fingers trace the faces on a tattered picture. The sticky film has affixed itself to my interior walls in the heat of the last four years. Two faces, two names...

ENTRY: 2997

Just one more.

Arlyne leans down for a last sip before standing. The sun is high in the sky now, but it’s back to the road for us. She ensures her long wraparound scarf is well over her head and pulls it up over her nose. Even her fingers are gloved to protect from unforgiving sunlight.

Arlyne takes a deep breath, filling herself with the warm, mid-day air. She walks out under the sun, ready to endure its beating. She walks. One foot after another places itself into the prints left behind. It’s hard to tell how much time has passed here. It’s hard to walk on without certainty. Somehow, she always does.

“Where are you?”

Is she asking me? All I know is what she knows.

I know she could swear she sees a figure just ahead of us. A taller girl with strong shoulders and long, dark, curly hair. Someone with a wider nose and an apologetic smile. Her pockets are full of rocks and the most curious of things. She is everything that is real in beautiful opposition. Yet, Arlyne’s hand phases through the mirage when she reaches out towards it.

Erna remains with us where she’s always been - eternalized by a sticky photograph.

ENTRY: 2998

Another step as the sun mercilessly lashes it’s crystalline whip from above.

“We’re getting closer now… I know it.”

With five layers of clothing, dust still manages to make its way into her shoes and my cracks. There’s not a strand of grass to hold the ground in its place. She looks up at the wavering sky, where one tiny renegade cloud drifts on.

She promises herself that we’ll get there. Whoever “we” and wherever “there” may be. She promises that all we have to do is keep walking. Keep walking and we’ll reach Erna.

ENTRY: 2999

Six years of dusty, dry throats.

Arlyne looks up at an old shop as she passes it. She thinks about stopping to look around inside. She shakes her head and quickens her pace. We’ve already stopped once today.

Her dry, gloved fingers trace prickly stems as she talks to our new rolling friend. Having a physical thing to speak to makes it seem less lonely than it is in reality. At least it allows her to pretend.

“Erna and I once built an entire house out of tumbleweeds.”

I can’t help savoring the sight of her with a smile on her lips. Dry and cracked, despite themselves they turn upwards at the corners. Her eyes… green, gold and blue. They drift farther than the horizon would dare extend its reach.

“We had to take it down because it was a fire hazard, but it was fun.”

Who ever thought a ghost-town could be so grandiose?

There had been so many people here. When the land breathed, it grew green in life. The sky was blue, air was moist on the skin. It was then, they came. There was so much to have and so much to take. The land held so much to live off of ... and so much to siphon.

When the world as we knew it fell into an incurable drought, the plants suffered, the ground turned to dust under their feet -- even the sky itself seemed to cry out for water. Then they left.

They left the giant houses, the mega-stores, the eight-lane highways.

They left their jobs, their parks, their old used cars.

They left the people who couldn’t follow them.

“...We used to joke about taking up one of those big places from the West Side.”

She laughs a little, fingering dull thorns in her hand. One of them pricks the pad of her finger, drawing a thin drop of scarlet red without her taking notice.

“Property values going down? What a steal! Haha...”

Her laugh is nothing like the one that used to ring when she was with Erna. The two were far from inseparable... never afraid to step apart. Yet they empowered each other in a way unseen amidst the bleak sands of these times. The sisters were different as water and earth… and as reliant on each other. Together, they were one growing, loving, shining bright light.

Apart, there is only death and dry air prevalent in a world of shifting sand.

ENTRY: 3000

Her hands clasp tightly around my golden shape. My edges press so firmly into her palm that I leave a heart-shaped indentation in her skin. Her breath - haggard by the long, painful hours of braving the blistering day - feels as if it were being pulled from her body. Her voice - a mere whisper - escapes from dry, cracked lips. Her body yearns for water. The fiery ache in the depths of her belly grows. With each excruciating breath, she becomes more aware of the ash-like paste drying on her tongue.

Arlyne stands staring beyond the endless horizon with her cheeks stained with dried tears, burned crimson from the sun. Her eyes are clouded over after hours of the berating sunlight aiding the sand in stinging them blind. The tiredly adamant heart in her chest rattles loudly in her ears - pulsing throughout her entire body as she leans forward, onto her knees. She feels a strong, gentle arm slide over her back, pulling her into a long awaited hug on the fiery sand. Her own arms reach around Erna’s waist and she buries her face into those soft, dark curls.

“You came back for me …”

Her clouded eyes see the image in front of her. They light up slowly, softly.

They hold each other there… where everything fits just right. Small hands rest inside of the larger. Erna’s mint-infused scent fills her nose and renews her aching lungs. They laugh… cry… smile…

Pressed between them, I no longer hear a deafening heartbeat… only the metallic hum of my holograph chip.

Entry 3001

Immutable, some things remain the same. Yes, still the sun and moon follow their dance. It is only the earth below that has changed. Once a home of green in the midst of a blue sea, the land is now barren. The ground caked in crackling brown, the sky tinged in burnt orange. Yet soon, the furnace of day turns into the icy cold darkness of night.

Three days we lay, immobile as the desert winds blew sand in her eyes. Even through closed eyelids, pieces of raw glass shard tear at her skin. Each day, the sun rose and set. The sun scorching by day, the night beckoning with its dark abyss, and death covering her like a cold blanket.

As the suns rise and the moons pass over, time marches on, and my chip records the days, weeks, and months in the locket around her neck. The gold of my casing blends nicely with the sand. The same sands that once dusted her skin and scratched at her eyes now enshroud her. They move slowly, mounding over her body as if to welcome her back to the earth, swallowing her whole and bringing her into harmony with the new desert world.