Shattered

I was walking alone in the Forest of Memories, where forgotten dreams hover like fireflies. There, I stumbled onto a Beating Heart.

As I picked it up, I came to realize how shattered it was; a million pieces beating as one. It felt fragile to my touch; tender in my shy hands.

“Why all the pain?” I asked it, not knowing to whom it belonged – perhaps to no one.

It beat slowly and tentatively inside my cupped hands. It was weak from pain, I could feel as much. Still, it mustered strength, and told me so:

“I’ve broken so many times before – countless now,” it whispered and sighed.

“But, you see, that’s just the thing – I always break, just so that I may be refilled again.”

Here it paused and, for just an instant, it beat harder inside my hands, radiating strength, and crying so:

“To the fullest, my friend! To feel everything that’s anything as if it was new all over again!”

But it was almost too much for my weakened friend. So it concluded in a solemn tone, beating slowly, like a dying drum.

“So that I may break once more…and on and on and on…”