The instance I awoke from surgery I wailed loudly from the inscrutable pain at the doctors who—after inspection—said nothing was physically wrong with me. 

But I knew from that intense hunger in my chest that something was off—that a new heart was not the only thing put inside me. I couldn’t sleep for almost the entirety of the three weeks I spent in the ICU. At best, I caught a few hours of hazy, in-and-out shut-eye from pure exhaustion. This new and horrifying feeling in my chest kept me up and delirious. 

By the time I was sent home, the torturous nightmare had dulled into a bizarre, confusing dream. This new sensation was a jarring thing. I was used to being a distant observer of emotion, never the one to experience it first hand, especially not at this level of intensity. I’d always had an interest in watching others from afar—even as a teenager—when I was supposed to be “finding myself”. 

My interest in people-watching increased and became the permanent interest of my life. I shamelessly indulged in this hobby by working at places simply for the opportunity to people-watch. A cat cafe, an underground karaoke bar and my favourite by far—a butcher shop located next to a veterinary. I watched intently as these mindless bodies filtered in and out of the door, revelling in their interactions and behaviour. 

Now, though, I feel like I’ve become one of those people myself, and I suddenly understand the irrationality of human nature. I would do anything to relieve this aching and terrifying appetite, anything to return my unfeeling self. 

The job I had before my surgery was at a small bookstore a few blocks down from my home. The owner was nice and easily manipulated into giving me paid leave while I recovered afterwards. My condition provoked sympathy from many people, and triggered them into a series of the same pitiful phrases like, “I’m terribly sorry,” and “my deepest condolences”. 

Months ago before my surgery, I prepared for my interview at the bookstore by eavesdropping on a conversation between two friends in the cafe situated next door. They had just purchased a few readings and were clearly planning on spending their afternoon discussing their undying love for literature. I listened to their high-pitched pretentious squabble for a good hour and collected enough material for the interview.

I remember how I recited their words like a well-memorised script, adding little quirky mannerisms here and there to truly sell myself. The warm, gentle-faced owner hired me on the spot. 

My life before the heart transplant then seemed like a far off dream. I’d been plagued by this bizarre and ravenous feeling of hunger ever since the procedure, and spent my days longing for something that wasn’t even there. Nothing made any sense. 

Until I met her. 

The allusive, beautiful enigma of a girl that had stepped into the bookstore during the last hour of my shift when the sky was dark and star-speckled. That horrid ache in my chest was replaced by a nervous pulse that reached my wrists and fingertips. I experienced something violently cathartic when I saw her, the hunger in my chest had dissipated and I was breathing properly for the first time since my surgery. My desire finally found its subject. 

The first thing I noticed were her hands, they were frail and delicate, I wondered what violence they were capable of. I imagined them covered in thick, dark blood. I wanted to know what would push her over the edge. When she handed her books to me, my fingers brushed hers. I could vividly imagine the way she’d kill someone ; with a dainty grip around a kitchen knife, held almost like a paintbrush and the job done as gracefully as an artist.  

Secondly, I paid notice to her name. Irene. Eye-Reen. I repeated it when she introduced herself. I kept saying it to see her smile, her sharp white teeth dug slightly into the pink flesh of her bottom lip. Subconsciously I thought ; Have I met you before? I feel like I’ve known you my whole life. 

If there was one thing I learned from people-watching it’s that love could possess anyone; even the most unfeeling and undeserving of them all. However, I hadn’t expected I’d be one of those people, nor did I expect to recognize it so quickly. The next day she came by and visited, it was official and I became a lovesick puppy. 

She told me she had moved in nearby after the recent death of a loved one. I faked sympathy because their death led to us meeting.Thank you for dying, Irene’s loved one. I’d have killed you myself if that’s all it took for her to walk into my life.

I knew where she lived by the third day. That night, I placed a dead raccoon on the path from her house to the restaurant I’d planned to take her to. After our date the following night, I offered to walk her home, and when she saw the gutted, rotting rodent, she jumped into my arms. I’d never felt so much joy. 

With each of her visits, the familiarity I felt towards her grew. I finally understood what people were trying to articulate when they described love. How it could utterly consume and remove you from reality. How someone you have never met in your life could make every interaction feel like deja vu. 

It was seemingly innocent—until this familiarity became too strong to simply be a side effect of love at first sight.

It started with a series of dreams which bordered on nightmares. Flashes of us at places I’d never visited, yet knew my way around. Conversations that had no particular beginning or end, easily recited word for word. I’d wake in a cold sweat, heart pulsing, with an aggression and infatuation that blurred the edges of my reality. I could not remember a moment where she didn’t exist. I’d lost my grip on the possession of my own memories and existence. 

It’s been almost a month since we’ve met, and my obsession has invaded all my sense of rationality. I find myself led into her home by an invisible leash. Her place had sterile white walls and is scarcely decorated. I barely had time to look around before a wave of eerie nostalgia pulled me under and the heart ached harder than it ever has before. The house smelled of powdery perfume and a hint of a rot. I wince, but do not ask what it is because I’m rendered speechless by the panic building in my chest. Over these past few months I’ve felt a lot of indescribable things, but nothing has compared to this. 

The panic intensifies, and I hunch over, placing my hand on the wall for stability. Each heart beat racks through my body and to the point of rattling my rib cage. She stands in front of a shelf next to the kitchen, and makes no comment of my heavy breathing. Still in my physical torment, I can’t help but admire her. 

I follow her eyes to a picture framed in gold sitting on the shelf, my vision doubles. Gradually, the blurry photo comes into focus. When I squint, I can vaguely recognize a more youthful looking version of her with longer hair. An arm placed around her shoulder. The arm belongs to a man I do not recognize, but that I loathe. The picture is taken somewhere dimly lit—and oddly recognizable—she’s leaning comfortably into him and their faces are flushed drunkenly red. 

She tells me that he is dead. I do not care. I wish she didn’t either. The blinding jealousy enhances the stabbing in my chest, and I wish she would stop speaking of him. 

I collapse to the floor with a thud and land on a soft white rug. She kneels next to me, her face ridden with pain and violence. She says that he loved her and that he should’ve had more time. She mumbles something about a tragedy. Grief and madness laces her expression. 

“You have something of mine and I have to take it back.” 

The hand behind her comes forward, holding a kitchen knife. Silver and clean, the moonlight leaking in from the window bounces off the blade and casts a terrifying glow across her face. I realise now that I was wrong—she does not hold a knife daintily. It does not look like a paintbrush. She grips it with conviction—piercing desperation—which turns her knuckles as white as the walls of this room. 

I lie paralyzed and face up—feeling helpless, envious and love-sick all at once. The sharp tip digs through my shirt and into the soft flesh of my chest. I feel a muscle spasm around the cold blade. My head lulls to the side and my gaze fixates on a smear of dark, dried blood on the fridge handle. I finally trace where the origin of the rotting smell is coming from. I picture the man in the photo cold and lifeless, with his limbs squeezed into a box waiting for the return of his heart and the reuniting of his ex-lover. 

The puncture of the knife deepens. With one excruciating push and a pang through my body, I let out a silent exhale. The pain wracks through my body with potent vigour, numbing every limb. I jerk upwards when she swiftly lifts the blade out from my immobile body. The air fills with the metallic, sickly smell of my own blood which coats the initially clean blade up to the handle.  

I watch helplessly as she reaches those once presumed delicate hands into my chest and lie limp as an intense pressure expands and fills my chest. She gouges out that foreign thing of a heart, and pulls it out with a final tug. A piece of me untethered from within. I am left exposed and empty. 

It pulses in her hand—thick crimson blood drips down her bare forearm and soaks through her white carpet, pooling around us and seeping into everything. 

She watches in horror as I blink back at her. 

Miraculously, I sit up, numbed from the pain and driven by pure, blinding white envy and anger. I grasp my hands around the beating, soaking organ, and yank it out from her hands. 

I bring it to my mouth and I sink my teeth into the heart, the one belonging to a man she loves, a man that is not me. Blood spurts across my face and fills my throat. It tastes metallic. Bitter and fleshy against my tongue, I can vaguely feel the tissue get stuck between my teeth as I chew the gummy, raw and foreign organ.