I do not live alone.
The man that shares the house with me under this roof is a peculiar one, though. I call him Amias, a name of latin origin meaning “beloved”. I don’t know his real name. He will never tell me. So to me, he is simply Amias. Amias, who shares this house with me, and lives with me.
I cannot remember how long it has been since we began to share this place together. All I recall is that the very first was a soft night, struck in its silence by the gentle patter of rainfall. The moon had been bitten in half, and the clouds were sparse, black against the dark stars. In those long hours, I had caught a glimpse of his slim figure silhouetted against the dirty windows, somehow brighter than everything around him, and in my wretched heart, it occurred to me that we would be living together for a very, very long time.
I suppose I should tell you about Amias, for there are numerous strange things to observe about this man. First and foremost should be the pale sheen ever-present over his smooth skin. It is as though he has been molded from metal, though not a scratch is to be found. Well. That much is false, but we are not there yet in my description of Amias. Patience will reward you, as it has rewarded me. His features contort and move with the fluidity of water, stretching and relaxing in a way that makes it impossibly possible to decipher his emotions.
I’ve run my fingers over his arm before, and I must tell you, his skin feels cold! It reflects the surface of shiny, bright things, and shimmers when the sun hits him at just the right angle. I admit I do find it fascinating— the way he looks. So beautiful, metalline, and yet… Flawed.
Flawed,
because of the gaping hole in his chest.
Its edges are tainted a faint red, long dried and faded. To me, the wound is a painting I have seen somewhere before in a gallery. Angry, resentful, yet smoothed and tinged with a sweetness that overpowers the bitterness its colors so desperately portray. The hole where his heart should be is a regretful piece of art, empty, yet patched with a kind of hope struggling to pull its edges back into place.
Amias does not seem to notice. He shows no pain, and carries on with his bloodless, though very much alive, body, moving about with the normalcy any man should find in his daily life. I only wish I could help him close the wide, jagged pit of his ribcage. Somehow mend it, somehow take back the violence and disgust in the robbery of his heart.
And so what I find strange, or perhaps captivating, next, is his complete and utter adoration of me. The words that leave his gray lips are of devotion and confession, and in his eyes, I see a flame that I am not sure mirrors my own.
To be admired and regarded with such high respect is a feeling I would not mind getting drunk on each dawn. A simple look spared in his direction, and to Amias, it becomes a droplet of sanguine sweetness in a desert of poison. This, I find sweet and endearing, to have such a delightful concentration of fondness directed at my own self.
Yet, as much as I cherish the tenderness in his features, I cannot help but feel a certain sense of remorse and wariness.
Can a man without a heart truly love me for who I am?
Perhaps he can, if the thief’s identity is identical to the one he adores.
I must confess now, for there can be no “later” or “never” in this state, that I was responsible for the wickedness which mars Amias’ perfect skin.
The night we had just begun to share each other’s presence, I watched him by the window, staring into the rain that had turned so thin it resembled fog. It happened upon my mind— no, I made up my mind that this stranger and I would be together, for the rest of eternity if I had it my way. There had seldom been a living being so close to me, let alone so willing to share this house, that it wrenched my own heart so to bear the thought of sitting under an empty roof. You must understand, no I beg you to understand, that it was simply not possible for me to see Amias go. My “beloved”, my everything. This is what he became, what he walked into the moment he entered this house. It churns my stomach each night to recall the wetness against my palm, the still-beating pulse of his heart resting between my fingers. To hold a man’s heart in your hand… is a truly terrible thing to behold. I dream each night, and dream, and dream, and dream, of his silent voice as I had reached into him to rob him of his very core. What a thief I was, what a wretched, cursed little thing I was. Amias did not need to love me, yet I made sure that he could not leave, so long as his heart was in my hands. The beating rhythm lulled me to sleep and woke me in crazed screams for the autonomy I had stolen, and yet still I could not let go.
Could you have let go? If you were I, tell me honestly, could you have returned what was his?
Truly, I was surprised when Amias began doting on me with the warmth of something he did not have any longer. To love a thief so, it was unnatural, and bordering that of the impossible. For how could a man without a heart love a robber who had taken everything? Amias, oh Amias, tell me how it is so!
Tonight, he stares beyond the window once more. He offers me a smile, gentle and soft, pointing at the rain beyond the trees and bushes, brimming with newborn flowers of the season. The rain falls harder now than it did that day. I see the individual droplets racing towards the earth, fervorous and passionate. In the dim moonlight, I see the wound gaping far larger than it had ever before, bleeding through the cotton of his white shirt.
Can someone without a heart love you so?
He tells me now, that they can, for the heart is not the one doing the loving, but the soul.
Tonight, I would like to give back what is his. And should an emptiness greet me beyond that, perhaps it is alright.
For that is better than capturing the soul, which cannot be bottled and held against its will.