Moving isn’t allowed, and there’s no sleeping, either, in case you sleep-start, ruin everything. Then you’d have to start over, which isn’t something you’re willing to do.

Electric current streams through coiled wire, making a magnetic field of your corpse-still body.  Magnets switch on and off, thumping, clicking, whirring. A constant hum, a metallic voice interjecting to tell you when to hold your breath, when it’s okay to breathe again. The sounds of a spaceship landing, an alien voice thinking for you, whisking you away. If only. The technician hands you headphones to block the banging, but they only amplify the noise crashing around inside your head since your gyno informed you of the strangely shaped cells in the mammogram of your left breast. Unlike the others. Yours, a cluster of dripping daggers, she said. No lumps? you asked. What about my heart? Have you seen it? No lumps, she said.

You lie face down in the airless, noisy tube. Hands above your head, no talking, like the night the trooper pulled you over for doing 85 on Route 17, and when you told him Luna died today and you’d downed a couple Rolling Rocks for the pain, oh the pain, and you bet he’d no clue what it’s like to lose your person, bet his mommy was waiting up for him, a crustless tuna sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk on the kitchen table. Maybe she made cookies, too. Snickerdoodles, right? With this last bit, you sprayed him with saliva, didn’t mean to. He told you to shut up, get on the ground, hands behind your head. Alone with your misery.

The technician shoots dye into your arm. Just what you need: more ice in your veins. The better to illuminate the problem. Despite the chill, you sweat. The tube’s diameter sucks you in, clanging intensifies. You hold your breath when instructed, think you’ll burst, think you’ll shriek it’s my heart, assholes. Nothing to see here because it’s gone. She died last month. You want to scream, but your fear of starting over.

After your left breast is removed, you’ll have it reconstructed. You’ll ask the plastic surgeon to shape it like your missing heart, but neither silicone nor saline comes in that shape. Custom implants are out. Best to match the right. You’ll tattoo a fake heart, a void like a Valentine cookie cutter, over your fake left breast. Your torment will come and go. The lack of her, constant. You’ll know your time inside this bore with its magnets, radio waves, and 3-D intelligence amounts to nothing, that they couldn’t hear you above the merciless commotion when you silently cried out, never found your lost heart. But the spaceship, yes. The fantastical hope that there’s a place far from this. You’ll wait for it to land, rocket you away.

---

Catherine Chiarella Domonkos’ stories have been selected for Best Small Fictions, nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50. Her words appear in JMWW, The Citron Review, The Disappointed Housewife and Bending Genres, among other literary places.  For the complete collection, check out: www.catherinechiarelladomonkos.com.