[ WP ] Every night you must wind up your heart with a key on a necklace . After a one night stand , you wake to find the key missing and a note by your bed .

It is difficult to move now. Each foot fall seems to take an eternity. Each twitch of a muscle bleeds a little more life out of me. I do it anyway. The window is at the end of the hallway and I must see the sun rise. Thirty paces away. 
 
 I had a human heart once. I was a man like any other. I loved a woman named Sarah. Her lips were soft like freshly picked heather. and the sun danced golden rays in her hair. 
 
 Twenty eight paces. 
 
 After a long courtship she agreed to be my bride. We were wed in a little church overlooking the cliffs. The ocean sparkled like crushed diamonds and the birds sang merrily. When I held her hand in my that day I felt my heartbeat intertwine with hers. We were two beings forged incomplete in this world but, by change, we had found what made us whole. I, as a person, was nothing compared to what we were together. I thought I had reached the zenith of perfection then. The epoch of happiness. I could never feel more joy than this. Yet, being proved wrong did not wound me. 
 
 Twenty two paces now. 
 
 Her name was Emily and she was my darling Sarah reborn while, at the same time, more awe inspiring. This did not diminish the beauty nor the glory of her mother. On the contrary, coming even close is more than most could ever hope to obtain. I loved them. I know I did. I lived because of them. When little Emily could not sleep because the wind howled or the storms raged she would climb into bed between Sarah and me. I would lie awake and listen to their breathing settle and try to match my own breaths to theirs. When I knew they were asleep I would grasp their hands. Sarah's delicate hand in my left and Emily's tiny hand in my right. I would calm myself and feel their faint pulses interlocking with the beating of my heart. 
 
 Twenty paces. 
 
 The world turned to gray three years ago. I remember colors before then but, now, do they still exist? When others gaze out upon the ocean do they see a gray desert of water that can never slake one's thirst? Do other see a colorless sun scorching the grounds beneath us? An empty void above and unfulfilled promises below. Do others see this? Or is it just me? Maybe the entire world lost color the day I received that phone call and was told of the accident. 
 
 Fifteen paces. Halfway there. 
 
 I rushed to St. James Hospital. A gray nurse stood outside the door and would not let me in. They were in surgery, she said. The doctor's were doing all they could to save their lives. Those gray doors set deep within the gray frame of an even darker gray wall. I could n't make the nurse understand. My heart was in there! It was under those gray lamps where gray men with their gray knives gathered round. That was my heart they were being careless with! If I did not feel their heartbeats again how would my heart know to beat? 
 
 Twelve paces. 
 
 Sarah and Emily died two days later. Mother and daughter died within an hour of each other. I sometimes think Sarah let go first so she could go ahead and be there for our daughter on the other side. To hold her hand, to lock their hearts together once more, and wait for my hands to complete the circle. Maybe they are still there waiting for me. 
 
 Ten paces. Please. I must go on. My heart beats are weaker now. Slow sluggish beats that barely give me the strength to lift my foot off the floor. My steps are slow and halting now. Just ten more beats, heart. Please. You owe that to me. 
 
 I took to winding my heart up after that. I kept the key around my neck on a chain. A chain that belonged to my wife. A plastic key that belonged to my daughter. Every night, just before I would call for the sleep to end another gray day, I would insert the key in the hole in my chest left behind with their passing. A hole that had been carved by an automobile accident I had not been in. I would then twist the key over and over again, tightening the mainspring inside myself, and reminding my heart how to go on. 
 
 Eight paces. My left foot feels as if it has been nailed to the floor. I no longer have the strength to lift it. In desperation, I push. It resists momentarily. The varnished wooden floor seems to offer too much resistance. Then, slowly, it moves forward. I shift my weight to my left foot and push the right foot forward. 
 
 Gray day after gray day with my mechanical heart ticking away inside me. Some days the skies poured gray rain. Other days gray snowflakes drifted down upon my head. I moved. I breathed. My heart ticked. I existed. But I did not live. I could not. How could I? Without a heart, I was just an automaton parodying human movements. That was until the woman with the red dress stepped into the coffee shop. 
 
 Three more paces. I could do this. My joints were freezing as if sand were trapped in their workings. My eye lids creaked with the effort to blink. My heart ticked, but softer now. Each tick a shadow of the one that proceeded it. If I tripped here I could fall the last few paces but I needed to be upright to see through the window. I bid my legs to carry me just a bit further. My feet were numb and leaden things that no longer belonged to me. But my legs. Surely they could still obey my final request. My hips flexed and dragged one of my useless feet forward. 
 
 Two paces! 
 
 Coffee was one of the few bits of color in my gray world. It was still black. I drank it without pleasure nor did it give me relief from the chains of sleep. I drifted through life feeling nothing and I visited the coffee shop out of habit from my time before. A time when colors still ran and hearts still beat. I was turning to exit the shop when I found myself almost blinded. A woman entered and she was wearing red. The first color I seen since that gray day with they even grayer phone call. How did this color arrive? 
 
 One pace and my legs refused to give me any more. My body was frozen. My heart had almost wound down. To come so far and now to fail with my goal right before me. 
 
 I felt something for the first time when I saw her. Wonder mixed with outrage, I suppose. How dare this color intrude on my world of gray? Yet, at the same time, I marveled at it. The nostalgia of a world of color, of sensations, and of life. For years my life had been played out with clockwork precision. My feet carried me from work to home on the same tracks every day. For the first time in years I felt the urge to leave these tracks. I stepped over to the girl and introduced myself. 
 
 We drank coffee together. I forced a unfamiliar smile to my frozen lips. She laughed and I feigned laughter in return. She talked and I listened. I did what I could to pretend not to be a hollow shell in the guise of a man. Somehow we ended up at my apartment later on. I never even knew her name. 
 
 *Tick^tick^tick* It was fading. Only a few more ticks before my heart is completely wound down. From below I feel something warm that fills my hollow body. Something I have n't felt in years. This raw emotion burns with a heat that my cold shell has all but forgotten. The heat of desperation. My legs no longer obey me. My arms no longer obey me. My head just barely does. I let it go. I let my neck bow to the weight that has been pressing down on it for years. I let the gray world knock me off my feet. But I am now falling forward. 
 
 I awoke just awhile ago and remembered that I had forgotten to wind my heart the night before. I groped about the night stand in the cold gray light of pre-dawn for the key. It was missing. As was the girl in red. All I found was a note waiting for me. A note I could just barely make out in the light of a new day. 
 
 *Dear Paul, * the note read. Only then did it occur to me that I never told the woman my name either. 
 
 *I'm sorry. I was not honest with you last night and find it difficult to be honest with you now. I am a coward, I know. I left today while you were still sleeping. But, I know that if anyone could understand why I do this now, it would be you. * 
 *Days have been gray since the day I lost my husband. You should know the day well, Paul. It has left its mark on both of us. Two cars, Paul, and three lives lost. Five if you could us. Do we count, Paul? Are we survivors or not? * 
 *I loved Mark. Maybe I should have told him that more often than he did. Was it my fault he was on that road? We had just had a fight earlier in the day and he had stormed out of the door. Angry at me. Angry at himself too, I suppose. Was he still angry when his car struck the other? Or had he forgiven me by then? I know it should n't matter, but it does. Will he be waiting for me with open arms or will the pain still drive him away from me? * 
 *I ca n't face him until I know, Paul. I just ca n't. When I lost my own key I felt something for the first time. Fear. I was afraid to face my missing heart without knowing if it had been lost or if it had abandoned me. * 
 *I am selfish and I am a coward, Paul. I stole your key. I know this is wrong and I am taking your life away from you twice. Why does everything I do seem to damage you, Paul? I would ask for your forgiveness, but I deserve none. I would ask for you not to curse me because I curse myself. All I ask is that if you see Mark do not tell him what I have done. If these years have been as unkind to you as they have been to me, would you spare me that one small kindness? * 
 *Love, June* 
 
 My head struck the glass of the window. The ticking in my chest fluttered. It would fail soon enough. In the meantime I watched a golden ball of light rise above the horizon bathing the fields in green and causing the waters to dance once more. The shadows that had grown long during the night were now in retreat and the song of a birds filled the day. And, if I closed my eyes and concentrated, I thought I could feel two ghostly hands gripping my own with their faint heartbeats seeking out my own.
