tales for dreamers: bleeding hearts

Once upon a time, there were two lovers, separated from each other by the boundaries of nations and religions, of war and principles.

It was a great time for the witches, who made promises they couldn’t keep in return for treasures they’d always coveted.

One such witch approached the two lovers separately and offered, “Give me something that is precious to you but also causes you a lot of pain, and I shall try to unite you with the one you love.”

The first lover plucked out their heart and said, “Here. Take this. My heart blossoms with love, but is also weighed down by the anguish of longing.”

But how will you love without your heart? the witch wondered but didn’t ask aloud, lest the lover should change their mind.

The witch plucked their heart, and the lover felt a relief they had forgotten about in all their years of love and longing.

“Now will you unite us?” the lover asked.

“Maybe,” the witch replied mysteriously.

The lover merely smiled. Without their heart, they felt no fear nor regret, no love nor its loss.

The second lover gathered all the tears they had shed in yearning for the other and said, “Here. Take this. My tears are full of love and longing, but I wish they had been tears of happiness instead.”

But how will you express your love without any tears? the witch wondered but didn’t ask aloud, lest the lover should change their mind.

The witch coaxed away all their tears, and the lover felt free and unburdened in a way they hadn’t felt in years.

“Now will you unite us?” the lover asked.

“Maybe,” the witch replied mysteriously.

The lover merely smiled. Without their tears, they no longer held any joy or sorrow that needed to be expressed.

The witch flew back on her broom to her home in the woods, cackling madly the entire way. For she had snagged the two most precious possessions of humankind, even though they themselves remained largely unaware of the treasures they held.

“Fools!” she laughed, as she poured the second lover’s tears into a cauldron and placed the first lover’s heart, still beating, in it. 

A potion for love and longing was what she’d make; a potion that aroused love, but also induced so much longing that the drinker would have no choice but to drink more of it. 

A potion so perfectly addictive humankind wouldn’t possibly survive without her secret recipe once people have had a taste, the witch intended.

But when the heart of one lover drowned in the tears of the other, a pink mist threaded its way out of the cauldron, knocked the witch down unconscious, and drifted out of the witch’s home and into the woods.

Just as the dawn sky began to blush pink, the woods began to transform into a garden of plants sprouting bleeding-heart flowers.

When the witch woke up, the cauldron was empty and dry and overrun with cobwebs, as though it hadn’t been used in months. And so was her mind, now completely devoid of all its memories and ambitions, its cunning schemes and devious plots.

When she stepped out into the garden of pink flowers, the beautiful sight made her own cold, frozen heart spring back to life. It throbbed with both love and longing, and immense grief for a loss she no longer knew how to name or explain.

Last week's image info: The Rotary Burlington North Foundation conducts a Turkey Trot run every October at Brontë Creek. 'The poisoned apple' made an incongruous appearance on the trail in last year's run. I didn't feed it to anyone, I promise.