This week's picture prompt I believe was created by Lucas Zoltowski, and used to be up on his DeviantArt page, but it has since been deactivated. You can see his work on Behance, but this image is not there. It is however all over the web and used as wallpaper, but TinEye photo search tells me that it was posted back in 2009 and the name of the file was Broken Hearts by Lucas Zoltowski. By the style I'm confident it is his image.
Difficult to come up with something different, but I think I managed it. A bit of science fiction this week.
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Kindness
Evelyn saw the heart was shattered and oozing red liquid. She didn’t know what to do.
‘What happens if I take it out? Can you survive without it?’
The hybrid’s eyes rolled towards her. It whispered, ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘But I can’t see anything attached to it,’ she said as she removed it carefully, the liquid from inside dripping through her fingers.
‘I think it’s what emanates from it rather than what is attached. It has special thermic pathways as well as radiographic.’
Its eyes started to flutter. She didn’t think she could save it; she didn’t know enough about the systems it had been build on.
Evelyn took the broken heart over to the counter in the pharmacy where the hybrid had been attacked. She wondered if there was a way to glue the external surface and re-implant it. As far as she understood the fluid would regenerate.
‘What glues do you have? Do you have any skin glue?’ she asked the cowering shop keeper.
He’d been squatting behind the counter since the incident, even though the thugs had since run out of the premises. His wide, startled eyes blinked up at her.
‘I don’t know. It should be along the aisle where the plasters are.’
‘Well do you think you can go and get it for me? I think my hands are pretty full at the moment.’
Her eyes looked down at the oozing mess barely retaining its shape as the pieces kept moving out of place. She glanced back at the hybrid whose eyes were now closed. She didn’t know if her efforts would be pointless, but she had to try.
The shopkeeper leapt up and rushed round, running down one of the aisles. Evelyn hoped he was coming back.
Eventually, after a silent pause, she heard his footsteps again as he came back with a couple of tubes in his hands. He went to put them on the counter.
‘You’re going to have to help me. I can’t do this on my own. You’ll need to run the glue along the cracks while I try and keep the material in place.’ She hesitated to call it glass; it looked like it, but it didn’t feel like it. It was some kind of polymer, too soft to be glass, yet strangely static in its flexibility.
The man opened up a tube and, with a surprisingly steady hand, ran the contents along the cracks. Evelyn could feel it bonding. ‘I think it’s working.’
It took two tubes to seal it, or at least to stop the fluid leaking.
‘Okay, now for the proof in the pudding.’
‘What?’ The shopkeeper frowned at the expression.
‘Let’s see if it will hold.’
Evelyn carefully carried it back to the hybrid, which hadn’t moved at all since she’d taken it out. She wasn’t confident, but she gently replaced it back into the holder inside the chest cavity and mopped up the rest of the fluid as best she could, before pushing the edges of the torso back round it, and making sure they met. She beckoned to the shopkeeper to bring more glue and he quickly squeezed another line along the crack.
They both stood next to it and waited. There was nothing for a few seconds, which felt like an eternity, then the eyes gave a long slow blink and the mouth opened. There was the sound of rushing air as it took a breath. The eyes rolled round to Evelyn and focused on her.
‘Thank you. You saved my heart.’
‘I did my best, I’m not sure it will hold. I suggest you go back to the lab to get it examined.’
It slowly sat up, and then brought itself to standing. ‘I think I will go home and rest first. Give it time to regenerate.’
It took a step closer to Evelyn, moving into her personal space. It leaned forward slightly, and she wondered if it was attempting to kiss her. She’d never heard one show emotion before. But it brought its hand up and a finger brushed her cheek.
‘I’ve heard of the human concept of kindness, but I’ve never seen, heard or experienced it until now. It has a gentle touch. It gives me hope that your species might yet survive.’
It smiled at her and walked out of the shop without looking back.
Evelyn watched it go and then turned to the shopkeeper.
‘If we don’t, they won’t either.’
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