How is it that a person can be expected to return to life after an adventure so astonishing? After seeing the world, is it possible to return to one’s small corner they call home? There is little a changed girl can do but find life dull when she’s been shaken from the core. Her insides are turning, her veins pumping with fire, and even though her body won’t settle, the heart will not beat. A slowing calm has washed ashore, her blond hair wrapping around her own neck and there is hardly room to breathe. So how can she return? How can she settle for less when she’s tasted gold?

Gold, how it tasted! The miraculous forbidden fruit hung in the tree, the apple swaying as the north winds tickled it from the branch of which it dangled. No matter the time, the delicious red peal gleamed in the glow of the universe. It was a small matter, hardly noticed for where it hung; yet just from a glimpse, one could just tell it was special. Of all the apples, this was the one, this was the thing that was life altering, a handpicked creation of god.

She ignored the rules, she ignored the world. Wrapped in a man’s arms, nothing seemed to matter, not when the man who held her loved her so. Every kiss on her cheek, every touch to her body, every unspoken word; these were all she needed. She could be damned to hell for all she cared for the only thing that mattered now was him.

On a boat the world drifts away. The sea turns to the horizon, stretching for as long as the eye can see. Here the teardrop gray hills roll with glitter, little sapphires glinting with the sun’s affection. The boat, nothing large by standards, rocks back and forth upon these hills, its white sails rolling away like clouds with the wind.

The girl stands on the bow, her body draped over the rail. Only wrapped in a white tunic, her luscious tan body bakes in the warm summer day. Her gray eyes match the rolling distant hills, sparkling with every touch from the man beside her. His muscular arms are around her, keeping her from falling away from him forever. The littlest touch is all they need, all she wants.

“My love,” the man speaks freely, no one will hear him here, “there is nothing I want more than you, there is nothing more I would ever dream of, and I promise you, I will make us a wonderful life.” He kisses her to seal the promise, his rough lips scratching her soft rose lips.

She purses her lips, unsure. He’s offered her everything, spoken the words she’s died to hear; yet, the fate of misfortune hangs heavy in the air. She feels it, she knows the end is coming, and it isn’t fair. Life has been laid out to end rather quickly. Happiness has landed on her line of fate and is it selfish to want to hold onto it forever?

God mocks them with sun and good fortune. “I fear my heart will break before ‘morrow’s dawn,” she speaks quietly, her hands gripping at her chest. Her eyes are distant, half mooned with the sorrow, but for her lover, she keeps a smile. The body hurts, an ache crawling through the chest with sorrow. It was god’s good grace for which she could love; she would not argue its end.

The heart is a tool of love, both painful and joyful. In the end every heart that beats will slow, eventually crawling to one’s last breath. From life to death the heart beats. Life has come to be ordinary when it is anything but; life is a miracle built on the basic instinct of the heart. Every day it executes it job, pulsing with life, and one must not belittle it.

The Execution of the Heart

“Have you heard?” A man of two raises his head, grinning with a story. His hand lingers on his knight as the other reaches for a pawn. The other, a gray haired man dressed in a pair of overalls and blue cotton shirt, raises his head and shrugs his shoulders, his pawn moving forward two spaces. “Don’t be dim Theodore, you know you’re interested.”

“Simon, you told me about your crops last week.” Simon pushes his knight, smiling as he takes the black pawn. “Ha! See that there, I set you up! Now I will take your knight!” With haste, Theodore moves his own knight to the white knight, knocking it off the board.

“No you fool; it is I who set you up! That was my plan from the start, now I have opened up a path to your king.” Simon smiles and moves a piece, his wrinkled hand shaking as the wooden carving is locked in his palm. “My son left for duty last night, my last one. I’m all alone now.”

Theodore takes his time, sweating with the summer fall heat. Harvest is upon the town, the streets busy with market. No one takes time to notice two old men playing chest, no one has time to worry about anyone else. They each work for their own living, each person taking pride in their work.

“You’ll always have your wife,” the other man laughs out.

“Don’t you go bringing that up, else I’ll bring up yours. I at least get along with mine,” Simon chuckles. Both men smile, quickly finishing their game. It doesn’t matter who calls check mate, it is more the time they care for; and there is the fact that they don’t play fair.

They light up their cigars and lean back in their chairs to watch the crowds, resting their old bones. The years have not been kind to either man and old age has come too fast. It’s a different time in the world now, something neither man cares to understand. They’re happy with their own world and how it was, they fit into that world.

“So what was it that you wanted to tell me?” Theodore flashes his eyes to Simon, his eyes raised in honest curiosity.

Simon laughs, smoke billows out from his weak jaw. “Yes, I almost forgot. My mind seems to be slipping more these days.” He kicks the dirt beneath his feet, somewhat ashamed of his fleeting mind. Old age is not fitting of him; it is not fitting of any.

“Well?”

Simon picks his head up, excited of the new story. “News is spreading of the Executioner. They say he’s alive and active once more.”

The other rocks forward, his head hanging, but it is laughter that rings from his wrinkled lips. “The Executioner? The man of which our very own grandfather’s told tales of to frighten the whit out of us when we were but young lads?”

“The very one.”

“Well he wouldn’t be a legend then if he were to die of old age. But why now? After all these years of being hidden, why would an old man like that kill again?”

“Who’s killing who grandfather?” Both men jumped as a young girl appeared from behind them, her face as bright as the sun. The girl was slim, wrapped in a frail pink dress which covered her short body. Long blond hair ran to the middle of her back, each strand becoming tangled as the wind played havoc. She smiled with her rose colored lips as she down with the old men; yet despite her smile, her gray eyes did not sparkle.

Theodore took her hand, kissing the back of her pale skin. “Julia my child, how was market?”

She leaned forward in her chair to kiss the man on the forehead. “Busy as ever. Father was selling his corn while mother was buying cloth. I believe she means to make me a new dress before the harvest festival.”

“Theodore, have you ever told her the tale?” Simon was smiling, impatient as a young lad.

They both chuckled softly, confusing Julia. She tilted her head, pursing her lips in amusement. Theodore leaned forward on his knees, his crinkled eyes sparkling in the summer sun. “She’s my granddaughter, I’ll tell it!”

“You take the fun from my day old friend,” Simon sighed, sitting back and placing a hat over his face.

“Have you ever heard the tale of the Executioner?” Theodore’s lips spread across his face revealing his brown spotted teeth.

She pinched her lips in laughter. The tale was a favorite of her grandfather’s and she had indeed heard it several times in the past; yet with his memory, he did not remember. With a quick scoot of her chair, she leaned herself against the small chess table and took her grandfather’s hand. “No grandfather, I don’t believe you’ve told me that tale.”

He smiled, his lips curling upward. “Then listen closely."