Her heart in his hand

Dr. Jeremiah Longlove found his cellar laboratory chilly in the mornings. This particular morning, a Tuesday, the sun hung low, cloaked by heavy clouds beyond his half-height casement window.

Dr. Longlove’s cellar laboratory lay at the bottom of a steep flight of stone steps, lit only by half-molten candles and heavy with despair. Glass bottles lined wooden shelves, bottles that contained the elixers of life, according to Jeremiah Longlove: Strontium salicylate for healing skin ailments, Capille pellets for facilitating balance, worm lozenges for irritable bowels, p. Conii powder for alleviating depression, and his precious indigo, as good for cooling a fever as for curing blindness. His ever present and immaculate mortar and pestle stood at the ready in one corner.

Along the far wall, Dr. Longlove had arranged his tools and devices on hooks in order by size. At the far left hung a large, well-sharpened pair of shears, followed by his other implements, gradually descending to his tiniest glistening scalpel. Each and every tool had a special place in Jeremiah Longlove’s heart. Dr. Longlove’s cellar laboratory was his pride and joy, second only to his abiding passion for Angela, his longtime mistress and love, who currently lay dead on the operating platform before him.

Dr. Longlove vastly preferred using the operating platform for fucking his beautiful mistress. Her untimely death due to an unfortunate bathtub accident and today’s autopsy came as a surprise and a shock. Jeremiah couldn’t seem to look at his poor helpless patient without seeing her in their favored position: Bent over the table, her legs spread to receive a pounding from behind as he yanked her head back and kissed her long and deep. No, her death couldn’t have come at a worse moment, just hours before their next regularly scheduled tryst.

Dr. Jeremiah Longlove walked round his patient, who lay before him naked and exposed to the cool morning light. Jeremiah regretted the brutal scene, wherein Angela’s chest lay split open, her heart conspicuously missing from the gaping wound. The sight of his angel ripped to shreds, such as she was, simply broke his heart.

Just then, the clouds shifted, casting an ominous shadow on the ground. Jeremiah turned his attention to his scale, which at the moment held Angela’s heart, bloody and raw. The arrow on the scale pointed squarely at 300—300 grams, that was. Jeremiah permitted himself a small smile, more out of relief than anything else, at the discovery that his love’s heart was in fact a bit on the small side. This, Jeremiah realized, surely explained why Angela would never take him up on his offer to elope.

Jeremiah lovingly replaced his mistress’s heart in her chest cavity and whispered in her ear, “If only I could put you back together and reset you.” He moved on, separating her liver from deep within her corpse. He slipped the organ into the weighing tray. He must press on; his schedule required it.

“Finally, I can see you crystal clear,” Jeremiah murmured to what remained of his soul mate. Suddenly he became overcome with grief and gripped his own chest. Pain coursed through his upper body—sympathy pain, he surmised. He had done research on such matters. Dr. Longlove ripped open his waistcoat and shirt to reveal bloody tracks mimicking Angela’s.

“The scars of your love, Angela,” Jeremiah reasoned. It made perfect sense. He limped to his shelves to locate the appropriate balm, all the while shivering in the chilly air.