The Heart Maker

by Laura Pittman

He could visualize each creature, from the young girl who would soon be born in Seattle to the fawn about to be enveloped by the looming shadows of Carolina pines. Pale speckled eggs starting to crack, puppies’ noses’ twitching for the scent of their mother. Everything blossomed like springtime, but with international oversight it was far more than seasonal.

   Purpose came with needs, and He loved to intertwine the two. For the hummingbird, every heart would need to beat over and over with a spirit of joyful solitude for those long solo trips across endless skies. The cheetah’s chest would need pacing to blaze across the savannah without tire, its pulse matching the pounding of its paws on the dry foliage beneath, both ground and body too silent to let loose the secret presence.

  The dog heart would be steady and kind, the horse bursting with passion that could fluctuate from fear to freedom, and the human heart able to skip beats and continue on, building off the revival of love and sustenance from one another that comes from relationship.

  Sometimes He weaved together sinew and arteries and enshrouded it with the invisible seal He called Soul and found that it jogged the memory of another heart made, two that shared a special connection that only He could forge.

  Other times He let his hand slip a little, not to cause harm or issue, but to provide enough permeation that extra light could get in for those whose heart might come under heavy duress. Within these cracks He enclosed a spongy section, for the love to bottle up and pool, waiting to seep throughout the bloodstream when the beats slowed down and time seemed isolating.

  On the days He felt more like an artisan than a doctor He worked on the outer coating, the cover for these souls, and slipped some miracles in the process so seamlessly they became recognized as ordinary.

The humans created in His image didn’t realize the magic of their breath or the complexity of their fingers, but they could recognize it in the creatures around them when they were willing to look. There were no exceptions to the magic; from the exotic mystery of the zebrafish who could miss a part of its heart and regrow the tissue to its land roving cousin the giraffe who could send blood up its long neck like a firefighter climbing a ladder to bring the balm of water, His work was everywhere.

  A few hearts had limited beats, and some seemed to beg their way towards eternity. There was no apparent fairness in his actions, but there was instead something far purer: a Divine, just story, in which love prevailed, and each heart was handmade.