The Wind in the Willows

I carry the heart of the woman who electrified the world around me. Each time it feels heavier, like a weight dangling from my wrists. The tension yanks, separating me from her with each pull, a godforsaken reminder that she isn’t standing beside me. But she’s here. She sings with the birds who gently rouse me awake. She hoots with the owls who lull me to sleep. She rustles like the wind skating through the windchimes in the trees. When I call her name, she whispers to me. Help.

I hear her voice every time I meet someone with the same name. My veins pinch and sting when I think about her face. As life trudges on, I can’t keep up with the pace. The perpetuity of her memory keeps me stuck at the same time, the same hour, the same moment that she left me alone here in this realm of misery. I walk the same streets every day, and they feel different every time, my foot never landing in the same spot twice. Everything feels foreign and new but nothing is. I cannot leave this town because that would imply that I’m ready to move on, and I don’t believe I ever will be. 

I walk from my crumbling home to the coffee shop on the corner. A Cappuccino with roasted chestnut, I say. The barista nods and begins to steam the milk, and as it screams into the pitcher, I’m reminded of her. I drown it out as I put my headphones on, turning the volume up and blasting her favorite song. 

I can’t hear the barista when she calls my name, I can only see her as she delivers my drink to the table. I apologize profusely for inconveniencing her, and she smiles, her crooked teeth stacked beautifully in her mouth revealed as her cheeks puff up. I return the gesture. I observe her chin, cute and short, her neck, her shoulders, down to the nametag sitting loosely on her apron. My smile is still plastered on my face but is no longer genuine as I read the name of the woman that I love scribbled on her nametag. 

I sip my chestnut cappuccino slowly as the taste turns metallic and the smell turns sour. I walk out the door and sit at the tables meant for peaceful conversations. I light a cigarette and cover the scent of blood with smoke, and the taste of iron with tobacco. I sit here for hours, glancing back through the glass doors of the coffee shop before I decide to head back to my prison. 

It’s later, and I’ve just finished working. I search for my keys; they seem to be lost until I finally spot them under my saw. I grab them and drive back to the coffee shop. 

It’s dark outside, and I see the barista wave goodbye to the manager as he locks up behind them. She walks in the opposite direction of the parking lot. I assume that she’s headed towards the bus stop. If I want to get to know her, I have to make my move now. I want to remember the barista in the same way that I remember my love’s voice in the birds. 

Once the manager pulls out of the parking lot and disappears down the road, I exit my vehicle and move quickly on foot, closing the distance between her and me. She hears my footsteps and turns around at the last second to see me as I grab her by the throat and cover her mouth with a chloroform handkerchief. She delicately passes out in my arms as I drag her into the alleyway behind us. I lay her down gently as I jog back to the car, eventually pulling up beside the entrance. I pop the side door open and scoot her into the seat, laying her head down on a pillow. During the short drive back to the house, I drive around each pothole carefully, to not disturb her. 

I wait until the garage door is completely closed before lifting her out of the car. She’s soft and smells like petunias. I carry her to the entrance of the basement, and once inside, sit her up in the chair where all of the others sat. 

Her lids begin to flutter, and as they open, her green eyes dart around the room. She tries to scream, but I already taped her mouth shut. She struggles to move, but I already gave her the epidural. 

Why didn’t you just let me love you, Willow? I say to her as I approach. Tears spill down her pretty face. Her nametag sits on her chest, now slightly smudged. Why couldn’t you just choose me?

I rip the tape covering her mouth, an imprint of her lips stuck on the other side. She yelps as her lips begin to bleed. I lean over and kiss her, tasting the metallic iron. Please, sir, just let me go. Willow pleads with me and begs me to show mercy. She did nothing wrong, she has a family, blah blah blah. 

I can see my Willow struggling, begging for her life. I can feel my heart pound in my chest as I turn around and grab my saw from the table. This Willow screams, identical to my Willow. My breath catches in my chest. I can hear her voice all around me now, bringing me back to that moment stuck in time. Tears escape from my eyes as I turn around to face Willow. 

All you had to do was love me, Willow. All you had to do was choose me. 

She cries. I cry. I scream and wail as I plunge the saw into her chest and cut out a hole where her heart is. She whispers to me, Help. 

Willow becomes limp, her green eyes red and wet as they come to a still. 

You made me do this, Willow. 

I string her body up in the drying room, where all the other Willows are. I line the hole where her heart once was with all the others. The air circles from corner to corner, and the wind in the Willows howls in their chest.

The media imagines that there is some sadistic killer executing the Willows, but I am a man whose actions are dictated by heartbreak, by longing, and by desperation. I carry her heart to remember the sound of her voice, of her screams, of her pleas. It extends the moment in time, the most precious moment in all the pockets of space, that she finally spoke to me.