The Anchor

A Heavy Heart

Everyday I watched as souls floated on the ground. Some worn by time, fluttering close to falling, but still in the air. Others lifting high into the sky, being basked in the warmth of the sun, unaware of the frozen ground behind their shadow. That was where I lived. My heart pulled by an invisible force, dragging in the shadows of those living happier than I. Trudging forward and only ending up under someone else. A pitiful life, I had so long thought caused by my empty flesh. My soul, I assumed, was tired from the parasites that burrowed deep in my heart. Born with a beacon calling them to me. A shard of mirror on the street told me I was mistaken. The only thing attached to my heart was a heavy lock. Its position blocked any outgoing emotions, trapping them inside. Until they festered and lashed out at the lock. Despite its impenetrable appearance, the think metal was subject to wear. Everything it held in, I saw, was attacking it to get out. Their constant assault, that wore down the metal did nothing to free them. The only thing I saw it do was send the occasional flood of sharp black shrapnel, that it had saw pile up, corse through my veins.

Eventually time dragged me away from watching what happened inside, but I wouldn't soon forget the image I had been cursed with. A lock. That meant a key could free me. That with one key I could be able to fly free. Unburdened. Such knowledge did nothing to soothe my predicament, for I was no more likely to find said key than normal.

So I lived my life as best one could. Letting my newfound knowledge, worm itself in my head only on the darkest night.

Then what seemed like years later, a high floater, unlike any I had ever seen passed above me. Their form was as empty as mine, the sun passed right through their skin. I was momentarily met, with recycled sunlight that I had so often been denied. I stood frozen, for the first time in a comfortable warmth. I looked above me to see shining gold flakes amongst their veins as black as mine. Much to my surprise, the form started to cry, tears born in the sun sparkled on their chin before dripping down on my head. Eating through my skin and washing my mind with an odd heat. The tears didn't stop, for the form was bailing, pearls of light rained down on my mind. They washed through it and soon collected in the middle of my brain, stopped by an unknown object. An object soon weighted down so heavily it had no choice other than dropping from its perch. Filling my mouth with a metallic taste. I knew what it was. What I had been searching for. I reached up and pulled the key from my mouth. It was still wet from the tears it was washed out with when I managed to unlock baggage dragging me down for so long. With the extra weight gone, I started floating up towards the sun, my savior had been whisked away by the breeze and I was alone with the sunlight. Feeling my own emotions, bottled up for so long, flood out in every way. I was a mess of tears of my own. Not as golden as the ones my unknown savior shed, but lighter than the black that had once been my veins. As I continued drifting up, I could only hope that I might be able to save another soul before the raw air ripped away my humble form.