The Mechanics of The Heart (Unedited)

Prologue

Amara Joseph

My mother used to say before we were humans, we were entire galaxies. Whole constellations with the sole purpose to extend light into the darkest corners of the universe.
I never did have the heart to tell her that I didnt think I was a galaxy- that most days I felt like Pluto.

My mother had a way about her that was eccentric, she danced until the early morning of the hours to old Reggae music, the stench of weed was the staple of our house and we ate fried chicken, cabbage, and rice every Sunday like a ritual.

Even now I hate the smell of boiling cabbage.

My father wasn't very eccentric at all, he was a quiet and reserved man who spoke very little but he worked well with his hands. My relationship with my father was always strange, I barely knew him but he knew everything about me, we hardly spoke but every Sunday night- after my mother was done cooking and we choked down boiled cabbage, my father would find an old shirt of his and yank it over my head before taking me down to his workshop.

My father was a sculptor who made clay look like flesh and the immobile look in motion. To me, my father was a magician and when he taught me his magic, it felt like I knew a part of my father no one else had- I think it's the only part of my father I truly know. But I didn't hold on to it for long- couldn't remember the spells or appreciate the silence it took to create that kind of magic.

I didn't have really any magic of my own, I was a runner though. Something about the simplicity about it engulfed me and I got off on the high off it.
Maybe that's why I missed all the glaring red flags.

My parents couldn't understand it, couldn't fathom how I could be so passionate about something that wasn't art, wasn't them, running isn't word's intricate poems written in my sorrows or slabs of clay molded into admirable pieces or museum worthy structures. So I was written off, everything my parents had they poured into my siblings.

My sister the tortured writer who lived in our parents renovated basement with my niece who she conceived on prom night.
My brother, a photographer and sketch artist turned addict my parents stored away in at a rehab in the mountains, away from scrutiny and public judgement.

My siblings were my parents prodigies until they weren't and I was nonexistent to them, until I wasn't.

My phone vibrates on the table, making the toffee colored coffee in my mug jiggle. The vibrating is loud, louder than it should be for my phone to be on silent and it makes my ears ring.

"Can I get you anything else?" My phone stop as the waitress approaches, a coffee pot filled to the brim with steam hot coffee balanced in one hand and the other placed on her hip.
I shake my head,"No, thank you." My phone starting vibrating on the table top again.

"Seems like you're popular, you from around here?" I shake my head again, reaching to decline the call and click my phone off. Sipping the still warm coffee in my mug, glancing at the waitress over the brim as she looks expectantly.

"No I'm just passing through." Is all I offer, feeling exhausted and drained. My back aches with the slouch in my posture and I try to straighten up, lifting some of the ache but I know I wont feel better until I get to lay in a real bed and not the back seat of my Nissan.

"Well there's a hotel about ten miles north of here. You look like you could use a good night of rest." She smiled softly, moving to set down the coffee pot and wipe down a mess I couldn't see. I nodded with a closed mouth smile.

I could use a lot of things - The words danced across my tongue but I bit them down. Not about to pour my tragedies and problems to a stranger. Gulping down the scorching contents of the mug I slip a twenty on the table and shuffle out while a pair of truckers come in loudly, the level of familiarity with the waitress is on a first name basis and she directs them to a booth as the door chimes above my head as I leave.

Stepping back into the blackness of the night, hoping the burning coffee sloshing around my empty stomach is enough to keep me awake for the next ten miles.

"Okay. You only got a few choices Joseph and you cant keep sprinting forever." My voiced thoughts were met with the crinkly of paper as I pulled down the map tucked in my sun visor. I was decent enough with directions and an hour into this full twenty-four hour drive, I realized I wouldn't be able to use my GPS on my phone for more than twenty minutes before it would ring nonstop for five minutes.

My car was junky, filled with wrappers of snacks I wouldn't normally each because of training but I allowed myself the privilege of chocolate covered pretzels and pringles. Sighing I stared at the map as if the best choice would just jump out at me.

I had already cut through several states, swinging north and now I was in Washington state, at first I had no real direction of where I was going. But I knew I wouldn't be back, I packed all the shit from my dorm into my car, left my roommate a letter and pealed out of Johns Hopkins University parking lot without looking in the rear view mirror twice.

The city was too overwhelming right now. I want- no I need the quiet.

Most days it felt like the world was so loud, it feels like my head is splitting wide open and all I can do is scream. Be louder than it.