"How do you feel?" Asked the Maker to me.
"Nothing." I answered plainly.
The brows of the Maker furrowed. "How is that so?"
I was silent, not understanding.
"When I last saw you, you were whole and happy." They sighed. "When I crafted you, I gave you heart, mind, soul and every sinew in between. Yet touching your chest now, I feel not your physical nor the figurative heart. A paper without the qualities that make it a paper. How is that you are devoid of them?"
The Maker's curious gaze was unwavering on me, but how may I provide a suitable, kind answer? They were the Maker of men afterall. "This is a doing of your other creations," I resolved to say.
"I was imperfect and wished not to be perfect. That was my downfall. They carved out what you had gifted me and replaced it with their deepest secrets. Unjustified rage, jealousy, lust, indolence – I was sieged by them all. They tortured me from within then dug those out as well before laying me to rest." I relayed feebly to the Maker. These words had poured from me as if thirsting to be heard. They were known deeply by me and were my true experiences. Now, I relived them from a great distance.
"They?" The Maker asked after a period of contemplation.
I levelled them a look. "Yes, 'they' were those I know and cherished. Always. My friends, my fellow scholars, my cousins and kin, my parents and my...brother."
The Maker nodded. "Then you are implying they have betrayed and murdered you."
"You are right."
"If feelings are not what you desire, what would you want?" They peered at me, thoughtful. Yet I have a sense that they were inspecting me as if I were a taxidermized specimen, long dead but interesting in some small way.
The answer to their question came easily. I had known what I wanted for a long time. Closing my eyes, I replied, resigned.
"I want those who are in possession of my heart feel indeed gifted. I want them to be whole and happy."
I heard the shuffling of feet as the Maker stood away from me. Without their presence near, my body finally gave its last heave. The flesh and bones that remained in stasis fell away as if they had no more strength to be supported. And the Maker was gone with no less grandiosity that when I was birthed – with stealth, unnoticed.
Was it selfish of me to hope that my story would elicit the Maker's pity and in so doing, they would gift me a new heart as I took my dying breath?