“You don’t need the waitlist anymore, Orion. I’ll give you my heart.”
Orion
2:02 a.m.
Once upon a time, I wrote a fairy tale.
Since fairy tales are on the shorter side, it was an easier commitment than a novel. It’s wild what those stories get away with. You got pigs building houses and wolves impersonating grandmothers and a lost glass slipper helping you find your one true insta-love.
Then there’s mine. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
It’s about a young man whose heart is dying.
Everyone always says to write what you know, right?
I named the protagonist Orionis, aka my name in Latin because I’m original as shit. When you’re constantly running against the clock, you don’t take forever choosing names.
Anyway, Orionis was always out and about doing his thing in this New York–esque kingdom when Death appeared out of the shadows and pressed his skeletal finger to Orionis’s heart, turning it from red and healthy to gray and crumbling.
“Am I going to die?” Orionis asked, not at all questioning Death’s physical existence or anything like that because when you’re in a fairy tale you just roll with shit like that.
“You may live if you dance with me,” Death said.
“Hell no,” Orionis replied, not about that life.
Until a piece of his heart disintegrated.
Orionis didn’t want to die, so he embraced Death, dancing nonstop from dusk to dawn. Orionis was exhausted, stopping to breathe at the cost of his heart chipping away some more. As he resumed the dance, Orionis grilled Death, trying to find out why he was targeted since he was perfectly healthy and didn’t engage in any risky behavior, but Death never answered. The two danced all day, all night, all week, all month, all year. Anytime Orionis broke away to do anything that would’ve made him happy, he lost more of his heart. Eventually, he was left with one last piece the size of a pebble.
If Orionis stopped dancing with Death one more time, he’d be his forever.
One day, right when Orionis was ready to hang up his cloak, aka throw in the towel, he crossed paths with an elder whose heart was so golden it shone through his chest like rays of sunshine. He was so carefree as he lived his life—fishing, performing, cooking, even dancing alone so dizzyingly fast that he fell to the ground, laughing at himself until his face was red. But he lost all color when he saw how miserable Orionis was with Death.
And here’s where it gets real, and why I got all this on my mind.
“May I cut in?” the elder asked Death.
Blinded by the golden heart, Death turned away. “No. He’s my dance partner.”
“I was hoping to dance with you,” the elder said.
“No,” Death echoed. “You’re too bright with life.”
Having lived with dreams fulfilled, the elder reached into his chest and ripped out his shine, aka his heart, because the darkest fairy tales get real bloody like that. He handed it to Orionis, the glow so bright it warded off Death, pushing him into the elder’s arms. Together, the new dancing partners swayed like a tree shedding its leaves, and once they hit the ground, they vanished in Death’s shadow.
Alone, Orionis swapped out his gray, crumbling heart for the radiant golden heart and lived happily ever after.
There’s so much about that story that always felt like a fantasy to me, especially the promise of a longer life, but now I’m being offered that reality.
Valentino wants to give me his heart.
This isn’t some romantic Valentine’s Day card shit either; this is literal.