After I got out of the hospital, I bought an eight ball and snorted it all in one night. The coke kept me up for a day and a half. I wrote a story about a boy who grows taller than the tallest tree. He grows so tall that all the townspeople of his hamlet become jealous. They stab his skinny legs until he falls face-first into a river and drowns. Not my best work. I had started wanting the story to go in a different direction. I wanted the boy to escape the village, to walk across the land and find the sea, but things turned out differently. After I re-read the pages, I balled up the paper and threw it into my trash can. Just one good story was all I needed.

I sighed and wiped the sweat from my face. A midsummer heat began to swirl from my floorboards. I took my shirt off and lay on my mattress. The scar had yet to heal, and it hurt. Oddly enough, it was cool to the touch. I lifted the bandage on my chest to see the newly sewn flesh.

The thin black nylon tracks would disappear in time, the surgeon had said.
But the scar won’t, I wanted to say. Not until I’m dead, anyway.

At this point, the coke was running thin through my blood and I was starting to feel sleepy. Funny how nothing in my life ever turned out the way I wanted. Even when I tried my darndest. A year ago I quit smoking and snorting and tried eating carrots and cycling, but I guess I just wasn't strong enough because I always ended up where I started. On top of it all, the hospital bill was due soon.

How much would it be for a new heart? I had asked the surgeon.
One million, the surgeon smiled. Maybe one point five.
Can you put me on the list? I asked.
We’ll need a down payment, he chuckled.
That’ll be a problem, I coughed.

My cough made it seem like I was laughing with him, but I wasn’t. I did like the surgeon. He was a young, baby-faced man with pudgy red cheeks. He reminded me of an old friend. Someone who I lost contact with years ago. But I was serious about wanting to be on that list. I wanted a new heart. It didn’t have to be a human heart, either. Recently, I had read about these new mechanical hearts made of titanium with pumps that never broke down. I wanted one of those. And I’d told him as much, but he only shook his head and smiled. I’d even take a dog or a cat’s heart, if need be.

I felt the scab and the erratic, fluttering organ inside me. Outside my window there were horns honking and men jackhammering and birds flocking. My walls too were quivering and pulsing. A new heart would be a younger heart. A fresh heart.

The empty plastic baggie of coke lay on my nightstand. I thought about licking the inside of it, but I was so tired. When I closed my eyes, I finally figured out how to end my story. The townspeople wouldn’t try to knock the boy down after all. No, they’d climb up his legs. Yes, his legs would be sturdy and thick, like tree trunks. I saw it all behind my eyelids! A handful of villagers would hoist themselves all the way up the boy’s torso.

So this is what’s like up here? They’d ask among the clouds.
A pretty raven might land on the boy’s head and caw into the yellow sunset.
I’m glad you’ve come to join me, the boy would say.
Yes, the villagers would reply.
Yes, indeed.
Will you carry us please, they’d ask.
To where?
To the ocean.
To the ocean?
Yes. We want to go to the ocean.
With me? The boy would reply.
Yes, of course.

Oh, write it down, I told myself. You better write it down, before you forget. But I couldn’t get up, and now the scar was bleeding. The floor trembled. The windows rattled. My sternum thumped and heaved. No, it was too late anyway. It was always too late. For I knew as soon as I opened my eyes, my heart would leap straight out of my chest.