Mending a broken heart
Of all the human courting rituals, none is so complicated as presenting one’s potential partner with a human heart after having carefully removed it from its place in the human chest cavity.
During this process, two humans will remove one of their respective hearts and trade them, replacing their own primary heart with that of their partner’s.
Thanks to science, we know that this dissected human had a broken heart, which may have ultimately killed it.
Sometimes, however, one of the humans that have been presented with a raw, bleeding heart will reject it. The heart, being the third most sensitive organ, will then deflate, making it unfit to place back into the human body. These humans are usually named Debra and she will throw away all the memories she has shared with you as if they were nothing.
After this, the heart is, in every sense of the word, broken. One will find that their heart no longer fits in the same place that it once did. It is a limp, soggy thing that has left a hole behind which nothing but a fresh heart can fill satisfactorily. Humans going through such a medical emergency may experience loss of sleep, appetite, sex drive, and ability to focus. These humans will even be more susceptible to throat spider infections. Debra may try to claim that this is not her fault, but the damage has already been done.
The first step to mending a broken heart is to realize that this is impossible. Many humans have tried, using hot glue guns, staples, duct tape, googly eyes, rhinestones, feathers, and dark magic, but the truth is that once a heart has been damaged, it will never be whole again, no matter how much it is bedazzled. Only acceptance of the situation along with the cruel machinations of time will help a human become accustomed to the enormous open wound in their torso.
If one finds themselves left with a broken heart, the first step is to take it to the local post office and dispose of it in a responsible and sanitary way. Disposing of biological waste is one of the many services that these offices provide for a very reasonable price, and now that Debra doesn’t have access to your receipts, she can’t complain about “unnecessary spending.”
The next step is to deal with the empty hole in one’s chest. Luckily, the human anatomy has a total of three hearts, and the body is able to grow between five and seven more hearts throughout an average lifetime. This is, however, a process that takes time. Some humans have found that a pint of ice cream is roughly the correct size to fit snugly in the space left behind, but because frozen treats do not conduct the electricity necessary to sustain them fully, they often still feel incomplete and unsatisfied, even if the ice cream is their favorite flavor. Rather than ice cream, humans can find comfort in other things that they enjoy, be it music, art, a good book, the rotting corpse of a slain enemy, or even a particularly comfortable pair of shoes. Any one of these alternatives can be carefully packaged and inserted into the heart recipticle, and they won’t melt away like the temporary pleasure of ice cream.
As time moves on, a human whose primary heart has been broken may be confronted with another human who engages in the courting ritual and offers their own heart. This creates a dilemma. On one hand, this fresh heart would be perfect to fill the gnawing void in one’s life that they’ve been desperately trying to fill. On the other hand, because one human no longer has a primary heart to offer, they may remove one of their secondary hearts instead.
A secondary heart, while perfectly suitable for one of the two smaller chest cavities in the human body, can never fully perform the job of a primary heart. Accepting another human’s primary heart and offering only a secondary heart in return will leave one with a fresh new primary heart, but another void where the secondary heart once was. At the same time the secondary heart that has been given will do it’s best to perform as a primary heart, but ultimately fall short and neither human will be truly complete.
As is clearly seen in this scientific model, two humans can freely exchange any number of hearts safely, as long as they keep at least one for themselves.
Some humans exist like this indefinitely, gradually growing to resent their partners while never feeling completely satisfied. It is important to recognize this situation and address it with one’s partner. With a lot of patience and understanding, one’s partner will be able to grow a new primary heart, and the original secondary heart can be returned to its rightful place. Living a truly complete life in this situation is possible, but can be challenging, and humans named Debra are unlikely to be willing to put in the time or effort required.
Sometimes, humans who have exchanged primary hearts might find that over time, those hearts have deteriorated, leaving them vulnerable and wishing to trade hearts again with a new partner. While the underlying cause of this condition is uncertain, scientists speculate that it varies depending on blood type, the shape or form of the primary hearts in question, or the nagging doubts created by Debra’s best friends who just keep insisting that she can do better.
Overall, the human emotion known as love is a complicated feeling, one that is approximately 30% euphoria, 22% lust, 15% confusion, 10% jealousy, 8% curiousity, 7% worry, 5% happiness, and 3% hunger. With such a complex mixture of chemicals and emotional makeup, exchanging hearts with another human can be a very dangerous proposition that is hard to balance. For this reason, most experts on the matter advise that it be avoided at all costs. At least one notable expert also advises that Debra be avoided at all costs.
Please come back to me Debra, I miss you so much.
