I was twelve years old when I first saw an exposed heart. 

Her body was lying on the beach, her chest mauled open by the jagged rocks of the shore. Her arms and legs were untouched, her face was eroded to a pulp, mangled hair forming a thin pillow beneath her head. She was an open pit of organs and blood.

I was alone then. My friends were off by the villas, playing games. I had decided to run off, find my own space, at least for a minute. I went down the beach, far down, to where the dangerous rocks lined the shore. I was never farther from them than the moment I found her.

I approached her. She was dead, she couldn’t hurt me. Her clothes were mostly intact, only ripped apart on the torso. She wore a dress. White with red roses. It stopped just below her knees, contorted between the rocks.

I carefully stepped onto the sharp stones, making sure not to slip between them. Right by her side I found one that was almost flat. It was wide enough to fit both my feet, so I planted my soles and found my balance.

My eyes weren’t really sure where to go. I wasn’t really sure why I was there. I scanned her from her bare toes to the red pool of mangled flesh that started above her waist. There, my eyes stopped. They got lost in the twisted intestines, the displaced kidneys, the trampled lungs. I scrutinised her shattered ribs, white chips that sprinkled the red pulp like salt on raw meat. They decorated her exposed heart, excavated from beneath a mass of minced organs. Unlike everything around it, the heart looked pristine. It was in perfect shape, untouched by the vicious tides.

I looked at her like that for some time. At one point, I looked at her face. Her nose was reduced to two oblong holes, her eyes eroded to shallow sockets. I wondered if in her state, with all her wounds, she was still a person, or perhaps she’d become something else. I didn’t know. I didn’t know, but looking at her made me uncomfortable, and I wanted to leave.

I carefully traversed the jagged rocks back to the sandy shore, making sure not to slip on their wet razor tips. I landed myself safely on the sand, running back to play with my friends.

28.VIII.2024