Prologue
I haven’t been alive as long as some people have, I’m only in my twenties, many would call me inexperienced and naive in the ways of love, that I have no business talking about such subjects. But in those years there are phrases and expressions that aren’t just expressions anymore. Phrases such as heartbroken, heart of gold, stole my heart and many others, are no longer expressions, but literal facts and objects. The science of emotions and feelings was always such a complicated business, one never knew truly where their loyalties were, and the idea of finding your “true love” sounded near impossible. We came up with a solution that fixed that whole problem. To be sure without a doubt where ones’ loyalties lie.
When a baby is born, of course it’s naturally attached to its’ mother most, its’ life giver. The baby is the owner of a glass heart has been crafted and connected to its’ emotions, of course the child is too young to choose for itself what it loves, all it knows is its’ mother. The powers that be mold this glass heart, with the baby’s name engraved on it, and present it directly to the parents. And as the parents are the ones who are now in possession of the child’s heart, the child loves its’ parents above all others. It is the duty of the parents to love it, nurture it and protect it in every way they can, preparing it for the world. When the child is grown, in most common cases when they’ve reached their teenage years, they take their heart from their parents to do with as they please. Much to the dismay of the parents, who would love nothing better than to keep the heart for themselves, where the child would remain safe and unharmed by the big bad world and the wolves that are in it.
Humans, by nature, are not meant to be alone. Everyone dreams of true love, their happily ever after, some more than others. They spend their lives searching for that one person they can trust with their heart and their love. Some might be aware of it, and others might not, but everyone longs to find something to give their glass heart to, something or someone to keep it for them, to love it and treasure it and value it above anything else. Love is precious and like glass, is fragile, it can be easily broken. But unless you possess it, you have no power over it.
Whether they might realize it or not, there are people who give their all to their work, we’ve given them the title “workaholic”. They love their work, throwing their hearts into business where it can’t be hurt or touched by people. On the same level, there are people who give their hearts to their pets, perhaps they were hurt by a person they loved, and so have lost their trust in humans. Animal companions are loyal to a fault and are always there to comfort their owner in times of distress.
There are people with hard hearts or hearts of stone. These hearts are kept away from people and are unaffected by suffering or love of any kind. They are duty bound and don’t let emotions or people get in the way. They are most effected by statistics and numbers, they believe the facts and tend to ignore what they feel.
Flying to the other end of the spectrum, there are some humans who wear their heart of their sleeve, as it were. It is typically the most worn heart of them all, because it is touched by everything around it, whether good or bad. It is not always beautiful to look at, but it is soft and tender, and the owners of these hearts are very empathetic. They are very often the kind of people to get swept in with the crowd and dive in head first, only to be pulled away by something else later on. It is easy to see what these people feeling, as the emotions they take in are almost immediately displayed in their expression and in their heart. Their heart is represented by a heart shaped patch on their sleeve, whereas the heart itself remains safely tucked away somewhere on their person.
Each of these glass hearts are colored differently based on the personality and mood of the owner, but there is a rare group of people who possess transparent hearts, completely clear. They are typically terrible liars and have difficulty hiding anything they might be feeling, they are very genuine people and always themselves, no matter where they are or who they’re around. They are capable of feeling very deeply, but they hold on to nothing for very long, they are easy to forgive and let the emotions flow in and out of them, keeping themselves cleansed. Mentally and emotionally, they are the healthiest of heart holders, they allow nothing to be bottled up inside and everyone knows what these people are feeling, because they’re not afraid to tell them.
The most precious and rarest of all, are those who possess a heart of gold. They love everyone and are constantly being kind and helpful to the needy, they practically bleed love. One might think to themselves, I’ve never seen such a person, surely they can’t exist. But these people are so rare in fact, that there is only ever one of them on earth at a time, except for a few short overlapping years. This person is easy to spot, they have an almost celestial glow about them, even if their heart is nowhere to be seen. Very often owners of a golden heart are fantastic listeners, and people go to them with their secrets and problems. But taking in all these negative emotions has no effect on hearts of gold, and they have no need to flush out all the negativity they take in. Their overflow of love for the offended and the offender completely dissolves the hate and anger and sadness, so you never hear them complain or speak badly of people.
However, owners of a heart of gold don’t always have a life of sunshine and roses. These people are given one job, and being that they possess the heart of gold, they are more than happy to perform it. It is their one vocation in life to heal the broken hearts of the world. It has long been the belief that time heals all wounds, this belief is not entirely true. Glass hearts, when broken, will never be whole, there will always be those scars and bruises of past wrongs that have been dealt to it. The purpose of the hearts of gold, is to give of itself and give these broken hearts a different kind of love, the molten gold from the heart acts as a glue and binds the broken pieces together. In this, the hurt and pain of the past are no longer scars, but are transformed into veins of gold. It’s like the saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and a heart grows stronger and more beautiful as long as it uses trials the right away and doesn’t let them break them down.
There are a lot of broken hearts in this world, but the heart of gold is infinite, it never runs out of love. But there is a downside, the owners of a heart of gold would love nothing more than to heal all the broken hearts and make the world right again. But no matter how much they might reach out and offer their healing love, they can do nothing if the broken heart doesn’t accept the gift and give all the pieces over to them. It is a terrifying thought to hand over your broken heart to a stranger, not knowing what they might to do it, but that’s where the trust comes in.
And then there are people like us. We are completely emotionally detached from our hearts, we’ve found a way around the bothersome science, all it takes is a little time and experience. We are masters of disguise, we are whatever people want us to be, and our job is to go out into the world and collect these hearts. When we are finished with an assignment, people often ask us if we even have a heart. They let their emotions cloud their judgment and they accuse us of being heartless. They’re wrong, we are not heartless. We just keep it locked away in a very special, very secret place where nothing and no one can get at it. It is safe there, so very few of us bother to take the time to check on its’ condition. We can make it look like we have a heart, we can pretend to be emotional, movie stars do it all the time and have reduced people to tears. For us, all the real emotions that come with our job are just so cumbersome and exhausting that we like to by-pass all that, we don’t like being bothered or letting irrational decisions driven by emotions get in the way of what we’re working towards.
As a result, it’s often required in our line of work, to present a sign of good faith. So though our real hearts are locked away, we have been issued a representation of our heart, a sample of what we can offer, and we present it to our cases for them to review and see if they like it. It’s completely fake, and more than likely looks nothing like our real hearts, but the whole point of the fake heart is to win over our assignments. More often than not, they tell us it seems too good to be true. That may very well be so, but it’s our job to make it look good and follow through to make it as believable as possible. Sometimes we toss in a small flaw or two just to ease their minds and convince them that we’re not completely perfect. It was our job to gain their trust and their favor over all others, even over that pesky heart of gold, and we didn’t stop until we won exactly that, their hearts and their love. For everyone knows, it is not love if it is not freely and willingly given.