Some of it seems a bit awkward to me. I was having trouble transitionining between the reading and writing of the letter, with a lot of repetitions and stuff. Help, anyone? Thanks a bunch.
~MademoiselleKool
Katie sat at her desk, pen hovering thoughtfully above the page. She gazed at the beautiful statue of Aphrodite, goddess of love. She picked up the note that came with it, a small heart-shaped piece of paper edged with lace. On it was simply: "Happy Valentine's Day. Best wishes, Henry Michaelson."
Shaking her head, Katie tucked the note underneath the statue. What did the doctor mean by sending her this? Was he merely being a good friend, or trying to declare that he wanted to be more? She loved him as a brother and considered him a wonderful family friend, and was always glad of his visits...but how dreadfully awful if he was beginning to - to care for her.
Katie pinched her lips together and looked down at the lined paper that sat, waiting to be filled. She was suddenly irritated with Henry Michaelson for ruining her Valentine's Day with complications. Thrusting it out of her mind, she began a letter to Richard.
Dear Mr. Calloway;
I'm sorry, but after all this time, it just seems very strange to call you Richard. I shall have to get used to it. How is your recruiting quest going so far? But I needn't ask...with your dashing good looks that we all know so much about, it must be going well. At least on the female recruiter's side. But I am not writing to exchange the time of day with you, even though it would be interesting to know what time zone you're in...
Anyway, I have another topic of conversation. Seeing as today is Valentine's Day, let us discuss a little matter that has been niggling at my mind for the past couple of days:
The heart.
Consider how many phrases you find in novels having to do with hearts stopping, or flopping, or sinking, or jumping, or thumping. Consider how much of love has to do with hearts – heart-shaped cakes, cards with red hearts on them, a bunch of pink helium balloons shaped like hearts. Consider what people associate with hearts – romance, love, valentine’s day, maybe even sex.
Consider that, and then please consider what a heart really is. The heart is an organ, a muscle that recycles the blood, pumping it through all of our arteries and veins to different regions of the body. It looks rather like a large, pulsating fetus with a bunch of blood going in and out of it. Now, I don’t know about you, but that is certainly not my idea of a romantic mental image.
The heart has nothing whatsoever to do with emotion, thought, love, or anything besides keeping us alive. I suppose, to some who enjoy stretching their creative thinking, the heart might be a symbol of how our love is our life, and if we lost him (or her) we’d die. Strictly speaking, though, even that isn’t exactly true. There are ways to keep a person alive when their heart isn’t working properly. In certain operations, in fact, they intentionally stop the heart.
All of that being said, where exactly is the ‘heart,’ in the emotional sense of the term, located? It is lodged directly in the unromantic, unsung but vastly important association cortex, located in the frontal lobe of the brain. The association cortex is what controls thought, strategy, reasoning, memory…and emotion. Yes, home is not where the heart is, but where the association cortex is. No, your heart does not jump, it is merely your association cortex determining from signals sent to it from the temporal, occipital and parietal lobes that the man of your dreams is walking by and you should react.
People don’t like to hear this kind of thing. They like to point to their hearts, clutch their hearts when they’re making fun of star-struck lovers, and use their heart as generally the center of their being. I say it's all bother.
I never really liked hearts, anyway. I'm letting mine keep to it's proper job and not go wander around all over the place flipping and bumping like a maniacal acrobat.
So now I've had my rant. What do you think?
~Katie Sakelle
Katie sat back, passing one hand over her eyes. She really hadn't meant to start into the topic of Valentine's day, but it was so fresh on her mind. Ah, well. Richard was a very close friend at the moment, and would know how to take it - as a friend relieving her mind to another friend. There were no complications with him.
***
Richard sat down slowly on the bed in his hotel room, staring at the letter in his hand. Dated Valentine's Day, from Katie - he winced as he considered the possibility that perhaps it was a valentine. That would complicate matters. However, from the business-like envelope and scrawling, sloppy lettering, he doubted it.
Opening the envelope, he sat down and began to read. As he read he was reminded of the beginning of their acquaintance. She had been unable to speak, and so had to communicate in writing - and her style was so quaint, with long words and phrasing you didn't see very often in modern letters - that it made him laugh no matter what the content of the letter was.
When he had finished reading it, he contemplated how to reply. It didn't sound as if she was trying to send him some sort of secret message. It sounded more as if she was venting about an event that disturbed her having to do with her heart - or perhaps someone else's.
Richard ripped out two pages of his journal, took up a ball point pen and rested the pages on his knee, tapping his upper lip with the pen. Then, considering carefully before he each word, he began to write.
Dear Katie:
I don't mind in the least you calling me Mr. Calloway, or Richard Calloway, or just plain Richard if you can ever stomach it...but I really hope you don't want me to go on calling you Miss Sakelle. I feel that after all the heart-to-heart discussions we had when I was visiting the - ah - charming village of Yakima liberates me to call you Katie without any qualms. And besides, when I've seen you in a hospital gown, bathing suit, mud-stained jeans and a beautiful party dress, 'Miss Sakelle' doesn't seem to fit you.
But enough about names.
Yes, the recruiting trip is going quite well. I already have three new singers from Brooklyn, and am heading over to England tomorrow. And before you ask, yes, all of the new singers are female - but not because of my dashing handsomeness, I can assure you! My email address is on the card, and it might be easier to email me from now on instead of the snail mail. Your last letter had to be forwarded quite a few times before it reached me.
And now to address your very good point in your last letter.
I do believe that part of what you say is true - and the whole thing about shape is ridiculous to the extreme. A heart doesn't look anything like a Valentine card. But that is the way of the world. Again, all of what you say about the brain is also true. But I believe, in my experience, there is a reason that people believe that there is something in the heart. My mother had cardiac surgery not long ago, and they stopped her heart. Though we never would have known, she claimed afterwards that for days after the surgery she felt emotionally detached from the rest of us.
There must be some significance in the fact that the heart is at the very center of our chest, and represents the whole of our body gathered into one small space. Perhaps the heart is connected in some strange way with the soul.
I can tell when you wrote that letter that, for some reason, you were upset at romance and love in general, and not necessarily at hearts themselves. Please, feel free to confide in me if you wish if you're troubled by something. I am always your friend, always here to listen.
Keep in touch!
~Richard Calloway
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