The Life of Things
Your heartbeat is real.
The reset of a shower, a simple thing, which deserves no praise, I am praised for daily by the faucet’s song. As I finish rinsing the last bit of conditioner from my hair and turn the metal valve to the right, stopping the flow of water, its last droplets falling short of my face, I hear it; it begins to sing. A small hum whom’s pitch rises to mimic the sound of a church chorus after some divine revelation. A sacrosanct sound all for me caused simply by water pressure. It makes me smile. I tap the release lever and the song ends as water shoots from the bottom of the shower head. I applaud, a standing ovation, in gratitude at this reception of a rejuvenated me ready to do better than the man who stepped in moments before. My daily cheerleader.
It’s is one of the many living things in my apartment.
“What you give importance to is important,” a phrase I have heard many times before, so why can’t it be true that what you give life to is alive.
It’s something I have given a lot of thought to as I’ve abandoned things through out my travels when it no longer makes sense to carry them with me. The milk chocolate brown hoodie that complemented my skin instead of washing it out barely kept me warm enough in Munich through the outdoor Christmas markets, staving off the cold until the mid day gluhwein took effect, but was entirely too bulky and hot two weeks later in Mumbai. A companion in two Decembers I parted with at Backpacker Cowies Hostel before boarding a short flight to Goa. I think about that hoodie sometimes, and if it ever found a purpose or a new companion in a place that, due to the temperature, has no use for it.
The work clothes I packed and moved to Oaxaca when I thought I would start a new life there with a woman I once thought I loved, left in the middle of the night, as I took a cab to the airport hoping to hop on the first flight to the other side of the world. They were donated by her when I never returned, hopefully now helping someone create the life in that city I had yearned for.
A giant rain jacket that engulfed my nephew when he tried it on in Merida, as he mimicked being me, laughing at how ridiculous a rain jacket was in a city so over run by heat and rain that rain jackets were signs of tourists. May it someday keep him dry on some adventure far from where I left it, far from where I left him.
The demolished sneakers who had given me their all through 5 continents and now just wanted to rest, leading me to buy a new pair at a mall in Bangkok hand in hand with a Swiss traveling companion who would mend my idea of who I was and what I deserved.
And so goes the trail of living things I’ve left behind, always in my corner, until now. Now I hear the heartbeat of a living thing in my apartment and it haunts me, because I live entirely alone.
“…tuk-tuk…tuk-tuk..”
The undeniable rhythm of a heart started out of nowhere as I laid on my couch, scrolling on my phone; my grandfather’s poncho, my favorite thing in the word keeping my legs warm as the A/C now set at the odd number of 73 blasted.
I looked around as if I would see someone who’s heart would beat so loud, raised a finger to my pulse to see if it was perhaps my own, some new medical condition your 30’s brings that I was perhaps unaware of. My heart’s rhythm did not match, but picked up speed as I could not place where this other heart beat was coming from.
I silenced everything, turned off the A/C, muted the TV, and closed the drapes to my sliding door windows to make the outside world disappear.
“…tuk-tuk…tuk-tuk…”
I tiptoed around my apartment then knelt down on all fours and hunted the sound poised like the jaguar tattoo on my thigh, hoping to sneak up on this heart beat and pounce at its source.
The heartbeat was coming from the opposite end of my coffee table, close to the ledge past what I could see so I stood, held off for a second and walked over, not knowing what living thing would have a heart beat so loud.
Nothing.
Staring at the empty space between my coffee table and entertainment system the heartbeat beat’s volume was at its zenith.
“…TUK-TUK…TUK-TUK…”
Then I saw it, my ruby red PlayStation 5 controller, it pulsed with every beat. Having held it in my hand multiple times I was not afraid to pick it up. I could feel its heart beat in my hands and a much softer rumble underneath.
Baffled, I googled what had happened.
This was a normal occurrence in this model of controller, when the buttons are pressed too hard damaging the trigger cogs causing them to slip and make a “heartbeat” sound. This was my player two controller, used by my close friend Brandon when he would come over for our weekly hang/therapy session, where we discussed the complexities of being a man in the 21st century and then taking out our frustrations on the latest fighting game. I tend to beat Brandon pretty often, and so he squeezes the controller with all of his strength as he curses me. The poor controller no match for his diesel mechanic grip.
I sighed in relief and carried about my day, lightly chuckling to myself as I remembered Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart. I was, thankfully, not going mad so I unmuted the TV, blasted the A/C and drew back the curtains to let sunshine in, and welcomed the sight of my front yard and passerby’s whom’s heartbeats I could not hear, but knew they were real.
“…tuk-tuk…tuk-tuk…”
I turned off the controller and switched to my light blue one.
Days passed by and the ruby red controller sat where I left it, no heart beat, dead of charge.
“Alright, this is dumb.” I said to myself, or to the controller whom I was facing.
I plugged it in to charge and later that day used it to turn on my console and TV. No heart beat. Silence, the silence I had grown so accustomed to. The silence of a slamming gate on the other side of my wall that granted entry into my complex, the silence of a car radio blasting music as it drove by, the silence of a couple laughing and walking their dog outside of my window. The silence of a bustling city heard only by those who rise alone.
“…tuk-tuk…tuk-tuk…”
The controller started again, I rolled my eyes at it as if to say, “you can’t scare me, I know who you are now.”
Then it began. The thought of me not knowing who this heart beat belonged to. This wasn’t the faucet’s celebratory song, the hoodie’s warm embrace, the blazer’s promise at success, or the rain jacket’s ridiculous protection. It was something more, something truly alive, being transmitted through this controller as if it were a phone or some gate to the inner cavities of a real person’s chest.
Whom does it belong to? I wanted it to belong to the Sun girl I traveled Thailand with, or better yet, the heartbeat of the woman who’s still a mystery to me, the one I’ve prayed for for so many years, but its not.
It’s a looming heart beat.
The heartbeat of the blind man in Egypt at the Cairo airport who I refused to help when he reached for me, when I thought I was going to be scammed or the heart beat of the young woman standing behind the glass wall illuminated by red light in Amsterdam who sighed with relief when an old man contemplated her services in front of her and kept walking, locking eyes with me as I saw the interaction play out and smiled at me shyly. Was this the heartbeat of the young Muy Thai fighter who lost a fight in front of his wife and son who cheered for him from his corner tears in the young boys eyes at his hero being defeated or is this the heartbeat of my first dog Charlie whom we drove away from one sunny day never to see again. Is this the heartbeat of the man who lived behind the service counter of an apartment building in Chennai, his entire existence the space of a walk in closet. The heartbeat of the little girl in Laos dirt on her face as he fished the Mae Kong River with an empty coke bottle as a reel. Was this the heartbeat of the man living on the streets in San Sebastián, Spain, shouting, pleading at those around him to not hate him for the color of his dark brown sun beaten skin as the fair locals walked around him, deaf to his voice. Whose heart beat is this that haunts me?
The Ruby Red controller sits on my table still, unbothered, lifeless. I stare at it and think.
Your heart beat is real.
