An Unsound Heart

“Sick not sick.” That’s what I always told the healer. The three words, expressed with the cadence of an interrupted heartbeat, left my mouth, vibrating molecules in the air, passing through the healer’s protective ward, and finding the groove in their mind that my previous utterances of sick not sick had made. The litany was as familiar to the healer as it was to me.

“Vibrating molecules,” I said as they examined my remaining eye. “That’s how sound works, yeah?”

“I’m a healer not a scientist.” They opened my mouth with a gloved hand. I tried to not taste the latex as they probed my mouth. The gloves were a leftover practice from before protective wards. The Healer’s Guild claimed it was tradition to wear them. A symbol of a healer’s promise to provide care while still caring for themselves.

I wondered if any healers thought to ask a patient what the gloves represented to them.

“Shouldn’t you know how ears work?” I asked as they cast a diagnostic spell. The magic felt like a humid afternoon. It reminded me of what the outside was like. Unfortunately, there were no spells that felt like a cold winter morning.

“Probably.” They shrugged. A stylus scribed my stats onto a wax tablet. “I treat autoimmune disorders. Ear molecules aren’t relevant.”

I snorted.

“What?”

“Treat.” I threw their word back.

Their mouth curled downwards in a wry smile. “Not a synonym for cure.”

“Semantics.”

“Mmm.” They removed my flannel shirt and folded it before studying the stumps my shoulders ended in.

Two more souvenirs from my time as a sapper in the 9th Division during the Vi Colony Wars. As if the unknown autoimmune illness from a healing spell gone wrong and shrapnel to my eye wasn’t enough.

The healer nodded at some diagnostic check that I had passed and looked at me. Gray eyes like reticent storm clouds. “You’re ready for prosth—”

“No.”

“Getting some autonomy back will help, Violet.”

My jaw clenched and I broke eye contact. My hair fell over my eye. “I don’t need autonomy in a cell.”

They tucked my hair back behind my ears. The latex of their gloves rubbed uncomfortably. “Bedroom.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes. Which is why you’re calling it a cell.” The healer put my shirt back on me.

The stylus stopped carving into the wax tablet; the diagnostic spell finished its study of me and the healer had read the results. The healer put their things away in a flurry of simultaneous levitation spells. They didn’t show any consternation with the complex casting.

“So,” I said. “No change.”

“No,” they said. “No fever. No headache. No—”

“Still can’t go outside without my body trying to kill itself.”

It hurt less to say the answers to my questions myself.

They shook their head. “No.”

No amount of emotional scar tissue could make that word hurt less. Any apathy I feigned was just that. “Sick not sick.”

“Yes.”

I fell back onto the twin bed, my bare feet still touching the carpet. I curled my toes. “Okay.”

“Be right back.” The healer stepped into the hallway. The ward shimmered like a mirage as they discarded it. They tossed their gloves in the trash bin behind them.

Sen returned with a tray in one hand and a stool in the other. They sat by the wall in the hallway and balanced the tray on their lap. I looked up at the sound of clattering cutlery.

“First, a grilled cheese sandwich for my lady.” Sen bowed and floated a plate through the door to me. The bread had been grilled to gold and toasty perfection. “Made the bread myself!”

“Looks good.”

“Beautiful! Word choice, Violet, matters a lot.” Sen levitated the sandwich in front of me and had it split along its diagonal cut. Cheese stretched between the two halves like yellow tripwires before tearing completely. Setting one half down, Sen moved the other to just under my nose.

As was silently expected, I inhaled. Butter and cheese dominated the smell but I got hints of the white bread Sen had baked, warm and yeasty. The good hormones—whatever they’re called—began going off in my brain and I could almost physically feel their gentle sparks landing on me. Like rainfall.

That same piece was held in front of an ear alongside a fork. I shut my eye and fell to dull darkness right on time for Sen to drag the fork’s tines along the grilled bread. A rough scratching sound tickled my ear and my neck impulsively twisted away. My laugh, a keening sound I hated, broke free with that same impulse. I scowled. “Damn you.”

“My services require payment.” Sen shrugged and finally let me taste the sandwich. As expected, it was warm, buttery, and cheesy. I got to hear and feel the crunch as I broke through the bread’s toasted layer into its soft, airy center.

A bowl of tomato soup arrived next. The worst soup in the world if it didn’t have a grilled cheese sandwich accompanying it. I was treated to the same experience with the soup. First, a study of its deep red contrasted with the single green basil leaf Sen had placed in the middle. Then, an invitation to smell its rich aroma of butter, cream, garlic, tomatoes, and…other things. Sen was the chef. I just knew it smelled like the warmth next to a hearth.

Sen didn’t invite me to taste the soup by itself. Instead, the sandwich was dipped into it. An acidity enveloped by tanginess melted into the bites. Somehow, the sandwich maintained its shell of crunchiness despite being dunked into the soup.

Little by little, Sen warmed me up until only a little soup remained. They took everything back and held the bowl up to their lips, finishing it with a single gulp. My palate was cleansed by a glass of cold water that they carefully poured into my mouth. Each chilling drop made it down to the subtle heat in my stomach.

“Thank you,” I said as they wiped my mouth with a napkin.

Sen smiled and tossed the napkin. They stood, tray with empty dishes in one hand and stool in the other. “You are welcome, love.”

They stepped away until I could only see a heel arched up into the air. It settled back to the floor as Sen leaned back to look at me around the doorframe.

“Violet,” they murmured, gray eyes wide and misty.

With the lump in the back of my throat and the pressure of tears behind my eyes, I could only meet Sen’s gaze.

Storm clouds broke over me as Sen whispered, “I would do this for you even if you didn’t need me to.”

“Mhm.”

Sen, the healer, nodded.

© 2022 R.S. Saha

About the Author

R.S. Saha is a translator and writer for Vishnupuram Literary Circle (VLC) and a staff reader for The Maine Review. Their translation of Gopalla Gramam by Ki. Rajanarayanan is available to read on the VLC website. When they aren’t searching for an apt translation of an obscure Tamil word, they are working on their own pile of fantasy and horror WIP. Or reading as much as possible before responsibilities demand attention. They can be found on Twitter @SahardlyTrying and some of their stuff can be read on their website www.iamsaha.com.