He went to the doctor’s with a dull ache. It was in his chest cavity, which felt like a cavity indeed; like an empty void where something else should have been, but he could never figure out what. And when the light flashed and the deep photograph was taken, the doctors took turns peering inside him. At his heart, which was not a heart at all, but rather a never-ending string of words written in a black, scratched scrawl that spiraled, ever-tighter, into a dark fist that clenched too tightly for the words to be read. And since the message could not be deciphered, the man put on his coat and went on his way.

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