Heart of Gold by Taylor Hopper
There’s a song that sings from the root of man. Through the blades of grass and the wisp of sand. As natural as smoke, curling words passed down from grandmother to mother, from mother to child.
A legend, in a town not far from yours.
“In the dark forest of haunts
There are riches to hold
If only you can find
A heart of gold”
The song sings in those bent over work, tilling the ground for seeds of spring. In the boys’ fleeting feet, their bravery untested but their imagination free. In girls who dream of beauty and pleasure, of twirling shoes dancing through the night.
It is a song wrapped in the heart of man.
Trees like monsters, roots like claws. The darkness holds a place in the forest’s eyes.
Men like children, axes like feathers. The haunts hold a place inside these people's minds.
Screams and laughter fill the air. Tears and horror paint their stare. Yet still they move deeper, hopeful and scared. With nothing to guide them, but a dream and a prayer.
Men drop like leaves in a cold winter spell. Cower and shake, waiting to be claimed.
Some turn back, not realizing they’re already lost.
Some sink into soil, the dirt singing them to eternal sleep.
Some simply disappear, and whispers of monsters and wraiths carry along the breeze.
One does not.
A man steps foot where few feet have stepped before. Behind him lies death, in front of him awaits dreams.
A man who doesn’t resemble a man anymore, but a being of something else. With hair too long and a mind too sharp. With a body comfortable in fear and a heart stayed steady. As he steps across the forest, the branches fall back, giving way to the slightest light.
The black bleeds gray.
The gray bleeds white.
And the white bleeds gold.
The light.
He cries as it touches him, and the darkness falls from his skin. The warmth welcomes him, cherishes him.
And as he steps into it, as he sheds what came before, there it is.
The heart of gold.
Growing from the ground with roots like rubies. Suspended in the air by branches like opals. It’s beautiful. It’s ethereal. It’s everything he could have dreamed of.
The man stumbles forward, blinded by the dream come alive.
That is why he does not see, not until he’s collapsed to his knees, his shaking hands lifting to caress it.
The heart, it is not gold.
Not completely.
The man stares in confusion and wonders at the strips of gold peeled away. At the flesh exposed beneath, putrid and rotten like a festering wound. Further, he looks, and notices that the roots are not all of ruby. Some have withered, as if turning in on themselves. Some have torn, as if crying with frozen tears. Beneath the ground, scars run deep, the gold faded. “How could this have happened?” he wonders.
His gaze returns to the heart, and snags on a piece pulled away at the top. Suddenly, he knows how this has happened.
For a moment he pauses and considers. For a moment, a whisper tells him not to.
And then the moment passes.
Two fingers pinch the fractured end, two fingers pull the gold away like string.
There’s a small noise, a tearing and crying. One that the man doesn’t hear, his gaze filling with desire. He reaches for another strip. And another. Filling his pocket until it’s full and turning away without another glance back.
He disappears into the darkness, the gold air a little less gold, the bright light a little less bright.
And so the heart realizes, as the tears of ire fall.
The man is just a man, after all.