The Seventh Sense

There’s more than one heart in the human body. I’m not talking about sentiment, the heart you find on a Valentine’s Day card, not the type young girls scrawl on the pages of school books or in little diaries protected with flimsy gold coloured locks. I mean the heart of old beliefs. The heart as the centre of being. What we knew before science told us the brain was we and we the brain. Would you be surprised to find there are hearts in each of your fingers and more than that? In your toes! That’s right.

I sit here with mine covered in woollen socks, my feet on my sofa, warmed by my gas fire and the heavy meal I wolfed not an hour ago. I move them, make circles in the air. I may massage them later while I watch my television and eat my fill of evening treats.

It won’t make any difference. No more than if I shout at the sky when it rains because I don’t want to get wet. They’ll still be cold.