The Package

June 24th, I received a package on my front porch. It was a small box, wrapped in butcher paper and twine, I remember making a stupid joke about “my favorite things”. The laugh wore off pretty quickly. I scoured the box for a return address, but the only identifier I could find was a small tag with my name, and the words “tell no one” on it. A chill ran up my spine with those words, and I knew something weird was going on. I started tugging on the twine, but my hands were shaking, and I ended up dropping the box. It thudded to the ground, and there was a small cracking sound. I picked it up, and tried again, but the damn knot was too tight, so I whipped out my leatherman, and cut the twine. I opened the box, and couldn’t believe what was inside- a heart. Mostly it was a heart, there were some strange bits of electronics on it, wires poking out from one side, leading to a small circuit board on the other side.Of course, when I first saw it, I didn’t notice the details, just the fact that I was facing a heart in a box. I think I screamed, but I can’t be sure. I was in a daze, and when I snapped out of it, my mouth was open, so I was probably screaming. Then I realized I was standing in the front door of my house, holding a goddamn heart in a box. I slammed the door, and tried to get my bearings. was it human? was it a pig heart, and somebody was pulling a prank? what the hell is going on with all those wires? I was absolutely freaking out.

It took me probably twenty minutes to calm down, but when I did, I gathered my thoughts, and closed the blinds to every window. Then I turned on the light over the dining room table, sat down, and opened the box again. son of a bitch, there was a heart in a box, sitting in my dining room. I calmed down again and started to think. obviously, the note said to tell no one, and for the moment, I had to assume that meant cops. I wondered at first if the heart was some sort of warning, or a threat, but there was nothing to indicate that. well, nothing except a heart in a box. As you can imagine, all sorts of thoughts like that popped into my head, but for the purposes of this telling, i’ll try to keep those down. Anyway, I tried to focus as much as I could on the details: who sent this to me, WHY ME, what it’s for, what I am supposed to do, just trying to make sense of it all. I started to study the heart itself. the veins, or the arteries, whatever they are on an actual heart, had some sort of stainless steel caps on them, and the heart seemed pretty full, probably with blood, I wasn’t going to probe it. I noticed some writing on the circuit board, but it was too small to make out, so I went to grab a magnifying glass. The writing turned out to just be a series of digits, reading:

GFiSaT.35.140647-117.128071

Then, I flipped the chip over, and on the back, I noticed what had made the cracking sound: a wire from one of the components, a capacitor, had broken loose when I dropped it. I decided the best thing to do was to re-connect the wire and see what happened. I pushed the wire beck into contact, and immediately jumped back. The heart had begun to beat. Son of a bitch, I will never forget that second- it was beating, just like it was still in a chest. it was a slow pulse, but it was still beating, every few seconds, thud- thud- thud. it was terrifying to see, but I couldn't look away. Call it morbid curiosity.