THE HALL OF HEARTS

Words: Hannah Kuo

I stood staring at the enormous plaque before me. HALL OF HEARTS.

Finally, after months of struggle and an arduous journey, we’ve arrived. His voice had called each of us, and after we met him, he had promised we’d find answers and peace here. He better have been right about this.

As I took in the plaque, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. My gaze drifted to the rest of the building. Huge stone, a large wooden door with the imprint of a hand in the center. I glanced at my surroundings. Peaceful ocean to my left, acres of green fields to my right. Blue skies above me. Everything was picturesque, save for this… this… I wasn’t even sure what to call it. An ominous block of stone?

“Do you think they have actual hearts inside?” Adam whispered teasingly to me.

I elbowed him hard. “Stop scaring me.” I walked up to the door. “Let’s go.”

I placed my hand against the wood, and the door slid open to reveal a brightly illuminated hall made of crystal.

So, that explained the stone.

We all stepped inside, glancing around furtively. Everything about this place seemed suspicious. With what we’d all faced on the way here, this seemed too peaceful.

The tessellated walls shimmered with every color of the rainbow as we continued to step forward slowly. Even the floor made my eyes widen in awe; it seemed to be made of pure white marble. But what drew my attention the most was a lone pedestal standing at the other end of the room. I walked up to it and tilted my head to admire the porcelain vase displayed on top of it. It was pure white, about the size of a small flower pot, laced with gold. Was I allowed to touch it? I reached out a hand and brushed my fingertips lightly along the side of the vase. It was warm to the touch, and even though my fingers barely touched the vase, it was like I could feel my heartbeat in my fingerprints.

“Guys, what do you think about…” My voice trailed off as the vase suddenly changed on its own. I jerked back in shock as I watched color bloom on the vase, spiral once in a firework, then begin to shift.

My jaw dropped as scenes painted itself on the pot. My amazement darkened as I recognized my friends in painfully familiar stories.

Sarang’s1 rejection.

Crack. The slightest fissure appeared at the lip of the vase.

Li’s2 abandonment. Crack As my breath quickened in panic, the scenes played faster and faster, matching the rhythm of my pounding heart.

1 Sarang means “love” in Korean

2 Li means “strength” in Chinese

Simcha’s3 grief. Crack

Faith’s death.

Just as I took a breath to scream, the vase exploded and I jumped in shock. I watched the glittering pieces clatter to the ground singing the distorted symphony of no return. I felt a strange sort of emptiness, like someone smashed the turtle shell around my heart to smithereens, leaving every emotion exposed. My forehead was plastered with sweat as my gut struggled to process the flood of buried emotions.

Suddenly, this all made sense. The Hall of Hearts. The scenes that played.

This shattered vase.

“Ciela—Are you okay?”

“Don’t come here!” I shouted to my friends as I struggled to process what I saw. My heart was not broken. There was just no way. I was fine. I am perfectly fine.

Out of nowhere, thorns sprang up from the ground and snaked their way up the pedestal and up my legs. With shaky fingers, I wove my hand past the reaching thorns and pushed a few of the vase shards together, trying to see how they fit. This wasn’t broken. This wasn’t shattered. “There’s no way,” I said shakily, a tear slipping down my cheek. I am not broken. “I’m stronger than that.”

A gentle hand touched my shoulder and I did my best to shield the scene—broken shards, slices of my past—from whoever stood behind me. Alarm zapped every bone in my body, but the presence was familiar and warm. “Yes?” I asked, my voice tight, unsure of what would happen.

“Look at me,” a deep voice said.

I hesitated. When I turned around, the Shepherd was looking at me with kind eyes. His steadfast gaze at me brought me back to when I was young. I had fallen, scraped my knees, and done my best not to cry, but as soon as I’d seen my mom, all the pain came rushing in and I bawled my eyes out.

It was the same now.

“It broke,” I sobbed. “I - I tried to put it together, but – hiccup – things kept happening and – and –”

The Shepherd bent down and began clearing away the thorns as though they were specks of dust on my pants. I probably would have believed the thorns weren’t real from the way he brushed them off if I didn’t see the scratches on his hands afterwards.

He pulled me into a hug, and I cried harder. From the heaviness of his breath, I was surprised to find he was crying too.

“It’s not the end,” he said after a long while. He wiped my face with his sleeve as I struggled to control my breath. “I always keep my promises.”

3 Simcha means “joy” in Hebrew

4 Nehemiah means “God comforts” in Hebrew

He bent down to collect every single piece of the vase and placed them back on the pedestal. One by one, he began to line the edges and, as I watched, the shards melded together until the entire vase was whole again. My jaw dropped in shock and I took a step closer, trying to find any piece of evidence that this vase was once broken.

“There’s no cracks!” I exclaimed. Faint gray etchings caught my eye and I frowned. “Where did these pencil marks come from?”

“Child. This vase is whole again, but there are always scars. You can’t change the past. Your paintings are all still here. But know that with every broken brushstroke, I send someone to mend what is broken.”

“But it didn’t just crack, the vase exploded,” I said. “You didn’t glue the cracks together after Sarang rejected me. Or after Li left. You waited until after all that happened and the vase – I mean, I crumbled.”

He placed a hand on my head. “No, I didn’t, but if I had at the time, you wouldn’t have wanted to come here, and we wouldn’t have met.”

I stood thinking about what he said. “Your vase is still unfinished,” he continued. “I come here every day to decorate and design the vases.”

I frowned. “What vases? There’s just one.”

The Shepherd’s eyes glinted. “What do you think your friends are doing right now? You are seeing something only you and I can see.”

I glanced over his shoulder to see my friends facing the walls of the hall in various places, their postures rigid as if frozen in time. Was this all happening in my subconscious? I settled for the cliché explanation that something surreal was happening.

“Do you paint?” I asked drily.

The Shepherd looked at me. “Sometimes.” A couple quiet seconds later, he said, “Your vase is mended. There is no reason for us to stay here. Your friends are almost ready as well.”

I turned back to the Shepherd. “But you haven’t shown us everything yet; you haven’t answered all my questions. There’s still so many things I want to ask. I want to see more.”

“In due time, child,” he said.

“Am I never going to see you again until the end of time? That’s how the story goes.”

He smiled. “I’m with you every day. As the legends go, ‘you just need to have the eyes to see it.’ But there is someone waiting for you at home. He will be there for you as I am.”

“Who is it?” I asked as we made our way to the door. “What’s his name?”

The Shepherd’s eyes twinkled. “His name is Nehemiah.”4

Hannah is a second-year Linguistics and Computer Science major who enjoys exploring reality from the realm of imagination.