The Day My Heart Went Nova
by Kansas Bob
Life just wasn’t the same after she died. People asked me if I was lonely but all I could think of was how I felt like I was simply all alone. I knew my kids felt that way too but I was so unable to help them. I wanted to move on but I felt like I was groping in the dark and reaching for my precious star that had gone nova.
Going nova is how I was feeling. It was like something had been ripped from within me and my heart was exploding in a weirdly spectacular fashion. The nova in my heart affected every part of me and everyone in earshot of my pain. I felt like the pieces of my heart would, like that exploding star, never be put back together.
Yet, unlike that star gone nova, my life continued and I found comfort in the lives and love of others. In a sense love put most of the pieces of my heart back together again. My broken heart is almost whole again. Yet without love my heart would still be in pieces and I would be still reaching for that exploding star.
Very poetic. :)
ReplyDeleteInteresting use of metaphor. I found myself pulled into your character's world.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
Intriguing concept. Love and loss have their own gravitational pulls.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
Quietly lovely. I'm glad he's okay, but it's never the same, is it?
ReplyDeleteNice analogy for the broken heart.
ReplyDeleteI liked the progression from feeling that the heart could never be put back together and then it's almost whole again. And yet life will never be the same.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouraging feedback everyone!
ReplyDeleteI love this metaphor - even someone who hasn't had this experience can understand it through these words.
ReplyDeleteMy humble suggestion would be to extend the metaphor... the matter and energy from supernovas are not lost, but reintegrated elsewhere - just as this story concludes with unexpected loves and friendships.
I think that third paragraph is where you can coax out a few more words to show how those tiny fragments become the seeds of new star systems... transformation as opposed to reconstitution.
Thanks for sharing the character's view of death and love. Though he's rediscovered he can love, he's not yet rediscovered love. Will he ever?
ReplyDeleteDottie :)
I found this such a poignant and ultimately positive read, thank you, take care
ReplyDeletex
Simple and lovely. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteNeat. I loved this one! :)
ReplyDeleteA deeply touching story, simply told. Well done.
ReplyDeleteA gorgeous title. This dragged me into the story.
ReplyDeleteKB - you have captured intense grief and the road to recovery beautifully here. I hope your character finds love again - the glue to finally mend a broken heart.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful contrast, this, of the indifference of dying stars, that even in their death throes would consume us if we get to close, and the salve of love for the human heart, which is found only among the living. In my foolish youth, I used to think the universe as all Mind because it had, through us, the ability to look back at itself. Now I agree more with what Paul wrote: Three things will remain: faith, hope and love; and of these three, love is the greatest, love is eternal.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful story and a clever incorporation of Jason's picture.
I felt that the repetition was like the neverending circular thoughts haunting him. I like the challenge you set for yourself.
ReplyDeleteThank you all so much for the encouraging words.
ReplyDeleteSo interesting to me of the way that my story has been mirroring my life as of late. Since Monday my wife has been in ICU here in Chicago on a ventilator fighting off an infection. There have been days that my fictional words have echoed in my mind.