Henrietta Miller hobbled from the big box megastore, plastic bags bursting with enough cat litter to carpet a lion’s den. The weight of her parcels carved a groove into her fingers; vine-thick veins bulged from her neck. Perspiration dripped from the snug V-neck tee shirt that clung to her like wet papier-mâché.

        She gulped a breath of humid air, and her chest cracked open—a massive, gaping fissure into her core. Her heart pulsed through the opening, the bloody membrane squeezing through her flesh like a clown’s balloon trick. It twisted and morphed, a morbid optical illusion that, once seen, became indelible to the eye. Passersby raised their phones with awe and an unsubtle desire to increase their social media followers as Henrietta’s heart bounced across the pavement. A lifetime sheen of tarry nicotine clung to the sweaty, thudding mass. As Henrietta spasmed and fell onto her behind, her heart landed in the middle of the parking lot, shriveling and petrifying on the hot asphalt before cracking in two.

#

        Once the memes faded, no one would remember much about this Patient Zero.

        Not the ten cats slinking through her empty apartment, avoiding overfilled litter boxes that stunk with neglect. Not the three school-aged daughters she’d surrendered to foster care so many years before, who, giggling at the heart flopping across their tablet screens, wondered why the lady in the video looked so familiar.

#

        It went viral, this “Heartbreak” affliction.

        Conspiracy theorists hypothesized the issue was truly viral, the outcome of lab experiments gone wrong, designed to eradicate the female population.

        Actual scientists blamed it on everything from twisted chromosomes to global warming to a mutated common cold.

        Crotchety old women cited the breakdown of traditional family values for the malfunction, the middle-aged sandwich-generation blamed caregiver burden, and younger women faulted a judgmental world.   

        TV networks cued dramatic violin music and deep pink studio lighting as the anchors reported each new case of Heartbreak, their mournful masks ineffectively concealing ratings-magnet glee. Headlines played word games with women’s fears—new cases front-page news, yet dismissed in the fluff of features:

Foul Ball or Foul Play?

Teaneck, NJ: Allie Gold delivered an indecipherable email to her boss while multitasking at her son’s Little League baseball game, her heart leaping from her chest onto her laptop keyboard after the computer fell victim to a foul ball driven into the bleachers.

Book-Break, Heartbreak

Oakland, CA: Tamara Tijen defiled a Stephen King novel at the county library, bloody terror spurting from the organ that bolted from her chest when she sought a few moments of escape from her doctoral dissertation.

I Hold Your Heart In My Hands

Boston, MA: Eighty-one-year-old Martha Fromme survived her sister’s funeral when her astute husband, Martin, caught the heart that lobbed from betwixt her bosoms, shoving it back in place with the hand of true love.

#

        Droves of red-suited women marched on Washington, a sea of blood undulating across the National Mall. Styrofoam-constructed vena cavas bounced from the tops of their crimson hats, berets morphed into ventricles and aortas, as young and old demanded answers. Teams of female cardiologists stood at the ready, chasing errant hearts that leapt across the lawn like Easter bunnies doused in grape juice, their own hearts bursting into the chaos.

        Men walked by, muttering at the cacophony.

        One gangly teen punted a stray heart from the sidewalk. “And it’s good!” he mugged as the organ burst, water-balloon like, against the head of its fallen owner.

        Two snaggle-toothed old men pontificated as they pointed into the disarray. “Hysterical women!” they shouted.

        Old-school politicians scurried by. They hid behind sunglasses and ferociously clutched leather briefcases, protecting status-quo policies as if shielding their children from images best left unseen.

        Male legislators evaded questions. Female officials took sick leave, fearing an eruption in the middle of the Senate floor. Republicans accused Democrats of inciting a panic-ridden hoax. Democrats censured Republicans for disregarding the greatest health crisis in the nation’s history.

        Women’s hearts continued to break.

#

        File folders stacked up at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, concealing Mike Adams, the lead patent clerk, behind a skyscraper of paper. The world needed to hop off the pause button so real life could resume its normal breakneck pace, and industrious men sought to make a quick buck by manufacturing some gimmick the public would believe in.

        Mike wasn’t sure he bought into all this Heartbreak business. After all, he’d been raised by a working mother, with five older sisters harassing him day in, day out, and none of them had ever lost their hearts. His wife and their nanny, too, both were steady and reliable, never complaining about palpitations or angina.

        The news reports, the social media posts, they had to be fabricated. Everyone had an agenda.

        He flipped through the patent applications:

The CardiaTether
Pulmonary Arterial Putty
The HeartHitch

        All expensive. All invasive, ridiculous, and completely approvable.

        Then, something different.

UNITED STATES PATENT APPLICATION: The HUGG

Inventor: A.M. Aucrat

Application No.: 589358

Filed: November 23, 2031

Abstract: Kevlar vest designed to ensure secure placement of the heart within the female thorax while preventing external forces from infiltrating. Internal drug reservoir delivers continuous transdermal high-dose benzodiazepines for calming effect.

        If Mike were a gambling man, he would have bet that A.M. Aucrat’s invention could be the answer to society’s woes—real or imagined. The problem with women’s hearts was only the start. Claims of injustice, all the –isms that had become part of a lexicon Mike failed to comprehend, perhaps all they needed was a HUGG.

        Mike wondered how his wife would feel about wearing Kevlar and taking benzodiazepines for her protection. Chuckling, he stamped his approval on the application. It didn’t matter what his wife thought, or what he thought, either. The Heartbreak was someone else’s problem—if it existed at all.

        Pushing the paper aside, he reached for the next application.