By Fiona H Evans

The day your mother called to say your father was leaving her, the same day your son was packing for college, the day you taught a one-off workshop in creative writing at the university and were secretly hoping they’d love you so much they’d offer you a fellowship, the day sweat poured from you like rain and black dots appeared behind your eyes, the day the ground rose like it would kiss you and you reared back as if it had herpes and smacked your head on the concrete, the day your heart ballooned and you clutched your chest in what felt like a parody and surely must have looked like one, the day blood pooled around you from a cut on your scalp that would need twelve stitches but they don’t use stitches anymore so they stapled you up. That was the same day you learned about the traditional Japanese octopus trap, the takotsubo, and the medical term takotsubo cardiomyopathy, and you pictured your heart as a trap holding an octopus that was trying desperately to escape, its eight tentacles reaching out to your mother, your father, your son, your class, your body, your dreams and your wishes and your desires, and that was the day you learned that your heart needed kindness and love or it would burst, and that was the day you let go of your ballooning tentacled heart, and everything else, and it all just floated away.

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Fiona H Evans is a mathematician, writer of tiny fictions and poems, and author of The Track. She lives in Perth, Western Australia, on Noongar boodja. Read her stories and poetry at http://www.fionahevans.com.