I can't sleep…
“Kelly Lund adopted Loki in 2012, he had no idea that the life and love he shared with this husky/arctic wolf/malamute mix would lead to full-blown Instagram stardom. What began as a personal mission to enter Loki’s canine world and give him the life he was meant to enjoy outside quickly somersaulted into an international movement to experience the world with man’s best friend.”
Find the full Loki story here: Loki the Wolfdog
Find more photos at his instagram account here: loki_the_wolfdog
It’s 4 a.m. Zeke’s asleep on my right, his front legs are stiff armed, fully extended and laying on my chest. No, on my Heart. But for his breathing, I could be laying in bed in the “world’s quietest room“, so completely quiet that I can hear my own organs pumping. The hypnotic page-turning ride continued:
“She paces the room. If this is a donation, it’s a pretty unusual one, she thinks. There is no donor in this operation— no one intended to make a donation— and likewise there is no donee, because she is not in a position to refuse the organ: she has to accept it if she wants to survive. So what is it exactly? The recycling of an organ that can still be used, can still fulfill its function as a pump? She begins to undress, sitting on the bed: she removes her boots, her socks. The meaning of this transfer, for which she was selected by an incredible alignment of coincidences— the almost perfect compatibility of her blood and her genetic code with those of someone who died today— all of this becomes hazy. She does not like this feeling of unearned privilege; this lottery, it’s like winning a little stuffed animal snagged by the metal claw from a jumble of toys piled behind glass in one of those arcade games. Worst of all is that she will never be able to say thank you; that is the crux of the matter. It’s simply impossible. Thank you— that radiant phrase— will fall into the void. She will never be able to express any kind of gratitude to the donor or the donor’s family, never mind offer a gift in return in order to free herself from this infinite debt, and the idea that she will be permanently trapped crosses her mind. The floor is ice-cold under her feet. She is afraid. Her whole being flinches…
She hopes that she will be able to kiss her sons before she puts on this tissue-paper gown that flutters without covering her up, making her feel as if she is naked in a breeze. Her eyes remain dry, but she is struggling to get her head around the enormity of what she is about to go through. Placing her hand there, between her breasts, she feels her pulse, still slightly too fast in spite of the medication, still somewhat unpredictable too, and says its name out loud: heart.”
~ Maylis de Kerangal, The Heart: A Novel
I’m done but it won’t be done with me – ever – an unforgettable story.
Notes:
…(She) would (not) wake up at six in the morning
to make coffee and hand the cup lovingly to her husband:
instead, (she) would stay in bed,
curled up under the comforter,
hair tangled, skin warm,
purring with pleasure.
~ Maylis de Kerangal, The Heart: A Novel
Notes:
The last time Marthe Carrare heard Harfang speak, he had delivered a sparkling lecture… (He) concluded his speech by foreshadowing the end of cardiac transplants, suggesting they would soon become obsolete because the time had come to consider the virtues of artificial hearts, technological wonders invented and developed in a French laboratory…A murmur ran through the auditorium, waking up the drowsier students. Harfang’s audience was disconcerted by this conclusion, by the idea that a prosthetic heart could rob the organ of its symbolic power, and while most of the heads obediently bowed down toward the spiral notebooks held below them, concentrating as the hands took notes of Harfang’s words, a few shook from side to side, signaling sadness, or even vague dissent, while some slid hands inside jackets, behind ties, under shirts, touching bare skin so they could feel their hearts beating.
~ Maylis de Kerangal, The Heart: A Novel
Notes:
