This is What it Means to Follow Your Heart
Traverse the left atrium and ford the pulmonary artery. The heart’s topography is complex, and you may easily become lost in a tangle of veins. If the trail of your aorta dead ends, consult your map legend. Here you will find a way across the Pacific Ocean to a teahouse in Seoul.
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Wrong Valve
If the matcha is too weak, you have probably taken the inferior vena cava. Backtrack and begin again. You will eventually find the correct teahouse.
Share sweet rice cakes with the man you meet there. Order a second pot of matcha tea.
Cross the right chamber to see Chin-Mae after you finish teaching English to middle school students. See him every day for six months. When he wants you to renew your visa and you demur, citing family, you have opened the wrong valve.
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Electroshock
Back in Minneapolis, there is no job, no apartment, no Chin-Mae. After a month sleeping in your childhood bedroom, fly back across the Pacific. This time, tell Chin-Mae it’s for good. This time, order dried persimmons.
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The Marriage Chamber
This chamber, once entered, cannot be easily exited. When you bow to Chin-Mae during your wedding ceremony, hope that you are in the right atrium.
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Pacemaker
Leave your job teaching English—this time, for good—to work in an office. When the kids throw you a surprise party and beg you not to leave, consider staying on another year, even though you can barely afford takeout.
The office job turns out to be the wrong atrium. Just like in high school, the women ignore you at lunch. Pretend to leaf through files while you eat ice noodles. At least now you can afford takeout.
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House is Another Word for Blockage
Between your and Chin-Mae’s salaries, you can now also afford to look at houses. Consider putting earnest money on the split-level that has a sunroom but needs roof repair. Chin-Mae loves it.
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Home is Where the Heart Is
Chin-Mae tells you, again, how he envisions growing tomatoes in the garden, converting the basement to a wine cellar. Move into the house despite your reservations. The house, you realize, is like a heart, with long corridors and intricate alcoves. Who knows what lies in the unplumbed depths of the basement, the crannies of the attic? While contemplating this, spill red wine on the bay window cushion. The stain looks like a leaky pulmonary valve.
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Tachycardia
The boss with whom you’ve never held an actual conversation fires you; a pipe bursts when you forget to run the tap during a cold spell; the tomatoes in the garden sprout, then die; Chin-Mae worries how you’ll handle a baby when you can’t even maintain a house.
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Bradycardia
Take to the couch for twenty-four hours. Consider what, if any of this life, you actually want.
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Heart Monitor
For now, tell Chin-Mae that you never liked tomatoes; they remind you of organs and flesh. Flesh is beautiful, he says, and touches your belly. The flesh we could make. Brush his hand away but hold it for a moment. Remind him the tomatoes are already gone.
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Elissa Cahn completed her MFA in Fiction at Western Michigan University, where she served as the nonfiction editor for Third Coast. Her stories have appeared in: Sou’wester, Harpur Palate, Smokelong Quarterly, PANK, Hobart, Witness, and most recently in Lost Balloon. She teaches creative writing at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts.