Olympus III | A flash fiction story

73 of 💯

3 min readJul 8, 2022

The dangerous part of being rich is that when you set your mind to something, few people can stop you. Thankfully, the operation was a success.

I understand that’s not how feelings work — they don’t come from your biological heart — but this is not about my vital organs or where feelings come from. It’s a symbol. It’s about forgetting all this, forgetting this relationship, forgetting Dawn and her bright eyes. And her death. It’s about moving on.

For the weeks I waited for my synthetic heart, though, I was unsure about all this. Lost. Depressed. Heartbroken. I felt like I was sitting in the waiting room of my life. I even started painting.

I wasn’t very good. My paintings would rarely go where I wanted — I’d start painting a mountain but it would end up being a bear. My best painting looks like this weird plant. I’m not sure how I got there, but I like it. I put it in a bright spot in the bedroom.

That’s the only painting I kept. I’ve stopped painting since then.

I came back to Olympus today with a horrible scar and a heart made of a polyurethane solution and a very smart computer chip — is what the doctor says. I’ve been in my bed all day, staring at the painting, and I’ve just now realized what the damn plant is.

Dawn was a bioengineer. One night, while we lay in bed, she told me she was working on this new plant species and explained to me in detail why and how she was doing it — I obviously didn’t pay any attention.

The next day, she gifted me a large pot with the plant. I flashed a perfectly believable smile and put it near the bathroom, where it wouldn’t take up much space. Then I moved it to the garbage the day I broke up with her.

The damn plant came back to life in my painting.

I clearly don’t understand much about relationships and feelings, so maybe I’m wrong about the new heart. Maybe feelings do come from your biological heart after all — though I haven’t felt any difference yet. If that’s indeed the case, good riddance. It’s time to move on and do what I do best: make money.

I’m keeping the painting, though.