The Hart's Revenge

I stared and stared at the huge painting. Well, you could hardly miss it, displayed in pride of place above the hearth, the heart of the room. The heart, the focus of the 17th century piece. The heart from the hart, so recently murdered. Yes, murdered. The hart's heart that the hunter, dashing in a wine-red ensemble, held out to the woman.

"I give you my heart."

"It is not yours to give."

"Nonetheless, it is yours."

She steps down from the painting, and I realise she is wearing, for warmth, as was the fashion back then, a rather splendid fox fur. Brush and hind legs draped across her left shoulder, head dangling down to her waist on the right side. His cold, black eyes open, staring at nothing.

She doesn't see me, or, if she does, ignores me as she walks past and takes a seat at the intricately carved escritoire. She shrugs the fox fur off, letting it drop carelessly to the floor. She cares not. Taking a sheet of paper, she picks up a quill and, dipping it into the pot of ink, begins to write. I peer over her shoulder, as the long-dead eyes of the fox discarded on the rug, look up at me.

"My darling Howard, I do not know where to start ........."

The door bursts open, and a man enters, clutching his chest. He stumbles into the room and collapses onto an overstuffed, heavily brocaded sofa. A dark red stain is spreading across the pristine surface of his snow-white shirt. She dashes to his side.

"The hart," he murmurs. "He got me."