"Where is your little heart, my friend?" the Man asked the Stray Creature. The creature, looking up at him with big eyes, was surprised to hear anyone mention his heart. It had been decades, maybe longer, since such a subject was broached.
"It was stolen," was the only explanation the Stray could mutter. The question was big, but the answer was a juggernaut. Its response was the only place it could think to start in such a mess.
"Stolen?" The Man smiled. "Have you fallen in love?"
The Stray Creature looked away from The Man. It appeared to be examining its nails intently, but was actually counting on its digits the amount of times it thought it had met love. The Creature took off its boots and poked through its socks. It appeared to be playing with its toes, but actually needed more digits to count on. It, in fact, was also pondering how one could fall in love. The Stray Creature, as it counted, listed to itself the ways it had falsely met love: 1-struck by it, 2-fallen ill with it, 3-thrown by it, 4-tricked by it (and so on and so forth it went until, with a sigh, the Creature put its shoes back on and turned back to The Man, who had been watching it with some perplexity).
"No," said the Creature, "I don't believe I have ever fallen in love."
"Never? Then where is your heart? The only way your heart can be stolen is by someone who loves you."
The Stray Creature was surprised at the Man's words, for this was simply not true. It was not sure where the Man came from that stealing hearts was a gesture of love.
"That is simply not true," replied the Stray Creature with some irritability. "There are many ways your heart can be stolen, but that is not one of them. Here, the story goes that, if someone loves you, they treat your heart as a home, not a posession or a trinket to be collected and put on a shelf with other shiny things. My heart was stolen, yes, but the one way I have never met love is by falling in it."
"How was it stolen, then?" The Man asked, confused by The Stray Creatures animosity toward love. The Creature pulled itself up to full height, which was not much more than it had been before the conversation. After all, it is impossible to attain your true height without your heart.
"My heart has been a source of many attempted thefts in my lifetime. I once was much taller and held on tight to my heart, but each time it was almost stolen, I became a little weaker. One day, the biggest Thief I had ever met, befriended me and used tactics I had never before experienced to attempt to steal my heart. He did not just simply walk up and try to pry it away from me. No, the Thief acted as a new companion, a confidante, someone I could trust. It was an inside job. By the time my heart was gone, so was the Thief. I looked and looked for my heart, for I thought I had simply misplaced it. This has happened before. I searched my pockets, looked under every stone, opened every drawer. I became frantic when, one day, I went to meet with the Thief, as we usually did, and he was not there. I was going to ask him if he had seen my heart because he had said he wanted to share it with me. If anyone knew where it was, it would be The Thief. But when I could not find him, I knew he had taken it. My prized posession was gone, whisked out from under my nose in the false spirit of kindness, honesty, loyalty and..." The Stray Creature trailed off just then, unable to add the word love at the end. It is a small word but a heavy one and The Creature's tongue could no longer lift it.
The Man looked at The Creature in disbelief and shock. He looked at the Stray Creature, once tall like The Man, once able to lift small words like The Man, once able to love like The Man. He realized this could happen to him and clutched at his chest as though, right now, some unseen force was attempting to take his heart, too. And then he thought of something that terrified him even more than the possibility of having his heart stolen.
"If your heart was somehow returned to you, would you want it back?" he asked The Stray Creature.
"I don't know. It has been gone so long, I may not recognize it enough to know it was my heart. And what about the Thief? He will not return it. Even if I thought I could bear the weight of it in my chest again, I do not know what I would do with it. It was stolen so effortlessly, how could I let anyone share it again?"
The Man looked upon the Stray Creature. "I do not know this Thief. But, as reckless as he was with you, I am sure the hunt is what he longs for. The difficulty would not be in getting the heart from him because he obviously would not have stolen it had he known its true value. The difficulty would be in its return. You would have to be willing to recognize it and to know that there is always a chance it could be stolen again."
"You are not making me feel any better about my heart, sir," The Stray Creature muttered.
"No, no. Let me finish," said The Man. " If what you are saying is true, then by that logic, if it was found and successfully returned, the only way it would be impossible to steal was if someone lived in it."
"You say these things as though it were just a matter of decision. I have looked everywhere for my heart and it is gone. Gone!" the Stray Creature shouted at The Man.
The Man remained calm. He walked over to where the Stray Creature was sitting on a rock, head in hand. The Stray Creature did not look up but noticed The Man smelled of ink and paper. This made The Creature more amenable.
"If I found your heart and returned it, could I live in it and you live in mine? This way, no one would steal our hearts," The Man said softly, hoping to get The Stray Creature to look up at him. After many minutes passed, the Stray Creature did look up. When it did, it had a request.
"May I touch your chest?" The Creature asked The Man. The Man nodded and closed his eyes as this seemed such a private thing. The Stray Creature extended an arm that had once been longer and placed its palm directly over The Man's heart, pressing firmly but gently.
"You have a very large heart," The Stray Creature said, tears welling in the rims of its eyes. "You would trust me to live in there?"
"Yes I would," said The Man, smelling more and more of ink and paper. "Would you trust me to live in yours?"
The Stray Creature wiped at its eyes. "If ever I find my heart, you will have to ask me again. In my head, I imagine I could. However, my trust is in my heart and, as you know, it is gone."
The Man stood up from his kneeling position. "Then I will find the Thief and take your heart back from him. And when I return your heart, I will ask you again."
The Stray Creature sighed. "I will think about you. That is all I can do."
The Man replied, "I know. Soon we will both have homes, though."
The sun was going down and The Stray Creature had been sitting on its rock all day to warm it. It was time to go to sleep.
"I will be under this rock if you return with my heart and need to find me." The Creature went on to explain, "It is the only way I can stay warm."
The Man nodded. "One day you will be tall again. One day you will be a woman again."
"I will think of you," said the Stray Creature as it crawled under its rock to stay warm, disappearing from the Man's sight, but not his mind.
The Man stayed just after sunset, looking at the rock. Then, as the sun completely disappeared, he walked away, shame in his heart. There were many Men where he lived. He did not have it in his heart to tell the Stray Creature the Thief was a
And if luck was with him, the Stray Creature would still be thinking of him.
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