For the One I Love

Love is eternal. Timeless. And sometimes you have to sacrifice your heart, soul, and flesh to it. A Doctor Faust short story.

Excerpt:

Growing up, I’d never had much use for Valentine’s Day.

It was always so cold and white and blue. A sea of ice separating every living thing from the salvation of spring. The day was spent eating bitter little candy hearts and trading Snoopy and Disney Princess paper valentines with students I didn’t like and who didn’t like me. But we were told by our teachers to be polite and to give everyone a valentine, which didn’t make any sense to me. I’d always thought that valentines were supposed to mean something. What did it mean to give someone you didn’t like a paper cartoon heart?

I didn’t like the movies they played on TV or the power ballads they played on the radio. None of it was real. It was all fabricated digital flesh and clever wordplay. I had never known anyone to fall in love at first sight. The first time I’d looked upon the Doctor, I’d been scared. I was sure he would kill me. Sometimes—but not often—I still wished he had...