{"id":7067,"date":"2025-12-29T22:58:39","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:58:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-a-simple-hearts-desire\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T22:58:39","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T06:58:39","slug":"12-days-of-xmas-a-simple-hearts-desire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-a-simple-hearts-desire\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Days of Xmas: A Simple Heart’s Desire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The lock had no key. Not one that could be found anywhere in the house.<\/p>\n

He knelt in front of the chest and tapped the lock with his finger, watching it swing back and forth. Taunting him.<\/p>\n

He would have broken the chest open if it wasn’t built so sturdily. But it was solid metal with an enclosed hinge he couldn’t get at. There was no way to get it open without the key, not with the tools he had access to.<\/p>\n

The letter that had accompanied the chest had said his heart’s desire was inside. Everything he wanted and needed was inside that chest. His life would be made complete and whole if he opened the chest.<\/p>\n

The possibilities of what could be inside the chest taunted him. He had been living a fairly contented life until the chest had appeared, and after that he was tormented by his wonderings about what was inside.<\/p>\n

Gold? Jewels? Straps of hundred dollar bills? The mystery was killing<\/em> him.<\/p>\n

The arrival of the chest had destroyed his contentment with his own life. He’d gone from waking up with a sense of enthusiasm for the day to come to a feeling of desperation as he remembered the chest and what might or might not be inside.<\/p>\n

Ever since the chest had arrived two weeks before, he hadn’t had a complete night’s sleep. He would wake up and look at the chest, his mind unable to let it go. Wanting to know what was inside more than he wanted whatever was inside. The wondering was what tormented him.<\/p>\n

What was his heart’s desire? He didn’t know. But somehow it was inside that chest. Waiting for him to open the chest and claim it as his own.<\/p>\n

But there was no key, and even if he had the key, it would be of no use. The hole of the lock had been filled with a clear glue, something he had discovered when he had tried to pick the lock.<\/p>\n

He hated whoever had sent him the chest. This mystery he could not solve because he lacked the necessary tools and didn’t trust to take it to anyone else that might decide to claim the contents for their own.<\/p>\n

Before the chest arrived, he was happy.<\/p>\n

He thought he had been happy.<\/p>\n

But now he didn’t even know what happiness was. All he knew was that he wanted<\/em>.<\/p>\n

=END=<\/p>\n

~Harper Kingsley<\/p>\n

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https:\/\/harperkingsley.bsky.social<\/a>.
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The lock had no key. Not one that could be found anywhere in the house. He knelt in front of the chest and tapped the lock with his finger, watching it swing back and forth. Taunting him. He would have broken the chest open if it wasn’t built so sturdily. But it was solid metal…<\/p>\n Read More<\/span> 12 Days of Xmas: A Simple Heart’s Desire<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"Layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[916],"tags":[917,317,648],"class_list":["entry","author-harperkingsley0-0","post-7067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-12-days-of-xmas","tag-12-days-of-xmas","tag-fiction","tag-short-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2pPoL-1PZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5666,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-you-were-you-and-i-was-me-and-together-were-we\/","url_meta":{"origin":7067,"position":0},"title":"12 Days of Xmas: You Were You and I was Me and Together Were We","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"December 28, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"YOU WERE YOU AND I WAS ME AND TOGETHER WERE WE They were twins. Triplets once. But then there were only two of them left, the other faded away into memories that only they remembered. Nobody else even knew her name. She'd faded away like the moon on a sunlit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "12 Days of Xmas"","block_context":{"text":"12 Days of Xmas","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/12-days-of-xmas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6674,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-vignette\/","url_meta":{"origin":7067,"position":1},"title":"12 Days of Xmas: Vignette","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"December 30, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"VIGNETTE The blood was black. Tar-like as it oozed from the shallow cut on his arm rather than the smooth up-welling of red from before. It had been a gradual change. Painful at first until nerves became numb and dead. Dead like me, he thought. His vision had grown dim\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "12 Days of Xmas"","block_context":{"text":"12 Days of Xmas","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/12-days-of-xmas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6852,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-the-sound-of-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":7067,"position":2},"title":"12 Days of Xmas: The Sound of Love","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"January 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sound of Love \"What... What... What is that noise?!?\" Chara leapt out of bed and hurried out of her room, bare feet slapping against the hardwood floor. The loud grinding and whirring sound got louder to her ears as she approached the kitchen. When she got there, Darnell was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "12 Days of Xmas"","block_context":{"text":"12 Days of Xmas","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/12-days-of-xmas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6669,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-anything\/","url_meta":{"origin":7067,"position":3},"title":"12 Days of Xmas: Anything","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"December 28, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"ANYTHING Snow Blossom had been sick for days. His fever had burned for nearly a week and finally he had stopped talking. He lay still on the bed, his skin hot to the touch. Snow Lily mopped the sweat from her son's forehead and neck. She had been caring for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "12 Days of Xmas"","block_context":{"text":"12 Days of Xmas","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/12-days-of-xmas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5665,"url":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/12-days-of-xmas-pleasant-dreams-of-unwary-things\/","url_meta":{"origin":7067,"position":4},"title":"12 Days of Xmas: Pleasant Dreams of Unwary Things","author":"Harper Kingsley","date":"December 27, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Content Warning: brief but somewhat graphic description of injury. PLEASANT DREAMS OF UNWARY THINGS Beckett screamed in rage before lashing out one final time. Lightning blasted from his fingertips but there was so much blood in his eyes he missed. He knew he missed the second he released. 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On arriving in the past, the first thing he'd noticed was that fashions were not like he'd thought they'd be from everything he'd seen on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "12 Days of Xmas"","block_context":{"text":"12 Days of Xmas","link":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/category\/12-days-of-xmas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7067\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harperkingsley.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}