Hello Gravites and Gravettes! Seeing as how it’s Valentine’s Day (actually it’s the day after Valentine’s Day, but never mind that), Laughterhouse has deemed fit to use our infinite knowledge to help all of you flunkies by publishing a guide to affairs of the heart. If you use this guide appropriately, none of you will have to spend yesterday by yourselves! Unfortunately we chose to let our science officer write the guide, so it’s a bit technical. It may help to refer to the diagram that we’ve provided.

In this Guide we will describe how the heart works and many of the different ways you can use the heart to get into the pants of the person you care about. As we all know, the heart is the organ that pumps blood to the various limbs and fiddly bits of our body. Without this function we would immediately die, so the heart is often called a vital organ, or supriorgan. It has often been claimed that the heart is the center and source of emotion in the human body. This is of course completely true, but before we can discuss that we must describe how the heart functions:

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Disturbed college student Miranda Gasbag became a vigilante yesterday, taking pictures of a man eating on the subway and posting them on the Internet. "I couldn't believe it," said Gasbag, "I was truly horrified. He was just sitting right out in the open, gnawing away on a pastrami sandwich. His mouth was this gaping hole, engulfing these pieces of meat, engorging itself as it stretched to take in the load. I — I think I saw his uvula." Gasbag's strong overbearing moral character quickly sprang into action. "Now, most people would faint away at such a sight, but not me. I got a few shots with my cameraphone and got off at the next stop." To Gasbag's surprise, the police were less than helpful. "They said flashers aren't a top priority, especially if they don't actually touch you. And can you believe, eating in public is legal?! I mean, we can't stop people from doing it in the privacy of their own homes, but to be harassed like I was? What if there were children around?" Gasbag takes comfort in the power of mob justice, but says it's not enough. "Sure, the pervert's face is online, but public shaming only goes so far. Honestly, what good is a government if it can't even protect people from being offended?"

Editor's Note: Reprinted from Gravity Magazine, Fall 2005.