Every now and again, in the Line A Day Journal I write with Em, there’s a flash fiction prompt. These are turning into unexpected writing boons. This from the prompt: you’re digging in your garden and find a nugget of gold.
No one could explain to her how the smelting process had been imperfect. How a small amount of her heart had been spilled. Or how the grotesque nugget came to be buried among her carnations and sweetpeas.
Never give all of your heart away, she’d been warned when she was young. Always keep a piece for yourself. But they never spoke of a heart turning on itself.
Flowers lay uprooted and torn around her. Heavy-duty garden gloves torn and bloodied. Her breathe came in half-breathed sobs.
She would end what the malignant organ had started. No piece of it would remain.
And she dug.
Pursuing Parallels 