The Heart by Konstantina Sozou-Kyrkou It’s been over an hour now but the heart is still warm, despite the cold of the night. He can swear it’s palpitating in his grasp. He keeps it at arm’s length, doesn’t want it to stain his clothes. It’s still bleeding, the smell heavy, like rusty iron. He cups it with both hands in case it slips over and he loses it. The moon is swallowed up by the canopy of trees in the woods and he’s as blind as a bat. Then he trips over a rock. He stumbles forward and falls on all fours to the ground. The heart jolts away, eaten up by the darkness. On his knees, he scrambles over to some bushes nearby, parts the stubborn, thorny branches, scratching the skin of his hands, scrabbles about the frozen soil, fingers stung, eyes stretched. ‘Oh, my God!’ He thinks. ‘My wife will be furious if I lose the heart.’ She was adamant. Bringing her the heart would be the positive proof of his unconditional love to her. That’s all she desired. He’s lost all hope when he hears a tiny voice coming from behind a rock. ‘Are you hurt, Yiannis?’ He springs there and finds the heart. Definitely pumping, fast now, in and out, sighing and moaning like a deflating birthday balloon. ‘I’m fine, Mother,’ Yiannis tells the heart. He picks it up and holds it tight in his fist. That’s typical of his mother. Always worrying about things that are none of her business. A scarf he hadn’t worn, a sandwich he hadn’t taken to school, a scabby knee, a wife she never wanted for her son.
Explosion by Noel King A gas cylinder drum rolls in and becomes the booty in the hideout of the young boys on the farm by the sea. On it they place a sheet to hide it, graffiti its sides, scratch the Highly Inflammable words off, paint it with pirate bones. Their families will anger for generations about the bastards who threw the curse overboard.