It was a warm Sunday afternoon. Jim took a small hand-ax with him as he climbed the ridge behind her farm. They had been friends since primary school, but now, seven years later she had broken his heart. Tommy Butler beat him to the draw, asking Julie Anne to the middle school dance… and she said yes.
With all his strength he chopped at the initials carved into the side of the tall sugar maple. He carved them there when he was thirteen. Now it was a bleeding scar where a heart of love once lived.
When Jim, told George what he had done, a smile crossed his wise old, wrinkled face.
“When I was your age, I had a girl who broke my heart as well. She played with my heart, then ‘she’d had it sliced away leaving a scar’. It still hurts.”
Photo: Dwight L. Roth
Today at d’Verse, Sarah asked us to write a prosery story of 144 words, which must include the line: ‘she’d had it sliced away leaving a scar’. from a poem by Michael Donaghy. (https://rihlajourney.wordpress.com/2010/12/27/liverpool-michael-donaghy/)
I decided to continue my conversations of Jim and his friend Old George.
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