He arrested his pumping thrust mid-stroke. Stout-hearted oak
almost toppled over the card sharper operating on the sidewalk. Nearly induced
a cardiac-attack. The man gathered up his ill-gotten gains into a sac and
transplanted his procedure elsewhere. Somewhere less congested.
Heart in mouth, bated breath in suspended lungs. Could it
possibly be?
His heart missed a beat as he distended his neck to search
out his bypassed Miss.
That old throb started tugging at his core. His organ
burning in his chest. The blood pulsing around his veins at a rate of knots,
tingling agonisingly. His heartstrings tangled like a cats cradle. He shot his shirtsleeves
tight over his wrists to try and venesect the pressure. But it was too late.
The heart of the matter was indeed his heart. A resuscitated pang for his love.
A one woman love infarction. That heart stopper and head turner had just
crossed his path again. Encased in a sable stole.
And then the old ticker skipped as did his stride. There she
was moving at a cracking lick. It was his heartfelt wish to see her, to talk to
her again. He gathered up his pace- making. Heartily, lustily. His ticker
hammering away at his ribs like a xylophone with joyous excitement. He put his
hand over his chest to see that his fit-to-bursting heart was still contained
within. Still in the right place.
The motor was powering his legs like pistons. Systole... as
he bounced up in his stride. Diastole on the downstroke, although he felt he
was being carried along on a cushion of richly oxygenated air.
She entered the revolving door of a hotel. He followed her
directly in the next glass chamber behind. She contracted sight of him and
missed her opening into the atrium, instead going round another circuit. Her
lashes fluttered and his heart responded in kind. But hers was a double-take
quickly followed by a double declutch of her expression. A look more dagger
than arrow to the heart. Tricuspid valve slamming shut on him like a tomb,
rather than Cupid's airy flight. Furry venous, not Venus in Furs. His heart
sunk with displaced hope. Footsore and heartsick. He knew in his heart of
hearts that they were never to be heart and soulmates.
Murmuring to himself, he slowed his rate and let her
heart-free into the bosom of the lobby. As he re-emerged back into the arteries
of the city, the smell of warming cockles from a stall rendered his sclerotic muscle
into a ball of wrinkles.
Heartbroken.
from the flash fiction collection, available from Amazon Kindle store free to download 3rd-7th June 2016
