Heart-Shaped Hearts
Writing Challenge 2024
Posted by Chris Sissons on May 29, 2024
Writing Challenge ยป Chris Sissons
The strangest thing is that hearts are not heart-shaped. We’re all familiar with the heart on Valentine's cards or standing in for love or luv as in “I luv NY”. (I believe NY is a city somewhere in the USA.)
I’m not sure where the heart-shape started. If I had to guess, I suggest playing cards. After all, of the four suits, only Diamonds are the right shape. Hearts, Spades and Clubs are nothing like their real-life equivalents.
The stylised version of the heart is everywhere. The City of Sheffield is redeveloping in its third iteration over the last 100 years. The changes are known as the “Heart of the City”. There are numerous photos of hearts in the form of leaves, brickwork, hands, etc. Here heart means middle or core.
But the photo (sadly stock today, I couldn’t find a real heart) shows you what a real heart looks like. Maybe if you slice it in a certain way, you get the heart shape. Perhaps you meat-eating readers could make yourselves useful, purchase a heart from the butchers and see if you can cut it and find a heart shape. If you work it out, take a photo for the comments before you hammer it flat, deep fry it and stew it for several hours to make it edible.
I once saw a photo of a cupcake, shaped like the heart in the photo. The cake was shaped and then iced with blood-coloured icing. I’m unsure how I would react if my beloved presented me with it on Valentine’s Day. I could eat it in theory, albeit gingerly.
(Incidentally, why “cupcake”? We have a perfectly adequate word for a small cake, bun. Buns can be shaped like hearts and heart-shapes and with fewer syllables. And once I saw a stall in Sheffield Centre boasting a Giant Cupcake. I’ll tell you what a Giant Cupcake is, it’s a cake. Rant over.)
Where was I? I suppose the heart has a reputation to be the seat of emotion and especially of love. But a real-life heart is not romantic, so the heart-shape steps in.
But perhaps the visual image is a poor substitute for romance. To experience real romance, next time you get a chance put your ear to your beloved’s chest and listen to their heartbeat.
This is Day 14 of Writing Challenge 2024. People all over the world take part in the WC. We write something every weekday for 4 weeks based on a prompt This year, I'll be sharing 21 articles based loosely on prompts about parts of the body. Do we fully appreciate the role things and stuff play in our lives? Each part of the body has certain things and stuff associated with it. (Probably!) I've no idea where this will go but hope you enjoy the journey. The introductory post was Things and Stuff. The last post was Grapes of Wrath and the next is Nothing Licks Like ...
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