cody had been wading through a creek he had found in some woods behind a little green house that wasn’t his, at the end of mable street. it was his creek; he was the one who found it. so when he saw the end of the man with the patchwork heart’s long brown coat sweeping through the trees his little six year old mind grew indignant, but when he got to the spot where he had thought he had seen the brown blur, there was nothing.
he turned around to go back to the creek and saw the man with the patchwork heart for the first time.

when he got home that night he tried, breathlessly, to explain to his mother about his new playmate. she didn’t believe him. she never really believed his stories when he was this young. he tried to tell her about his warnings. about how one day things would get worse before they got better because that was the way of things. about the lies people would tell him. but his mother wasn’t paying attention. she was only cooking dinner.

as he got older the man with the patchwork heart started appearing less and less. and he made friends in college. a lot of friends. and he discovered whisky and girls. and he discovered that his guitar could get him more whiskey and more girls. and he forgot all about the man with the patchwork heart.

until today.
until his grandfather died.
so today he picks up a pen, and starts to write a song. or maybe it’s a story.