Valentines Day by Daniel Day, black coffee

‘Is Valentine’s Day even still a thing?’

I check Victoria’s look and I can tell I’ve said the wrong thing. I go back to digging in the dirt. She sighs and tosses a bottle cap she has just uncovered into our little bucket. 

‘I just wish you’d, I don’t know…’ she doesn’t meet my gaze.

‘What?’ I say. My mud caked hand touches hers and she smiles a little.

‘Get me some flowers or something…’

‘Flowers!’ I laugh. She looks hurt. There is silence except for the gentle patter of our digging and the wheeze of our lungs as we breathe out of sync.

‘Here.’ I say, grinning. I scrunch up a tattered piece of red plastic wrapping and twist the end into a stem. I present it like a rose. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day.’  I add the puppy dog eyes for good measure.

‘Not bad…’ she says. I can see the little twinkle return to her face.

‘Just not bad?’ I ask.

‘It’s a good start.’ She tucks the little plastic rose into the button hole on her ripped and ragged barn shirt then whistles happily as we keep digging.

I haven’t seen a real flower since…well before the blast I suppose. It might be a year ago now, my memory is a bit foggy.

I met Victoria in a burned out train carriage which was half buried in the muddy clay which seems to cover most of the terrain round here now. I was checking it out as a possible shelter, it seemed she had the same idea and nearly stabbed me with a shard of glass over it.

We laugh about it now. 

We never talk about life before the blast, it’s too painful. 

I’m lucky to have her and it occurs to me that I really aught to show her. I start to rummage around and turn my shoulder so she can’t see.

‘What are you up to?’ She says. I don’t answer. I keep digging, then scrunching, then twisting, then folding. 

She finds a couple of old coins which clink as they hit the base of the bucket. 

‘Ok,’ she sighs. ‘I’m ready to go home now, there’s nothing much to find here, maybe we’ll try somewhere else tomorrow?’ 

‘Wait.’ I say, grinning. ‘How’s this for a valentines present?’ 

I present a bouquet of greens, yellows, blues and reds. Cellophane, bits of wire, shards of aluminium and plastic, all wrapped up in the most imaginative floral shapes I could manage. She blushes then laughs, covering her teeth in that adorable way she always does.

‘Yes.’ she says. ‘That’s more like it.’ Then she kisses me.

As we trudge along back to the slanting shards of iron sheeting that we call home, a thought comes to me.

‘Hey, when did you last look at a calendar?’

She shrugs. 

‘Before the blast I guess, why?’

‘So how in the world did you know it was Valentine’s Day?’

She scrunches up her nose and gives me a cheeky smile which tells me everything. 

‘I see…’ I grin. ‘Well if that’s how it is, I think it might just be my birthday tomorrow.’ 

 

About the Author:

Daniel Day is a writer and musician, living with his wife and two children in Yorkshire. Bedtime stories are a household tradition for the family and even the children now contribute their own tales. His short story ‘Make a Wish’ was selected to be published on East of The Web.