Valentine’s Day

A bottle clinks nearby. Hank sets down his potted meat to scour the scorched wasteland of the Smithfield Shopping Plaza. Something was picking its way through the slag. I’ll be damned, he thinks stroking his grizzled chin. A kitten.

Hank offers the meat tin. The trembling thing aught not be away from its maw yet. But it manages the food. It even purrs.

Hank’s smile threatens to crack the crust of his face. He’s a match for the scenery. A crème brûlée of a man.

Growls somewhere. Dogs.

Dogs if he was lucky. He tucks the kitten into a satchel by his chest.

Near here is an abandoned peanut field in which is a thicket in which is a graveyard in which is a grave in which is a woman in which is a heart he loves.

He'll hunker down there tonight, build a fire, reflect on a good day.