Sin... Valentine's Day...

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.

Lovers everywhere will be exchanging gifts of love and card in which they pour forth the words their hearts wish they could speak - except if a heart could speak it'd probably just gush blood, which would get messy, so it's potentially a good thing they actually can't...

Others will be buying cards and gifts for their other halves because they feel they have to, writing:

'Love

Me x'

and putting all their effort into doing only that.

The lovers will be feeling bubbles pop like exploding candy on your tongue whilst the 'others' will manage, at most, a perfunctory kiss. The first, in some cases, of the year. Cupid's arrow hit them years before, but the wound has healed now, leaving only scar tissue.

But still, tomorrow is Valentine's Day. The supermarkets and card shops will be resplendent with red as they try to thrust the seasonal gifts down your throat. Not, of course, that's it's entirely commercialised now, oh no... Some people, I know, refuse on principal to buy anything. They still show each other their love and don't need a piece of card or tat to profess such things. So many, though, will. Just because it raises a smile.

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow. Did I mention that? I think I did. Whether 'they' are lovers, 'others' or neither, they still have someone to share or not to share with. Out there they have that luxury.

In here, I have the orderlies. I have Connors. I have Bender, Mucous and more. I have myself.

I did have, almost, Caroline. Slush, grit and gristle put paid to that, if, indeed, there ever was a 'that'. Outside, once upon a time, I had my fiancée. The love of my life. My soulmate and best friend. But, she liked to take the bus.

The Number Five.

Love is... something dangled like a carrot to the donkey. You can stand at the window and see it peeking from beyond the horizon, a distant dot that you want to run up to and embrace, but you know you'll get a prick and electro-shock treatment if you do. For one such as I, who dances with the devil but has two left feet so keeps standing on his toes, love exists only to tantalise and tease. It haunts you in your padded cell, echoing your cries as if there was someone in there with you, sharing your pain.

But there isn't.

There's you.

And there's the pain.

A match made in... well, not heaven, that's for sure.

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow. Just saying...