Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep · Wellness Loud

The Valentine in the Drawer, Part 2

·40 min

A grey day weighs on the narrator's heart. From the front window of the flat, she watches the cold street, imagines herself as a dramatic figure in a fogged window, and then laughs at herself for it. The laugh loosens the room. Outside, the bakery keeps moving, snow is knocked from boots, groceries are carried home, and a child in a heavy coat holds a donut as if it belongs to the weather. She keeps looking out. The village green lies mostly empty, the fountain is shut down for winter, and her mind drifts to marbles, wishes, and the red roses that Valentine season seems to invite. The shop below the apartment is no longer a haberdashery. She remembers the neat handkerchiefs, gloves, ties, hats, socks, and suspenders that once filled those windows, and she wonders what will replace them now. A bookshop would be a fine hope. Then a letter arrives, and the story turns from waiting to warmth. The poem inside the envelope leaves her warm and centered again, and the message lands with enough force to change the mood of the room. The feeling is tender rather than grand. She touches the place where the love note signed her, carries it upstairs, and rehanges her coat on its hook as though she is putting the day back in order. Her desk is waiting. She opens the drawer with some effort and finds it already full of love notes, an accumulated little archive that suggests this is not a new love but a well-lived one. That discovery has its own quiet pleasure. She sits down with another cup of tea and rereads the older letters, letting earlier Valentines come back into the room one by one. There is time to think about a reply. The thought is almost enough to warm the page by itself. She imagines that her Valentine may be home again before the mail can carry a response, but she writes anyway, because writing is part of how the love keeps its shape. The drawer, the desk, the tea, and the paper all sit together in the evening light. Nothing hurries. The episode closes on the sense that the relationship has become prolific enough to almost outgrow the drawer, and that is as lovely a problem as a love story can have.

As heard by us

A quiet winter story where a heavy heart eases among tea, love notes, and a possible bookshop.

Set in a cold, grey flat, the piece traces a narrator whose heaviness softens as she looks out on winter life and turns toward a hoped-for reunion.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

A snowy Valentine story that turns a heavy heart into a drawer full of love notes and tea.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify