Captain Credit

By: Zoey Zhang

The week prior to Valentine’s Day, Sir Captain Credit made a grand entrance in a pink heart-shaped stretch limousine. When he pointed his diamond-studded, bejeweled hand, all of the stores became full of vases of flowers, boxes of candies, and sparkling diamonds. It did not take long before the couples in the town felt an urgency to create bigger and more extravagant displays of love than the previous couple.

Sir Captain Credit ordered everyone to “Show off how much you love someone with large displays of affection!” His voice came booming out of a golden megaphone.

There was a huge rush to order the most expensive arrangements of flowers and to display them online. One couple ordered an arrangement so large that it had to be placed outside their front door. One man even hired a violinist to create a romantic video to post on their social media pages. However, Jason, who was a solitary and nearly penniless boy, was unlike everybody else; he observed with melancholy as others pushed and pulled in order to obtain likes and comments from their social spaces. "If I don't have diamonds," Jason sighed, "how do you know my love is satisfactory?"

Sir Captain Credit laughed as he gave his lady a note that he had created himself, and she cried after reading it because he had interrupted their happiness. No filters, no cameras, just pure happiness.

Then later that same Night, across the City, the glamour was gone from the city; the enormous bouquets were drooping, the posts had been forgotten, and the credit card bills started arriving in the mail. Sir Captain Credit left as quickly as possible to hide the fact that he used up all of his energy on a love that did not cost him anything.

Moral: True love lasts forever; love measured by money is temporary.

4.13.2026