Sun and moon with script on upper back

The shift bell went at half five again, and I came up the drift blinking like a mole, expecting the sky to be sulking behind the pit head as usual. Instead the whole valley was lit gold, and the moon was still hanging over the spoil heap, pale as a communion wafer. I stood there in the cage gate with my lamp still burning on my helmet like a daft lad. Dad would have laughed himself sick.

Mr Pryce says the day shift and the night shift never properly meet, but I reckon they do, for about four minutes at dawn, if you stand in the right place. I've started counting them. Eleven mornings now. He thinks I'm soft for watching the sky instead of the roof bolts, but the roof has held three weeks running and the sky never asks me for anything.

When I went to Hassan's on Tuesday to have the old picture of the two of them touched up, he drew the sun with a face that looked far too calm for a man with coal in his teeth. I said that was the point. It's the face Mam wore when she was waiting up for us, and the moon is the one that keeps her company after we've gone back down. Hassan laughed and asked if I wanted the words underneath. I said yes, the ones you always say.

So you'll understand why I'm writing this at the table with my boots still on. The tin is packed, the lamp is trimmed, and there's a bit of light coming through the window that I didn't have to dig for. Tell Mam I've got my dinner and I'm keeping my head up. Live your life, you told me at the funeral, and I'm trying, though it's hard to manage with a pick in your hand.

Your brother, Tom